Travel Stories - Poland

We arrive after a 2 hour bus ride in the city of Kalisz. Actually we would love to order  a cup of coffee at the bus station, but the building looks more like an aquarium than a station and it doesn’t have a restaurant or bar. It is dead and there is only a coffee machine. The corner where we see some chairs is blocked. We decide to go to the nearby train station and this looks more like a sanatorium. Again no cafeteria or anything like that. We are forced to drink an expensive cup of coffee at MacDonalds in the very large galeria building. We start to look for our intended hostel but the old youth hostel of the city is overgrown and is closed. A neighbor refers us to an "internet" school on the other side of the main road. We walk to a school for children who have difficulties to learn and after a cup of coffee and a tour through the building we are send to a nearby school. The director had already telephone contact with the other and despite the fact that they normally do not allow tourists we can stay. After checking in our own room, we meet a teacher who speaks reasonably good English and the director. The children who stay here are mostly deaf and have difficulties concentrating. They think it is fantastic that we are here and are very excited – from that moment the kids follow us where they are able. 

We close our room, say everybody in the hallway we pass goodbye and walk towards the old city. It is a decent walk from our school (later we would find that it was not an internet school but a boarding school) to the center of Kalisz. We cross an old bridge and it seems like we are entering a different world than the big plastic screens at the main road, the high factory pipes, wide motorways and brand new primal buildings that we have seen so far. Old streets, cobbled, renovated or just houses with antique facades and romantic parks. The city has the oldest documented history of Poland. Not older than in the 2nd century BC the city was mentioned for the first time. Kalisz was an important trading place between the Baltic Sea where amber came from and the Roman Empire. In the late Middle Ages a high and strong city wall was built with at least 15 watchtowers and a castle. Unfortunately, only a few parts of the city wall remain. What you see now are old houses that are often been rebuilt and/or renovated; In WWI the city was virtually wiped of the map between battles between the German Imperial Army that invaded the Poles and the Russian army. Within a month of war, the population had dropped from 70,000 residents to about 5,000. Only  a few churches would remain virtually intact in the fanatical battle. In WWII the city was largely left to his own devices.  

At the first lunch cafe we see in the old part we order food because we’re reallly hungry. With a full stomach we walk around the market square with the stately city hall in the middle. We take a look at the Sint Nicolaas church and in the streets and alleys to get a better picture of Kalisz. It is a city without major important sights but a nice pleasant medium-sized Polish city with its typical architecture. Defenitely worth to come over here. 

Today the plan is to take a bus for a day trip from Kalisz to the castle of Goluchow. It takes about 20 minutes by bus from the city center and less than a 5 minute walk from the bus stop to the actual park from the castle. We walk through a garden from the church to the castle which lies at the entrance of the large estate. It’s a huge forest park full of lakes, trees and bushes. The exterior of the castle, which can also be referred to as a large country house or small palace, is not as spectacular as we would have liked to see, but that will soon be different if we go through the large gate. We are standing here in this beautiful courtyard with the two us two with one side o of the courtyard 'open' and on the other side a two-storey high grey building with a beautiful magically façade. We are lucky because the entrance is free today and a girl will show us all the rooms.We will be back to view the facade more thoroughly.  

First we walk into the basement where we adorn the first beautiful tapestries and parts of the antique furniture. The girl tells us that the Nazis took all the furniture during WW2; parts have been found and the rest is unfortunately untraceable. Hopefully one day they find it back. We have to drag information out of the girl but it turns out that the building was built around 1560 and that it then contained four square watchtowers. Once it was one of Europe's largest private museums. We now walk to the first floor and there are about 15 rooms on two floors all very well filled with beautiful antiques, tapestries, a bed box, weaponry etc. The Greek vases, from the 5th century BC. are one of the castle's highlights. After half an hour we are back on the little square and take another look at the almost “fake” looking facade knowing this is real. We decide to walk through the park to the semi-wild bison that are kept in the back of the park in an enclosed area. After a firm walk we arrive at the part where not only about 10 bison are kept but also deer and wild boar. After this we decide to go back into town.