Vacation in Poland: Comfortable Agritourism in Cieplice Dolne

[Borek]

Comfortable place in the country - village Cieplice Dolne, far from city noise, city smells and traffic.

No traffic, but farm sounds and animals around. Smells happen as well, that's what agritourism is about.

Picturesque views, villages, roads and forests.

For those following PF photography thread: do you have a sense of déjà vu like I did?

Rich and abundant nature all around.

Log cabin anyone? House we lived in is a log cabin as well, although it was refurbished 2 years ago and to some extent lost its original nature.

But we are here to bike!

Shortest summary: we did 700 km on bikes in 11 days, 86.08 km on the last day (and it wasn't the longest trip). Honestly, on the last day and through the last 15 kilometers I was going in circles, just to get past 700 We've been to Krzeszów (NW corner of the map), then clockwise: Tarnogród, Cewków (barely readable, left to Stary Dzików), Sieniawa, Jarosław, Przeworsk and Leżajsk and many places between.

This is historically rich area - Przeworsk was granted town charter in 1393, almost exactly 100 years before Columb sailed to America. Leżajsk in 1397. Jarosław - in 1375 or earlier. Poles, Ukrainians and Jews - all left their marks. This is view from the town square in Leżajsk.

Sieniawa became a city in 1676. Sieniawa Palace was built around 1700, it took current form in 1881/3.

For obvious reasons two of these pictures were not taken by me...

 

[Andre]

Thanks, Borek, Lovely pictures. I'd hoped, no I was sure, you'd post those.

 

[turbo]

What a great vacation! Thanks for the pictures.

 

[Evo]

Great pictures of your trip Borek, thank you!

I assume the lovely lady is your wife?

 

[waht]

Fajne wakacje.

 

[Borek]

Thank you all

I assume the lovely lady is your wife?

The one on the left. There are two lovely ladies on the pictures, but in fact last three days I have spent with five lovely ladies. Four of them work together, but its the fifth one (carrying a kitten in a basket in case you wonder) that is definitely the lovliest:

Her eye is swollen as she was biten by a mosquito.

 

[tribdog]

phew, I thought you were beating your kid again. looks like a mosquito got her on the ankle too.

 

[Borek]

phew, I thought you were beating your kid again. looks like a mosquito got her on the ankle too.

Both ankles and somewhere on the hands. And she is not mine, she is a granddaughter of the house owner. It happens that her mother (daughter of the owner) works with my wife, that's why we get there and not somewhere else.

 

[tribdog]

Oh, so you were giving someone else's kid a black eye. That's okay then.

 

[Evo]

She looks like she's covered in bites, poor thing.

 

[tribdog]

bites, or bruises. That's enough about the kid, Borek beat up.
I think it is so amazing and interesting to see places where things were happening hundreds and hundreds of years ago. We just don't have cool stuff like castles over here. I've seen the Indian stuff and it just doesn't hold a candle to European building

 

[Borek]

She looks like she's covered in bites, poor thing.

Few bites are not enough to stop her, she is like a mercury - shining, fast and agile

 

[turbo]

Few bites are not enough to stop her, she is like a mercury - shining, fast and agile

Reminds me of my neighbor's grand-daughters, aged 3 and (just) 5. They live with him and his wife and their daughter. If it's nice out, they are riding their bikes, playing in the dirt, or maybe playing in the play-house he built for them. If it's raining out they are riding their bikes, playing in the mud or in the play-house. They're not big on dolls - they love toy tractors, backhoes...anything that moves dirt. Bug-bites?! I spit on your wimpy bugs!

They like to visit and get apples from my trees, and they LOVE it when I let them dig their own beets and carrots from my garden for the family's supper. Those girls are going to be gardening fools. Today their grandfather brought me a big bag of smaller bulbs of Russian garlic for us to use in pickles and salsas this summer so that we can save the big ones that we grew to plant as this winter's sowing.

 

[Borek]

Four more that you can find interesting.

Patchwork road. We have also seen checkerboard road, but we had no camera with us then. In general many secondary roads are in poor condition, although it changes rapidly thanks to EU funds.

