Christmas in Poland

15 - 30 December 2006

Well, if you can't spend Christmas back home with your family why not spend it with someone elses!! This year I adopted my ex-roomates family in Poland and had a great time. In two days three of us drove with a caravan all the way from London to Szczecin, taking the ferry from Dover to Calais we passed through France, Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany (where we spent the night in a truck stop welcomed to an amazing sunrise) and I almost doubled the amount of countries Ive ever visited!

Arriving on the 16th I had some time to do a bit of travelling before Christmas and get out and about in Poland. Leaving Gosia at home, Arthur and I drove to Torun to stay with her old next door neighbour for a night. Torun was a really beautiful city, the birthplace of Copernicus with an amazing central marketplace and some great old buildings. We wandered around town for a bit, ate delicious chocolate covered gingerbread called "piernicki" and even got introduced to the Christmas ritual of sharing wafer bread and good wishes for the new year with a group of university students.

Unfortunately I could only stay in Torun one night as Warsaw, the capital of Poland with its unmistakable Palace of Science and Culture, beckoned. Here I stayed with Gosia's brother and his family - I even got to baby-sit the two little ones (which is hard when my Polish doesn't extend much past; morning, thanks, hi, coffee, tea, milk, goodnight, yes, no and I'm Melissa - but it was a lot of fun) I checked out the Royal Castle, the Palace on the Lake and spent some time wandering around old town (Stare Miasto) reconstructed after WW2.

Next stop on my journey was Krakow - probably one of the most visited Polish cities this place had a really cool vibe. Stayed at a youth hostel 5 minutes from the main market square and had a great time. The night I arrived there was a pre-Christmas Eve party on there so got to try traditional beetroot soup and some not so traditional cakes :) As well as having a great time in the city (partying it up with new friends from the hostel) there were quite a few cool things to do outside of the city so took a couple of day tours to World Heritage Sites. I visited two of the Nazi German Extermination Camps in Auschwitz (the German name for the nearby city of Oswiecim) it was a very surreal and emotional experience but out of respect for anyone reading this public blog I won't elaborate. Secondly I visited the Wieliczka salt mine, which is over 300km long although I only wandered through the 3.5km tourist route which includes a number of statues carved by the miners from rock salt - pretty impressive

Taking the night train back to Szczecin I had a great couple of days chilling and enjoying Christmas with Gosia and her family. Had Christmas eve with her mum and stepfather, oldest brother and his family (who I had stayed with in Warsaw) and her other brother and his new fiancé. The feast is supposed to start with the appearance of the first star (in remembrance of the star of Bethlehem) but with pressures to meet in-laws families we ended up eating around 3pm. Gifts seemed to be a small part of Christmas here (children are taught that the little star brings the gifts) but they have beautiful tree decorations and we had an amazing meal starting with breaking wafer bread Opłatek and sharing good wishes for the new year.

There was time to do one last quick road trip up to Gdansk before I had to leave Poland. Travelling with Arthur we stayed in a hostel close to the centre of town, met some nice people and really enjoyed wandering around the old town in the winter sun. Took a day trip up to Hel Peninsula (only 100m wide at its narrowest point) which seperates the Bay of Puck and the Baltic Sea and had time to check out one last UNESCO World Heritage site visiting Malbork Castle (the World's largest Brick Castle) on the way home.

So no white christmas but I had a great time in Poland, making it my first time travelling in Europe, and my first time in a country where I don't speak the language. Definitely somewhere I didn't plan to venture to myself so am glad I got to go there with Gosia to enjoy the Polish hospitality! Thanks to everyone who helped make this trip what it was : )