{"id":4925,"date":"2026-01-17T18:45:42","date_gmt":"2026-01-17T17:45:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=4925"},"modified":"2026-01-18T06:35:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-18T05:35:08","slug":"week-02-a-visit-to-poland","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/?page_id=4925","title":{"rendered":"Week 02: A visit to Poland"},"content":{"rendered":"

My brother-in-law’s birthday is 5 January. This year, I decided to pay him and my sister a surprise visit, so most of this week’s photos are from the 3 days I spent in Wroclaw (where my sister lives) and one night in Poznan from where I flew home the following morning.<\/p>\n

2_1<\/strong>
\nI flew to Wroclaw on Sunday morning, arriving just in time for lunch. I called my sister from the taxi from Wroclaw airport to their apartment. Only at that point did my brother-in-law learn that I was coming. I was welcomed in the usual Polish manner:
\n\"DSF2448\"<\/p>\n

2_2<\/strong>
\nI got up early on Monday morning and went for a wintry walk along the Odra river. The temperature had been below freezing for several days, and ice was beginning to form:
\n\"DSF2465\"<\/p>\n

2_3<\/strong>
\nWroclaw’s technical university advertises a new programme in AI:
\n\"DSF2452\"<\/p>\n

2_4<\/strong>
\nNear my sister’s apartment building. The translation is “since you are reading illegal grafitti, maybe you could also read a real book”:
\n\"DSF2468\"<\/p>\n

2_5<\/strong>
\nIn the afternoon, I went for a walk in the central square Rynek, suitably adorned for the season:
\n\"DSF2489\"<\/p>\n

2_6<\/strong>
\nI love looking at the old guild houses on Rynek. Most were heavily damaged during the final months of the war:
\n\"DSF2490\"<\/p>\n

2_7<\/strong>
\nPosing in the Christmas market:
\n\"DSF2498\"<\/p>\n

2_8<\/strong>
\nThe view from my sister’s balcony, full moon over the Ronald Reagan Circle:
\n\"DSF2510\"<\/p>\n

2_9<\/strong>
\nTuesday was Three Kings’ Day, a public holiday in Poland. There was hardly any traffic, most shops were closed, and even the wind was calm. I walked along the river. The Grunwaldzki campus of the university is located on the banks of the Odra:
\n\"DSF2512\"<\/p>\n

2_10<\/strong>
\nI walked to Wroclaw’s main cathedral. I do not remember ever visiting it, since every time I have walked by there was a service going on, and visiting during services is not allowed. But this time I happened upon a 1\/2 hour break between masses, so I could go inside:
\n\"DSF2537\"<\/p>\n

2_11<\/strong>
\nPoland is Europe’s most devout Catholic country, and there were a lot of people around the cathedral in silent prayer:
\n\"DSF2553\"<\/p>\n

2_12<\/strong>
\nAfter lunch, my sister, brother-in-law and I made some selfies, propping the camera up on a chair:
\n\"DSF2559\"<\/p>\n

2_13<\/strong>
\nLater in the afternoon, I took a taxi to Wroclaw’s main train station; I was going to take a train to the city of Poznan, about 150 km to the north, from where I had a flight home the following morning:
\n\"R002090\"<\/p>\n

2_14<\/strong>
\nTraveller gnome outside the station:
\n\"R002091\"<\/p>\n

2_15<\/strong>
\nWhile waiting for my train, I looked around the area a bit. Opposite the station is a neon sign that I remember from my childhood many years ago. It says “Good evening in Wroclaw”:
\n\"R002087\"<\/p>\n

2_16<\/strong>
\nThe main hall of the station. It was built in the 19th century when Wroclaw was the German city Breslau, obviously much renovated and extended over the years:
\n\"R002092\"<\/p>\n

2_17<\/strong>
\nThe station was busy on this day, since many people were travelling home after the holidays:
\n\"R002093\"<\/p>\n