Old and new - that's what you can see in many places. Sometimes grandparents live in the log cabin, as they don't want to move to the new house. New one is built just a feet from the old one to save on space. In this particular place there is a small shrine ahead of the green house - that's rather unusual, there are lots of road shrines, but they are rarely on the yards.

Surprise surprise! This is a milk can. When I was a kid they could be seen in every village in the country ahead of each house, as they were collected twice a day (morning and evening) after cows were milked. I thought this procedure was abandoned with raising hygienic standards, but it looks at least in some places it is still working the old way.

Well, this one is not necesarilly interesting, but still amusing. It looks OK, but it doesn't sound good. I have tried to play it on a recorder and the last swallow sits too high

 

[Evo]

Great pictures again Borek! Thank you for the background on each one, it makes them all the more interesting.

 

[LowlyPion]

Maybe the 4th swallow is just learning to write music?

Great pictures though. Looks like a step back in time.

Thanks for sharing.

 

[Borek]

Great pictures though. Looks like a step back in time.

Memories of the past...

More or less this picture perfectly summarizes situation in Poland:

Abundant nature, old infrastructure, growing industry, hurdles ahead

 

[Borek]

Final (?) addition: GPS data.

Edit: white line is 10 km.

 

[tribdog]

I just finished watching a documentary on PBS about 5 minutes ago about a Jewish family who went back to Poland to find the family that hid them from the Nazis. This should probably be in the heroes thread, because I can just imagine what kind of people would do that. To put your life and your family's life in jeopardy so that a group of people, who you don't even know, can escape the Nazis is really heroic.

 

[Borek]

My grandparents (Dad side) hid a Jewish boy for several months. He survived war, became a nuclear physicist and lives in Seattle now. Few years ago members of my family were awarded a medal Righteous among the Nations, and I was given this medal by Moshe Katsav on his visit to Poland. Stupid feeling, when everybody congratulates you on things you have not done by yourself. Sadly I didn't know my grandparents even if they survived the war.

 

[Evo]

My grandparents (Dad side) hid a Jewish boy for several months. He survived war, became a nuclear physicist and lives in Seattle now. Few years ago members of my family were awarded a medal Righteous among the Nations, and I was given this medal by Moshe Katsav on his visit to Poland. Stupid feeling, when everybody congratulates you on things you have not done by yourself. Sadly I didn't know my grandparents even if they survived the war.

That's a great thing Borek! It is not unusual to present the awards to the family of the deceased.

 

[tribdog]

The documentary was about a family being given the Righteous among the Nations medal. You aren't by any chance related to Honorata and Wojciech Mucha?

 

[larkspur]

Looks like a great ride Borek. Lovely photos! Thanks for sharing them with us.

 

[Borek]

The documentary was about a family being given the Righteous among the Nations medal. You aren't by any chance related to Honorata and Wojciech Mucha?

No. Please remember there were over 6000 Polish families awarded.

 

[lisab]

Terrific pictures and commentary, Borek! The weather looked perfect.

The map is very cool...you covered a lot of ground.

 

[Andre]

Nice series, Borek, must have been a good time. I like the cabin, very photogenic

 

[Borek]

Thank you all once again :smile

The weather looked perfect.

Well... for most of the time it was little bit hazy, so it was OK to bike, but to make a good picture you had to hunt for a good light. Only two or three days with nice blue, slightly cloudy sky that looks good on pictures.

I like the cabin, very photogenic

Plenty of those, some more interesting, some less, just the haze...

These were ruined and picturesque, but there are also plenty of inhabited cabins in good condition, painted either in white or blue stripes (blue one was in the first post in the thread).

Originally stripes were white. Void between logs was usually filled with hay and moss which are much less durable then wood, so they were each year additionally conserved with hydrated lime, hence white stripes. Most wood conserving paints are dark. From what I know wood was often conserved with used machine/engine oil. That gives brown/white stripes. I suppose blue stripes are just to make some cabins look prettier then the others.

If you look carefully, you will see that often half of the cabin looks different from the other half. Originally cabins were split into two parts - one was for people, other for animals (no windows there). But I doubt they were built this way after IIWW, they were rather modified to adapt animal part for an additional room for the family, while animals were moved to outbuildings. It often happened that family was living in the log cabin, while outbuildings were made from bricks. You can see that on the last picture (white brick outbilding in the background).

