Poland (2021)
Inhalt/Content
Departure for a short vacation to Zabrze
In summer 2021 and before we wanted to tackle our big camping trip in August, we went to Poland for a few days. The plan was to visit Nathalie’s grandparents, similar to 2018, but this time only to the maternal grandmother, because the paternal from Ruda Śląska had died the previous year. So this time it was primarily only to Zabrze, where in addition to one grandmother now also Uncle Darek (the brother of Nathalie’s mother) lives. He recently moved back home after living in Scotland for a long time.
In contrast to 2018, we did not go with Nathalie’s parents this time, but rented our own car in Weimar with which we wanted to drive to Poland and back. It was agreed that I would drive the route in Germany and Nathalie would take over from the border with Poland, which would even be a fair distribution of the total driving time. Unfortunately, we had to discard this plan because I sprained my ankle while playing volleyball just the day before our departure. Nathalie therefore had to drive the entire trip there and back herself. This also made it more difficult to bring our cats to Greiz in advance, where they would then go on vacation for over 1.5 months, as our Scandinavia trip was still ahead of us. So there were a lot of bags, cats, food and other accessories that also had to be packed into the car and I could only help a little. But as Nathalie always says: “Everything is a workout!”. (Note from Nathalie: In addition to the cats and all the accessories, I also had to transport almost 50kg of cat food divided into two packages into the car. Yes, that could actually be called a workout!)
We arrived in Greiz late on Friday evening and the cats recognized their surroundings immediately (have been here many times before). Of course Iva left a little present in the transport backpack, but because we were in the car and not on the train, and the car also had good ventilation and air conditioning, this was much more bearable. Before we went to Poland, we stayed in Greiz for one night and we wanted start the trip early the next day. However, the cats kept us busy during the night. Normally in Weimar they can just come into the bedroom and usually lie down somewhere there (just not on the bed, because that is forbidden!). In Greiz, on the other hand, the children’s room is always closed to the cats because of the many technological devices and hiding places. But since we slept inside, Iva and Yuri constantly meowed or pawed around in front of it.
The journey to Poland started at eight in the morning. The GPS showed us an arrival at 12:30 … but this turned out to be a bit later. In Germany we got into some traffic jams that happened on the autobahn near Dresden. But it was interesting that we encountered two team buses from soccer teams. First that of Chemnitzer FC and then that of Dynamo Dresden. After a little research we found out that both teams were on their way to some games, which should take place in around four hours (so they were in a hurry too). Otherwise we got into a little traffic jam here and there. The traffic jam in front of the first toll station in Poland is also worth mentioning, because a car had burned here shortly before the toll gate and we therefore had to let two fire engines through.
We finally arrived in Zabrze around 5 p.m. There we ate Gołąbki with a soup. Gołąbki are Polish cabbage rolls with rice and minced meat filling. After dinner (or actually lunch), Nathalie’s uncle came back from work and we discussed together what we could do in the next two full days. Actually, Nathalie had planned a big hike on Sunday, but because of my sprained foot (which at least made me hobble short distances now) it had to be canceled. But we had other good plans ready for that.
