Days 56-58, August 7-8, 2014 Opole, Poland

Day 56, August 7 

For photo album of 2014 Poland, Click HERE

While we were viising Auschwitz, we stayed in an AirBnb outside of Katowice.  Our host was an lovely young woman who lived in an flat above her grandparents home.  Magda has recently returned from studies and work abroad (England and South America) in theater and making movies for the last ten years, to her native Poland where she is now involved in some projects that she hopes will create a livelyjood closer to home.

We had a wonderful relaxing evening and breakfast with Magda and her family before leaving for a SERVAS home visit just outside of Opole.  Unlike most of our destinations, we had no sightseeing agenda.  Our agenda was simply to stay and meet a family.  Our SERVAS family included a mom, dad, and two sons ages 11 and 13.  Lucilla is an accomplished artist and teaches English through art, Pawel is a sales representative for road-line making equipment.  Because both of our hosts work during the week, their children served as our guides an daytime hosts.  They did a great job.  

Russ and I introduced the boys to geocaching as a way to see the area.  We started our tour of the area late morning, and made one short stop to visit Lucilla in her art workshop in Opole.  Our geo map indicated 80 caches in the immediate and surrounding area of Opole.  The boys were so excited about geocaching that after the first one was discovered, they were eager to find more.  So our entire day became a geocaching marathon... 10 in all and we hiked several miles throughout the city to find them.  What fun we all had!  It is certainly the most geocaches we have found in one day.  We also ate Polish pancakes for lunch, ate cookies, and ice cream.

In the early evening, Lucilla joined us at the Philharmonic Music School for a chamber piano concert by graduate students.  It was a short 1 hour program filled with gifted young people perforrming Bach, Berkowitz, and Chopin.  Afterwards we took a night walk through Opole, "Eastern European Venice", and the park and an outdoor cafe which the boys and we had visited earlier in the day for some refreshments.  Lucilla had contacted another SERVAS host to join us.  Anna had invited us to stay with here after we already had our arrangements made with Lucilla and her family, but we wanted to the opportunity to say hello and Lucilla made the arrangements to meet her and nine month old baby Mija.  

By the end of the day, we were all exhausted, but still had some quiet time with Lucilla and Pawel for a glass of wine and music, while the boys practically crawled up the stairs to go to bed.  I think we wore them out.

Day 57. August 8, 2014

We enjoyed a liesurely morning with garden breakfast with the whole family.  This visit was much too short, and we hated to leave, but now have some scheduled commitments for the next week, so we needed to be on our way.  With fond memories and promises to keep in touch, we are now on the road to Wroclaw, where we will spend three more nights with 2 more SERVAS families before leaving for Czech Republic by bus on Monday.

All is Well With the Worrall Travel R's in Poland