Poland Passages

Navigating Galacia

The towns were so tiny we couldn't find them on a map. Bzianka, Trzesniow--they weren't even mentioned in the Polish geography books in Krakow. But Google can lead you anywhere. I entered the address of the airport Hertz as our starting point, typed in Bzianka, Poland as our destination, and quicker than you can say Dzickuje (jENkoo-yeh--"Thank you") we had directions to the forested region called Galacia.

Poland Road Trip 2008

The freeway turned out to be a two-lane road winding through woods and villages. It was hard to recognize the jumbled alphabet names as we whizzed past the road signs. Just in time for lunch we saw one we understood.

Mickey D's near Krosno, Poland

There were several tricky round-abouts, and we twice discovered we had taken off in the wrong direction (after reaching the city on the opposite side of the map!) but within five hours we saw this welcome sight:

Southeastern Poland

Around the bend we heard a zillion crows,

(Look close. . .)

and got a glimpse of the town.

Crows Nests

We were looking for traces of ghosts. We weren't sure where we'd find them, but our experience told us they would be looking for us, too. Long-lost ancestors are usually right where they've always been, and with a little digging their stories come back to life. That's our specialty.

Bzianka farmhouse

We passed picturesque, large houses,

Trzesniow Sod Roof

and small ones that had seen better days.
It was raining when we crested a little hill and saw what we were looking for.

Trzesniow Church

A church usually means a cemetery, and that's a good place to start hunting for ghosts.

The windows of heaven were about to be opened!

More to come...