Poland is a country of striking contrasts: contemporary city slickers fill the capital, Warsaw, while in the countryside horse-drawn carts negotiate peaceful lanes where the new millennium is just a rumour. Nestled in the heartland of Europe, Poland has been both a bridge and a front line between eastern and western Europe. Today the country has bounced back from the turmoil of the 20 th century and reinvented itself as a must-do fixture on every traveller’s map.
May to June (late spring ) and September to mid-October (autumn)-or the 16 th century, Poland’s golden age
Seeing Warsaw change before your eyes Exploring Krakow’s beautiful old town and staying late to hit the cellar bars Strolling around Gdansk’s historic streets then heading to the haunting sands of the Baltic coast Hiking and climbing the Tatras, home of Europe’s finest mountain scenery Visiting Auschwitz and prading that such tragedies never happen again
Read The Heart of Europe: A Short History of Poland by Norman Davies, a readable, fascinating insight into the development of the nation
Listen to krzyaztof Komeda’s jazz piano compositions, icons of Polish culture
Watch anything by Roman Poland’s most famous export-try Knife in the Water, his first feature film
Eat wadlka (vodka), the drink of choice-zubrowka (bison vodka) is flavoured with a blade of bison grass, a local wild herb
Na zdrowie! (cheers!)
Lech Walesa and striking shipbuilders; Pope John Paul ll; bleak Communist architecture; heroic goalkeepers and toasts of wodka to all of the above
The country has some of Europe’s best mountain, coastal and lake scenery; Poland is staunchly Catholic
Every hour the hejnal (bugle call) is played on a trumpet from the higher tower of St Mary’s Church in Krakow Market Square to the four quarters of the world in turn. Today a musical symbol of the city, this simple melody, based on five notes only, was played in medieval times as a warning call. lntriguingly, it breaks off mid-bar. Legend links it to the Tater invasions; when the watchman duty spotted the nenemy and sounded the alarm, a Tatar pierced his throat his throat mid-phase, the tune has stayed that way thereafter. Since 1927, the hejnal has been on Polish radio every at noon.