Tuesday 26th July
Our last day in Poland! It has been an unforgettable experience, surpassing all our expectations. The variation across this vast country has much to offer the tourist.
On our travels around Poland we have been fascinated by the regard in which the storks are held. These carvings sum up this popularity. And interesting to note that the stork migrates for the winter to North Africa - never crossing the Mediterranean Sea at any point other than at the Straights of Gibraltar.
The people, and their obvious positivity, have turned a country that was very much behind the eight ball into one of progress and growing prosperity. The comparison of the Poland we first saw 36 years ago to the Poland of today is astonishing. Perhaps the biggest change has been the increase in the prosperity of the people. This can be seen in the large shopping complexes dotted over the country. A far cry from the days when you had to wait outside a small grocery shop for one of the ten baskets to become available before entering the shop! And the competition is fierce - Carrefour, Tescos, Aldi, Lidl, Auchan in the supermarket category alone, and the list goes on.
The other great change has been the transport links. Motorways and A-roads have improved mobility greatly. Couple this with car ownership, and you have a huge change in personal freedoms. Enough of this!
Szczecin today! We spent most of the morning doing jobs we needed to get done before crossing into Germany tomorrow. But most with little success. The laundrette in Polish seems to be a "laundry service" - that is what we deduced from today. A waste of a lot of time with no result. Clean sheets will have to wait till tomorrow.
A view across the Odra River to the castle and old town.
Some very clever street art under the road bridge.
It is very much a working port city and some of the infrastructure paid little attention to the aesthetics of the historical section.
We did get to see a little Szczecin, a city of over 400,000 people, the important seaport on the Baltic. For two hundred years it was controlled by Germany and was the port for Berlin. Destroyed during the war, the reconstruction of the old town centre was done with little love and attention! The stroll along the Odra River is quite pleasant with some interesting observation points.
The most celebrated building in the town is the new Philharmonic Centre, known as the Iceberg. The modern design is supposed to have taken its inspiration from the surrounding historic buildings.
The Iceberg building "blending" with the historic!
The Zamek (Castle) of the Pomeranian Prince was worth a look with its origins going back a thousand years, but what we see today is a reconstruction because of the bombing in 1944.
The Pomeranian Prices Castle.
An aerial view of the zamek.
The castle's very distinctive 17th century astronomical clock graces the inner courtyard.
It was getting late in the afternoon so we thought we had done well to this stage, we left for the village of KoĊbaskowo. Here we spent the rest of the afternoon and evening.
Other photos from today:
Multi-storey residential buildings are going up in great numbers on the outskirts of Szczecin.
More street art under the bridge.