One last note: while I have concentrated on taking pictures of log cabins, and while there are still many of those, most buildings (say 90%) are new ones, made of bricks, like the green one posted earlier. They just didn't look interesting to me, so I have ignored most of them. But Polish village stopped to be a wooden one many years ago. Situation looks slightly different in Tatra monutains, could be they still build from wood there, but that's another story.

 

[Borek]

By no means I am a rednecks expert, and from what I have read redneck may mean something different depending on where it is used, but I suppose these pictures are somehow redneckish... even if they were all taken in Poland

In case you wonder who is in charge on the backyard...

Just a tractor and a plow.

Getting them cows from pasture to cowshed.

At least 6 agricultural machines in one yard. I recall turbo doesn't have agricultural machines, instead he has several rusty cars in his forest

Life after life. I wonder if that's only Polish invention, or if tractor tires are used this way in other countries as well. They mark the entrance to the yard, I suppose they also stop gravel from falling into the ditch.

And finally... love to motorbikes seems to be universal. Yamaha R6 in Cieplice Dolne :rofl:

 

[Moonbear]

Beautiful pictures, Borek! Reminds me of my visit there many years ago. Every place we visited was so pretty, though I was mostly fascinated with the places we didn't visit...the countryside we passed while traveling between cities. While a lot looked rather "run down" with age, everything had a really cute charm to it.

 

[lisab]

My daughter's elementary school had a long line of tractor tires just like that! The kids would leap from tire to tire...whoever touches the ground loses!

 

[Moonbear]

At least 6 agricultural machines in one yard. I recall turbo doesn't have agricultural machines, instead he has several rusty cars in his forest

What's in the open barn (or lean-to or whatever that thing with the blue roof is)? Looks like something hung to dry, but I can't tell what.

Life after life. I wonder if that's only Polish invention, or if tractor tires are used this way in other countries as well. They mark the entrance to the yard, I suppose they also stop gravel from falling into the ditch.

If you like that, you'd love visiting West Virginia; there are used tires and used vehicles without tires adorning plenty of yards. That looks like a good way to see where the ditch is when backing a vehicle in. My grandparents' home had ditches like that on either side of the driveway, and my grandfather felt obligated at the end of every visit to holler out, "Watch out for the ditch!" as we'd back out of the driveway. He'd probably have loved that idea to make the ditch easier to see and give you something to bump into if you didn't see it before you went into the ditch.

 

[Borek]

Reminds me of my visit there many years ago. Every place we visited was so pretty, though I was mostly fascinated with the places we didn't visit...the countryside we passed while traveling between cities. While a lot looked rather "run down" with age, everything had a really cute charm to it.

You've been to Poland? When? And do you remember which part of Poland it was?

 

[Borek]

What's in the open barn (or lean-to or whatever that thing with the blue roof is)? Looks like something hung to dry, but I can't tell what.

Tobacco leaves.

Tobacco alley:

And that's what tobacco plant shows to all those "No smoking" signs

 

[Moonbear]

You've been to Poland? When? And do you remember which part of Poland it was?

I was there in 1990 as a trip with my college choir. We visited Warszawa, Czestochowa, and Krakow. (Sorry, I can't make the letters with little tails on my computer.) There was also a stop along the way, I think between Warszawa and Czestochowa, where there was a salt mine we visited which was amazing! I've signed the Book of Kings at the monastery in Czestochowa because our choir sang an Ave Maria while visiting...that was really an amazing experience. We traveled the whole way on a tour bus, so got to see a lot of the countryside in between. It was also funny how the residents of both Warszawa and Krakow seem to compete and each will go to great lengths to explain why their city is better than the other.

 

[Borek]

I was there in 1990 as a trip with my college choir.

A lot has changed since then. These were very intense years. And it is not over yet.

We visited Warszawa, Czestochowa, and Krakow. (Sorry, I can't make the letters with little tails on my computer.) There was also a stop along the way, I think between Warszawa and Czestochowa, where there was a salt mine we visited which was amazing!

This salt mine is in Wieliczka, on the outskirts of Kraków.

It was also funny how the residents of both Warszawa and Krakow seem to compete and each will go to great lengths to explain why their city is better than the other.

Well, that's one of those things that have not changed since