the POLSKI blog

31 Mar, 2009

Visit Poland with the Londoneer

Posted by: Michał In: photography|travel

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:

industrial

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.


manufaktura

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.

wroclaw

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

Related posts:

  1. Visit Poland – virtually
  2. The Londoneer explores the Polish War Memorial
Tags: ,

4 Responses to "Visit Poland with the Londoneer"

1 | daveNo Gravatar

April 1st, 2009 at 9:30 am

Avatar

i’ve been to both – wroclaw is great but awfully germanic. that was a little uncomfortable.
Lodz is another story. It’s prime attraction – I can’t remember the name, it’s the long street that runs down the middle of town – is beautiful. But with these mega malls opening, there’s no reason for anyone to go to the actual nice part… and so the mall-ification of poland continues, sadly, and the little heritage left crumbles away. other than that, i liked it.

2 | TheLondoneerNo Gravatar

April 1st, 2009 at 11:59 pm

Avatar

Thanks for reposting :)

Yes the main shopping street in Lodz is very attractive – lots of lovely old buildings, but step off it 10 or 15 yards and it’s a different story.

It’s really sad to city centres decaying like this – of course it’s happening all over these days, British cities are no exception. You only have to look at those places that haven’t benefited from millions in inward investment in the way that Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham and so on have… Stoke and Norwich immediately spring to mind as being places that have seen much better days :(

3 | MaggieNo Gravatar

April 8th, 2009 at 3:16 pm

Avatar

I’ve been to both and I think Wroclaw appeals to me just that bit more. Maybe it’s because I know a bunch of really nice people there? Still, you can’t beat Trojmiasto. If I ever was to go back to Poland, I’d definitely want to live there.

4 | Katowice vs Birmingham | the POLSKI blog

September 22nd, 2009 at 10:47 am

Avatar

[...] → Visit Poland with The Londoneer [...]

Comment Form


  • Cole Trujillo: Wrocław sounds like an interesting place I will defiantly have to go there this summer. Just googling the city was fascinating for example Wrocław h
  • Miranda: Does anyone know what has happenend to this excellent blog? It is now nearly a year since anything was posted! I know it is tme consuming keeping a
  • Michał: The Baltic Sea
  • KrakówPolska: There's breaking news on the new post-Smoleńsk pictures that have caused uproar, in English, at krakowpolska.pl
  • Monika: What I remember and know about being Polish is our ability to go on after we should have lost all hope. I love our endurance and our refusal to ever g

Recent Flickr pics tagged Poland

    PanoSAM_2065_jnowak64Brama ChińskaFerrari F430 Spider......Can you do that?subir1Bydgoszcz, Poland

About

The POLSKI blog is written by Michał, a Polish journalist, writer, one-time language teacher and linguist, living and working in London.

Polls

How many times have you visited Poland?

View Results

Loading ... Loading ...



Top 100 Language Lovers 2011
Top 100 Language Blogs 2010


Subscribe to the RSS feed