Snow greeted me again this April morning. On Skype a link to 'The Independent' article on a Polish spa awaited me:
http://www.independent.co.uk/travel/europe/the-polish-sovietstyle-spa-experience-8557381.html
I am quite familiar with that part of Poland and can recommend it both as a spa and as a holiday-making spot: great mountainous location, lots of scenic hiking routes and sightseeing, plenty of interesting history. I remember one hot summer in the 1990s when I took my father and son to Jelenia Gora which is a pretty town in The Sudety Mountains. We stayed at my uncle's house with an amazing garden on the slope of a hill.
Unfortunately, we were banned from eating fabulously red and aromatic wild strawberries. The aunt had warned us that they were unsafe to eat, because she had to treat the plots with some insecticide. Anyway, the weather was fabulous: sunny and pleasantly hot, between 25 and 28 Celsjus or so, there was plenty of space for children to play and a park nearby to ride their bikes. And the house wasn't an ordinary villa; built for a rich German family ( twisted Polish - German history makes a bow again...), it contained a subterranean bomb shelter! That reminds me of an atomic shelter in a house in Switzerland I was shown when staying with friends. I was told every house in that country has one. That's a sensible thing for a neutral country, I daresay.
Every day my father, who was recuperating after a stroke, would be driven to the nearby Cieplice Spa for various treatments which served him really well. Besides, we travelled a lot around the area and visited a lot of local attractions.
My own experience of a Polish spa was a February stay in Kolobrzeg over ten years ago. That was great, despite the weather, and resulted in two fantastic friendships. One day I may get back to my days in Kolobrzeg, to tell you about Mira Szerląg, a painter I met and befriended, as well as about other people and places.
Another spa treatment I subjected myself to was a fortnight in Busko last February/March which I described here in my earlier posts. When comparing the prices, we found a better deal than the one in the above mentioned article. At less than 150 zloty per day we enjoyed full board accommodation in the renowned sanatorium called Marconi plus five treatments of a wide choice advised by the spa doctor on seeing our medical test results and examining us on arrival. There was a rich program of concerts at the concert hall downstairs and many activities like excursions around the region on offer. As to the staff? You meet various people everywhere... Yes, you still come across this pre-1989 attitude, but why not treat it as another attraction?;-)
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