My Plan for Visiting Poland

The Plan

Poland is the birthplace of my Dad, Thomas Sr., and paternal and maternal grandparents. It is a country that I knew little about except from what I had learned from my parents and a short visit taken in the year 2000. It is the country that my parents discussed with pride after expressing their love of the USA.

In the early months of 2018, I decided that I wanted to tour Poland and see a major portion of the country. My earlier trip taken with two of my children, Mary and PJ, only included Warsaw, Krakow and Czestochowa. Now, I wanted to see the entire country from its capital, Warsaw, to the Baltic seaport, Gdansk, its mountainous resort, Zakopane, and the numerous cities and villages that surround its outer boundaries.

Using the Internet to explore my options, I looked at numerous tour organizations, their itineraries, tour group size, accommodations, what was/wasn’t included and the cost. After a month of looking here and there, I settled on a tour group, www.staypoland.com, that dealt strictly with Poland tours which varied in duration. I chose the longest tour , 16 days, which met my objectives – see a large portion of Poland  that included the major cities/towns/villages, had a tour group not exceeding 20 individuals, four/five star accommodations which were located centrally within a city/town, and a reasonable cost that included all breakfasts  and fifty percent of lunches/dinners. I could not have made a better choice….the tour was exactly as described and most importantly, our lead tour guide and local tour guides were exceptional….I have traveled to over 90 countries and would rate this tour as one of the best that I have taken; A++.

The StayPoland Tour

Those of us born in the mid-twentieth century are familiar with Poland’s tragic history – Nazi followed by Soviet occupation – a period of time that spanned fifty years.  Warsaw: Poland’s Capital which was destroyed during World War II; Gdansk:  seaport city where Solidarity was born - the beginning of the end of Soviet occupation; Krakow – Auschwitz-Birkenau, Schlindler’s List – tragic history of  Jewish atrocities;  Czestochowa – home to Poland’s Black Madonna Icon…..all of these cities  are associated with Poland.

StayPoland’s tour engages all of the above in addition a visit to Hitler’s Wolf’s Lair – the Fuhrer redoubt during WW II; Malbork Castle:  home to the thirteen century Teutonic Knights; Torun:  birthplace of astronomer Nicolas Copernicus and gingerbread cookies; Gniezno:  ninth century birthplace of Poland; Wroclaw: capital of Poland’s Silesian region and home to 130,000 university students and Zakopane: a lovely ski village located in Poland’s Carpathian Mountains.  

Interspersed within the tour’s itinerary was a visit to a lavender farm accompanied by a delicious lunch; a punt (small flat bottom boat) trip through a forested stream; a raft trip down the Dunajec River which separates Poland and Slovakia and numerous visits to ABC (Another Beautiful Cathedral)/organ concerts.

The route traveled is indicated in the following map.

 

Except for our Torun stay, visits to every other location involved a two or three night stay fostering a more leisurely pace to explore one’s surroundings. Our lead tour guide, Katherine (Kasia) Cznykowska, lives with her husband in Gdansk. Kasia was exceptional in her knowledge of Poland’s history, her ability to communicate with her audience and her main asset; “I make the tour fit the needs of the people and not make the people conform to the tour’s itinerary”. We saw Poland as leisurely travelers not as tourist marching from one site to another. At each major city/town, our tour had the services of a guide who was versed in local history, points of interest and customs. Our accommodations were first class and were located centrally so that we were able to easily “explore”  our surroundings on our own. Each morning we were served a breakfast that offered us a host of options from American eggs/bacon/sausage to European selection of meat/cheeses; of course, a wide selection of breads/rolls.  Most lunches were at our own expense while approximately one-half the dinners were included in the tour. One additional positive was the tour transportation; a 30 passenger bus for our twenty member tour group which provided us adequate space to relax. Rather than changing drivers, we had the services of the same bus driver, Paul, throughout the entire tour. 

Lessons Learned

One of the most enjoyable benefits of traveling is to meet/talk to the people, learn about their lives, culture and country’s history. I came to understand Poland in a different light after listening to individuals who experienced the horrors of Nazi oppression and fought in the Polish underground. I talked which led Eastern Europe in expelling Russia and their oppressive minions back to their homeland. I visited numerous exceptional museums that explored these achievements and spent on average three to four hours at each museum walking through history and learning:

Did you know that Poland

1.       …was found in the 10^th century in the small town of Gniezno located in the center of the country.

2.       …expanded and contracted in size and influence over the centuries. Its magnate leaders selected outside European monarchs as their leader for fear that a Polish leader would become too strong and diminish their influence.

3.       …welcomed various minority ethnic groups into Polish society; not as equals and with some prejudice. These groups which included Gypsies, Jews, Mennonites, and others, were allowed to live within their own communities, participate in business/community affairs and maintain/ practice their traditions.

4.       …was the second country after America to develop a Constitution, May 1791, as a governing document. It introduced equality among townspeople, nobility and peasants and eliminated control of Poland’s parliament, Sejm, from the veto of powerful magnates.

5.       …was dissolved as a country in 1792 by Austria, Prussia and Russia because of their opposition to Poland’s constitution which they felt threatened the control of their own people….Russia received the largest portion(eastern/central), Prussia the second largest (west/northern) and Austria  the smallest (southern)….Poland ceased to exist.

6.       …after 123 years of occupation (ended in 1918 with Treaty ofr Versailles), Poland emerged as a country with its culture in tact. It was recreated after World War I with lands taken from the Austrian/German Empire with its borders ill defined and challenged by its neighbors.

7.       …was attacked in 1919 by Communist Russia with the intent of incorporating Poland into the USSR and using its conquest as an entrance to spread Communism into Western Europe. The Soviet army was defeated at the Battle of Warsaw which resulted in a joint peace agreement in 1920.

8.       …was attacked by both Germany and Russia in September 1939. The country’s government and military never surrendered; the government operated in exile in England while the military formed the Polish Underground.

9.       …3,500,000 Jews lived in Poland prior to the beginning of World War II…..over 3,000,000 were murdered during the War by the Nazis…..today, Poland’s Jewish population is under 10,000.

10.   …was given to Russia at the Yalta Conference as a reward for their participation in defeating Nazi Germany. Poland became a satellite of the Communist Russia for a period of 45 years.

11.   …was the major influence in expelling Communism from Eastern Europe due to the efforts of Poland’s Solidarity movement, moral support of Pope John Paul II and political support of the USA and Britain (President Ronald Reagan and Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher).

12.   …established its eastern border in 1990 by forcing Germany to finalize the German/Poland boundaries as a condition for allowing Soviet based troops to exit Germany after the fall of Eastern Germany.

“Men make history and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better”…. Harry S Truman