2_18<\/strong>
\nI arrived in Poznan around 6 p.m. By then it was dark (sunset in Poland is between 4 and 4:30 p.m. in early January). I walked from the train station to my hotel, located on one of the main streets of the city, called Saint Martin Street. I then walked towards the centre, a distance of a bit more than 1 km and a pleasant walk in the cold and crisp air, with a temperature around -10C:
\n\"DSF2562\"<\/p>\n

2_19<\/strong>
\nI like Polish neon signs, like this one at a bar called “kitty”:
\n\"DSF2564\"<\/p>\n

2_20<\/strong>
\nI arrived in the old centre–as in every Polish city, the central square is called Rynek. From there, walking on Ignacy Paderewski Street, I saw the Christmas market on Plac Wolnosci (Freedom Square):
\n\"DSF2594\"<\/p>\n

2_21<\/strong>
\n\"DSF2566\"<\/p>\n

2_22<\/strong>
\nEntrance to the Christmas market. The sign says “Poznan’s Betlehem”:
\n\"DSF2572\"<\/p>\n

2_23<\/strong>
\nThe two goats are a symbol of Poznan, referring to a medieval legend, so they also featured in the Christmas market:
\n\"DSF2569\"<\/p>\n

2_24<\/strong>
\nThe decorations on Freedom Square were really impressive:
\n\"DSF2573\"<\/p>\n

2_25<\/strong>
\nOn the side of the square is the impressive Raczynski Public Library, built almost 200 years ago, heavily damaged during the war, restored afterwards:
\n\"DSF2574\"<\/p>\n

2_26<\/strong>
\n“Holiday Pyramid”:
\n\"DSF2576\"<\/p>\n

2_27<\/strong>
\nThe grilled meats looked tempting, but I was going to have dinner later at a proper restaurant:
\n\"DSF2579\"<\/p>\n

2_28<\/strong>
\n\"DSF2580\"<\/p>\n

2_29<\/strong>
\nSpanish cultural influence–a churros stand in Poznan:
\n\"DSF2581\"<\/p>\n

2_30<\/strong>
\nAt the far end of the Freedom Square is a theatre called “The Theatre of the Eigth Day”:
\n\"DSF2583\"<\/p>\n

2_31<\/strong>
\nI walked to Rynek to look for a place to have dinner. On the right is Poznan City Hall:
\n\"DSF2587\"<\/p>\n

2_32<\/strong>
\nThe decorations and the guildhouses were beautiful:
\n\"DSF2589\"<\/p>\n

2_33<\/strong>
\nBack on Ignacy Padarewski Street, I returned to the Christmas market after dinner:
\n\"DSF2590\"<\/p>\n

2_34<\/strong>
\nMy last picture from Poznan is this young woman with a dog similar to our Mochi:
\n\"DSF2584\"<\/p>\n

Afterwards, I walked back to my hotel, and the following morning I flew home to Alicante.<\/p>\n

2_35<\/strong>
\nBack in Alicante, it was back to work and the morning walks on the beach:
\n\"DSF3156\"<\/p>\n

2_36<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3161\"<\/p>\n

2_37<\/strong>
\nOn Friday, I had my monthly lunch with lovely Eri, in a restaurant in the centre called Thai Corner:
\n\"DSF3171\"<\/p>\n

2_38<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3168\"<\/p>\n

2_39<\/strong>
\n\"DSF3173\"<\/p>\n

2_40<\/strong>
\nAs usual, the weekend started with a beach walk on Saturday morning:
\n\"DSF3176\"<\/p>\n

2_41<\/strong>
\nLater in the morning, I cycled to Verdeg\u00e1s and greeted the cats:
\n\"1050242\"<\/p>\n

2_42<\/strong>
\nA couple of km later, I came across some other two-wheelers:
\n\"1050244\"<\/p>\n

And that was the end of a nice week. A full gallery of my visit to Wroclaw is here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

My brother-in-law’s birthday is 5 January. This year, I decided to pay him and my sister a surprise visit, so most of this week’s photos are from the 3 days I spent in Wroclaw (where my sister lives) and one night in Poznan from where I flew home the following morning. 2_1 I flew to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":4915,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4925"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4925"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4925\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4936,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4925\/revisions\/4936"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/4915"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.fotocycle.dk\/paws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4925"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}