Short Polish trips, Wed, 14 Oct 2020 | written by Simon
Jemma and Simon at a Museum, Temple in Europe, Poland

  • Światowid between multis
  • Dancing like the Emperor
  • Organ in Kamień Pomorski
  • STORM!!!

The weather did not stay nice as long as the forecast promised. The wailing of the wind at night woke us up a lot, and in the morning we woke up to a crazy storm. The wind was really extreme, quite a view!

We set off to Wolin to visit the Slavic and Viking Centre: a modern reconstruction of a village and the site of the annual Slavic and Viking festival. In the howling wind, we were the only visitors. The reception lady stoically said: ‘There is no such thing as bad weather. There are just people who dressed bad for the weather.’

The place was fantastic – we loved the buildings, it all seemed pretty well done, with a good combination of historical detail and just sheer fun of uncovering and rebuilding the past. We spent a good few hours in there, exploring every hut. A highlight turned out to be a massive drum we played a bit – we need one of those for Zieleniec! We’re definitely coming back here for the festival in the summer.

We wanted to eat something at the Centre’s inn, but it closed before we managed (due to bad weather and chances of branches falling off trees). Jemma found some random bar which turned out to be fantastic – we had an amazing onion soup, gnocchi and pierogi, with a delicious tea. Seriously, I’m not one for spending too much time thinking about food, but Kal-á-fior was great.

Next stop – the museum of Wolin. A small local museum with some Slav history. We spoke to one of the attendants who told us a lot about the local excavation sites, the difficulties in saying anything certain about the Slavic culture and religion, and the hardships in finding funding for more work in the area.

We moved on to see the figure of Światowid. Oddly located between very non-Slavic multis, it is an enlargement of a tiny 9cm figure we’ve seen in the museum. Shockingly, there are only two tiny futures of Światowid which have ever been found in Poland – one here, one in Kraków. Those Slavs are really elusive…

Next, we drove to see a Slavic burial site full of mound graves (kurhany), now called Hangmen’s Hill. Just a hill with some mounds on it, but it did make an impression. Funny how such small things can matter. We both had an opportunity to feel like the Emperor, dancing around as white flames.

Lastly, we visited Trygław – a monument to another Slavic god. Fun story – it was raised in the 60’s as the atheist Soviet government’s way of saying FU to the Catholic Church. Pretty cool, I have to say. The monument itself is really neat, too. Overall, much impress.

On the way back we popped in to Kamień Pomorski to see its cathedral. There was some sort of service going on, so we only walked around quickly. The organ was really great, but the rest didn’t thrill us much.

Back in Dziwnówko, we went to the beach to experience the elements. And an experience it was! The sea was was spitting up foam at us as the crazy wind bombarded us with the sand it lifted from the beach. Pretty intense!