Poland – Nowy Sącz – now please now

“There is one thing I like about the Poles—their language. Polish, when it is spoken by intelligent people, puts me in ecstasy. The sound of the language evokes strange images in which there is always a greensward of fine spiked grass in which hornets and snakes play a great part.”
Henry Miller

Clear blue sky and cold. The perfect Spring morning.

Austria or Czechia?

Poland.

We head down for breakfast. Another expansive menu and the friendly staff advised us to order everything.

So we do.

The highlight is the porridge with caramelised apple, but the eggs cooked with house-made slanina is a close second.

“The cookery books will give you a thousand finicky devices, mushrooms in this, mushrooms in that, but there is only one way—to fry them, simply with bacon, until they swim in their black fragrant juice.”
H.E. Bates

We head to a nearby village with a melting snow stream and a good tale.

Terchová is a village that looks like it is lifted from a fairy tale.

We find a park and follow a nameless snowmelt stream toward the Tiesňavy National Park.

The peaks are still draped in thick snow.

These streams run as the snow melts in early Spring. Maybe the locals have a name for them. Perhaps it is their transient nature, but they seem to have no name.

They are beautiful.

“I think a lot of snowflakes are alike…and I think a lot of people are alike too.”
Bret Easton Ellis

Terchová has a tale, and the village has a monument to celebrate its protagonist. It is not the gallows where he was hung by the left rib after capture and torture.

Note: After some research, it turns out that hanging from the left rib is exactly what it sounds like. A sharpened hook is passed through the rib cage and the victim is hung by it. Described as an ‘inefficient means of death’, the victim usually drowns in his blood after a while or dies of dehydration.

“People speak sometimes about the “bestial” cruelty of man, but that is terribly unjust and offensive to beasts, no animal could ever be so cruel as a man, so artfully, so artistically cruel.”
Fedor Dostoyevsky

Juraj Jánošík was born in 1688 and executed in 1713 at the age of 25.

He was a highwayman who robbed the rich and gave to the poor. Interestingly, he is noted as being particularly generous to women.

It is a ‘modern’ Robin Hood tale, with a tragic ending in which he was captured, and tortured for days before… see above.

We cross the border into Poland.

Unsurprisingly, forests, streams, mountains, and valleys care little for temporary lines drawn on paper by even more temporary men.

Borders.

The landscape remains stunning. Sweeping snow-capped mountains dominate rich, fertile valleys that follow fast-flowing, crystal-clear streams.

“The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness.”
John Muir

We hit a few snags on the journey to Nowy Sącz. Road closures.

Shell’s outstanding navigation gets us to our destination.

Auschwitz.

It was the first thing we looked into.

It didn’t happen because you can no longer simply turn up. Ticket required or no entry.

Shame.

I plan to return to Poland. I might decide to live here. I will get to Auschwitz.

“Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.”
Viktor E. Frankl

Shell has been longing for Kovács Nimród Furmint since we finished the bottle in Poprad.

It is difficult to get your hands on a boutique Hungarian wine in Poland.

By some miracle, Rafa Wino, a wine importer stocks the Kovács Nimród range. Shell gets her hands on the very last bottle of SKY.

The proprietor of Rafa took the time to recommend some similar bottles for us to take on our journey before giving us some advice on how to beat the Nowy Sącz traffic.

Nowy Sącz has a beautiful city centre, and our apartment is in its heart.

We take a walk, checking out the architecture. There is a market with smoked fish and local sausages.