Week 17 (Kazimierz Dolny): birthday in Kazimierz

So we’ve now been with our Kazimierz hosts for 2 weeks. It doesn’t feel like that long, but we did settle in pretty quickly. We got to know the girls quite well from the English lessons we’ve been giving them, it helps that they’re both really enthusiastic and friendly. Our time in Italy and Slovakia served us well in this regard- we’ve had plenty of ideas for games and conversation starters which hopefully made our lessons fun and useful for them. Piotr and Kinga have been very grateful to us for the English tuition, and encouraged us to take the girls out for ice cream and just enjoy the town with them. It doesn’t feel like work at all, but English conversation practise for the girls obviously something our hosts really value. Win-win!

This week was our last with the girls, as the youngest left for a summer camp, while Kinga and the eldest are now doing a Workaway as guests themselves in Spain. Kinga did one last year too in Portugal, and obviously enjoyed it enough to do it again and even become a host- something we’ll definitely consider in the future when we have a suitable place. So for the rest of our Polish Workaway we will be helping Piotr, who has a few jobs lined up for us including gardening, DIY, and preparing meals.

In our time off Piotr is great at keeping us entertained, whether it’s bringing us along for some market square busking or providing recommendations for where’s best to explore (as we may have mentioned before, local hosts’ knowledge and company is one of the major benefits of Workaway). Among his recommendations was roots gorge, one of the network of loess gorges surrounding Kazimierz. In fact, the street that our hosts live on is at the bottom of one of these gorges, and if you walk past the house and continue up the cobbled street for just a few minutes it turns into a dirt track, and soon after becomes a forest. Roots gorge in particular is an interesting place, so named because of the exposed tree roots along the walls of the gorge.

Craig’s birthday fell in this week, so after a few beers together in the market square, Piotr took us for a traditional polish lunch. This involved pork, herring and the most vibrantly-coloured soup (borscht) we’ve ever seen. Following lunch we went to the nearby town of Lublin, where there was a political demonstration going on. Kaczyński, de facto leader of the right-wing ‘PiS’ party was trying to pass legislation around control of the supreme court which many found controversial. The prime minister has since unexpectedly veto’d the move, so now Craig and I can both claim the title of successful political activist, clearly having been historically significant figures in Poland’s political future.



Other highlights of the week have been a near-constant supply of ice cream and a trip by ferry to the renaissance castle in nearby Janoweic, a very interesting cultural stop situated on the beautiful Vistulan hillside.


Total joint spend: €1717.51