During a recent bloggers meet-up in London I had a nice chat with many bloggers, but missed one, whose blog – The Londoneer – I discovered post factum.
The Londoneer is well-travelled and recently published a couple of posts after his visit to Lodz, an old industrial city in the heart of Poland, not far from Warszawa. So I got in touch with Pete, the blog’s author to ask if I could republish some of his pics and quote his Polish posts here.
I like the way he writes about Poland – trying to explain why things are the way the are, how the history shaped the country, its cities and people, paying an equal amount of attention to the ugly side of Lodz:
We were a little surprised to discover exactly how ugly Lodz is, for the most part. It has no beautiful main square like most big Polish cities, not even a reconstructed one – the one here is the ugliest town square I’ve ever seen – a brutalist 1950s communist replacement that is being allowed to slowly decay.
as well as the nicer one:
It’s not all doom and gloom however. Strangely, whilst the city is ugly, its citizens are beautiful – in fact I have never seen so many attractive people all in one place. Walking around the city centre was like walking around a film set or through the pages of a fashion catalogue. Also, its really worth noting that Lodz’ inhabitants have an unusually sunny and friendly disposition – the nicest folk in Poland I have encountered so far.
You can find out more about the once thriving industrial city here and about its dark past here.
Also, check his post on the beautiful city of Wrocław (below). There are some lovely descriptions of Wrocław’s architecture, its people and some great tips for eating out too.
I wonder if any of you have been to Lodz or Wroclaw – if so, what do you think? Do you agree with Pete’s impressions of those places?
All images ©thelondoneer, reproduced with the author’s permission
