2012 March Girls trip–Boleslawiec, Poland

After a long late lunch with lots of chatting and a few more shops we packed the vans and drove the three hours to Boleslawiec, right across the border into Poland. Boleslawiec is not the cute little town that Seiffen is. This area of Poland is very poor and a little run down although has been much improved over the last several years – so we’ve been told. In ‘American Military Wives Pottery Trips’ in the past, one woman would have to stay in the vehicles (with doors locked) to keep watch on the vehicle and belongings so it wasn’t broken into or completely stolen. Even still we saw a wanderer asking for a Euro to ‘watch’ our car while we went in to shop… also a man cleaning car windows hoping for some change.

Emma reserved a nice little hotel for us for two nights. Geneva and I roomed with Megan. I spent the night chatting with Melissa, Emma and Brittany in their room until way past bedtime. The next morning we were up bright and early by 6:00 and out the door by 7:00am. It gets light here at 4:00am and the stores open early. We headed to the pottery warehouse with our favorite ‘line’ first hoping to beat the crowd. By 8:00 the place was packed with shoppers and luckily we had already chosen what we wanted. 5 of us all like the same line so we had fun sitting on the floor with piles of pottery around us looking for the perfect scalloped edge bowl and trying to figure out why on earth we didn’t need everything in front of us. My biggest bowl cost 162 zloty which equals about $50. It's an expensive line because all polish pottery is hand stamped/painted and this line has quite a few colors. I got several pieces, including some square dishes shown at the bottom.

By 9:30 my shopping was done for the day but I went along for the ride and checked out several more pottery shops with my friends.

 

One shop was further into the country so I wandered around and took a few pictures…

We had lunch at a great Polish restaurant. Almost all of us ordered perogies. Mine were potato filled. Delicious.

Since the stores closed by 3:00 or 4:00 we headed back to the hotel to hang out and relax. I ‘powered down’ and took a short nap, then we went to the Blue Beetroot for a late night dinner. Back at the hotel, everyone came into our room to talk for a couple hours before bed.