We did a lot of traveling by bus when we were in Poland, and thus got to see quite a bit of the countryside. The pictures I have posted in the Countryside folder of my online photo album are various photos I took, mostly from the bus and through the window, of the Polish countryside. In some cases the nearby scenery is blurry due to the motion of the bus. In some cases there is a bit of a glare from the bus window. But in general, you can get an idea of what a lot of the Polish countryside looks like from these photos. And by countryside, I mean just that, these photos are not from the cities, though some may include parts of very small villages. But they show the lay of the land in rural Poland. The direct link to the countryside photos is this: http://poland.leonkonieczny.com/images/2010PolandTour/Countryside/index.html.
To a large extent, the photos speak for themselves and give little glimpses of rural Poland. But I’ll make a few general comments, too, about what I saw and experienced when there.
The first thing that struck me was on the plan from Warszawa to Gdańsk. It was cloudy most of the way, but there were little glimpses of a charming countryside thousands of feet below. And what I remember most is this: Two somewhat winding roads made their way more or less (and more less than more) parallel to each other between two other winding roads. And along those two roads there were, every maybe mile or so, a clump of homes, a small village, but also along the roads there were farmsteads fairly close together. And what I noticed was the long and thin fields, that went about halfway back, meeting in the back the fields from the other, roughly parallel road. The fields all seemed so narrow and so long, but also irregular and at times slightly pie-shape. And they fit the countour of the land. It really was amazing for a guy who grew up in Wisconsin where all the roads are pretty might straight and the intersections at 90-degree angles. Here in Poland, things really did follow the lay of the land, I’m sure based on paths and trails and routes from years ago.
On our trip from Gdańsk to Malbork, we went through an area that was very low, said to be below sea level. It was also, of course, very flat. And due to all the recent rains they had in Poland, we saw many fields with standing water. Between Gdansk and Malbork the fields in general seemed a bit bigger, and there was a lot of evidence of modern farming with big machines and tractors. The crops there seemed to be corn and grains for the most part, and some hay. Farther to the east we went through an area of dairy farms, too, with lots of cows out and about.
In the central eastern part of Poland, and towards the south east, I noticed lots of big pine forest. I didn’t see any that seemed planted in rows. In some areas, they were logging the forests. This was in places a fairly wooded area.
The Masurian Lakes area was very beautiful as well, with some hills and a few larger lakes, it seemed a nice resort area.
Closer towards Zakopane I noticed the land change, with more and more hills. Still lots of farms, but some of the hills got quite steep and so there were some forests too on the very hilly areas. And as we got closer and closer to the mountains, the hills were more and more steep, but still there was a lot of farming going on.
Somewhere around Rzeszow–I think–we saw hops being grown. We saw a lot of other crops too, such as sugar beets, soybeans, and corn. And of course cabbage, too. Towards the south we saw some smaller potato fields, and a few where they were actually digging the potatoes by hand.
Again around Rzeszow and towards Zakopane, we saw lots of forest and lots of people out in the forest picking mushrooms. It’s no coincidence that we had a few very good meals with mushrooms when we were there, either.
From Zakopane to Kraków, the land became less mountainous, eventually becoming more rolling hills again. Then as we proceeded from Kraków to Wrocław, the land again became flatter, with the fields larger and the farms seemed to be a bit larger as well.
You’ll notice that the weather was fairly cloudy most of the time we were there, but we did not have too much rain. That is a good thing. You can see a few pictures of a flooded river, that’s generally the Wisła (Vistula) river that winds its way through a large part of Poland, from the mountains all the way to the Baltic Sea. Poland had a very rainy summer and in places some bridges had even washed out. So they did not need any more rain.
Poland is a very beautiful country. On our trip, we spent the majority of our time some of the larger cities. But I would love to return and spend some time in the countryside, hiking, walking, taking photos, and drinking in the luxurious landscape. Hopefully these photos will give you a little glimpse of the wonderful country I saw and enjoyed!
