Time off for a visit

I have good friends in the south of Poland, who when they heard of this trip, invited me to stay with them. Cheerfully oblivious to the route of most of the trains heading for Moscow, they said it wouldn’t be much further for me, and anyway I wasn’t given any choice.

Jelenia Góra is a very elegant small town. No doubt there are pictures somewhere on line. This is the airfield.

It’s surrounded by large blocks of Communist era flats, which are actually very comfortable and well laid out. I first visited for a ballooning holiday many years ago, before Poland joined the EU, and fell in love with the country and the people. Irena is a pilot, trained on aircraft and gliders. She worked in the tax office, and I think she knows every adult in the town.

I arrived on Sunday afternoon, and spent Monday variously walking in the woods (great, but I forgot to take the camera,) with Irena and her dog, followed by a trip to the glider factory to sort out some work on the Mucha. Was handed the keys to the family car for the trip to the factory, which was brave of the owners. We spent rather more time than would normally be expected getting a ticket to Warsaw for Irena, who will spend a night there with me and then visit friends. Twenty minutes, to buy a return ticket? then a free massage was proposed. My shoulders were protesting the 12kg of rucksack, containing stuff to take me from -20 deg to plus 30, so that sounded like a plan. Off we go, by bus as the car was needed elsewhere.

Interesting. Not a massage as such, more a hard sell of a massage bed, with PowerPoint in Polish. After a while Irena and I were parked on a hot pad, followed by the massage bed. Imagine lying on heated stones which are being thumped from underneath by a maniac with a sledgehammer and you will get some idea. Now add an enthusiastic repeat in Polish with martial music accompaniment, coming from the next room, of the PowerPoint presentation.

After that we agreed that hamburgers and beer were needed.

Cieplice spa was an obvious choice on Tuesday, avoiding rain and enjoying a swim and sauna in natural mineral water. Getting wet anyway, but in the warm. This faded grandeur was the original spa, now replaced by

Which may not be so elegant, but has pools, saunas, inside and out, an amazing spiral slide, massage jets (a lot nicer than yesterday’s torture bed) and a café. My shoulders feel a lot better.