This tour is perfect to annoy visiting relatives
I was on the Niobe Sunday Countryside Tour, which takes you out of Warsaw to the former stomping grounds of the rich. These were the areas where the aristocracy debauched and reveled and ordered peasants about.
The tour had fulfilled most of my expectations - it was relaxing; our English-speaking guide was very knowledgeable; I got the hell out of the city. Yet I still felt somewhat short-changed.
Perhaps it's because the palace - the highlight of our day, the jewel of the tour, the pie`ce de resistance - was closed for cleaning.
Hadn't anyone at the travel agency checked this out? Couldn't the palace - which receives this busload of visitors every Sunday from March through December - have informed the travel agency? Couldn't we have weaseled our way in for 10-15 minutes?
It is not unreasonable to get what you pay for, and for zl. 170, I expect the tour organizers to ensure that I could see all the sights advertised. On this tour, we were to see the Pilaszkow manor house near Swiecice, the Nieborow palace, a Chopin recital at the museum in lowicz, the church in Brochow where Fryderyk Chopin was baptized, Chopin's birthplace in Zelazowa Wola and finally have a Polish-style meal in Zelazowa Wola.
Before the tour even left Warsaw, the Zaborow Palace had been axed from the list.
The tour went according to plan at the first stop - the Pilaszkow manor house. Birds chirped, ducks landed, the front door opened to let us in. But then came the Nieborow palace - closed for cleaning because a conference was starting there that night.
I'm guessing the conference was for Ford Motors. The Ford banners hanging over the driveway and from two windows of the palace clued me in. They also added a nice, modern-day touch to the old place. Nothing like sprucing up a beautiful, 18th-century palace with 20th-century corporate logos. (For those of you who don't know the true meaning of that logo, here's a tip, Ford stands for: Found On Road Dead. Not that I'm peeved about their conference screwing up my tour, or anything.)
Owned mostly by the Radziwill family, the palace was restored after the war (pick one) and has original furniture from way back when. It also houses the head of Niobe, who, I think, first organized these tours back in the first century A.D. ("And the mud hut on your right is closed today for cleaning because the fine folks from Ford will be holding a conference on reinventing the wheel.") The sculpture, also known as the Nieborow Apollo, is a supposed great work of art that we didn't get to see.
Unable to poke around inside, we wandered around the gardens, which I'm sure are very nice in summer, but in early spring they look a lot like late autumn, which means dead.
After this, we roared into lowicz for the Chopin recital. Held in the baroque chapel of the lowicz Museum, the recital was soothing and, at that point, the highlight of the day. Like many people, when I hear the sounds of classical music, I go to that special place in my mind reserved for such occasions - dreamland.
While in lowicz, we were also able to witness some of the Palm Sunday procession outside the big, honking church in the square. It was a small taste of what the daylong Corpus Christi procession is like. (Hint, hint, for those of you who'll be around in June.)
To keep the rhythm of the day intact, the next stop was a disappointment. In Brochow, we saw the church in which "the man," Chopin, was baptized.
Unfortunately, we could only look in from the front door because the church was locked to protect it from vandals, who, I'm guessing, arrive by the busload every Sunday afternoon between March and December, accompanied by an English-speaking guide, and ransack the church, committing such atrocities as stealing Chopin's baptismal certificate, drinking the holy water and bathing in sacramental wine.
The late lunch (right on time if you're Polish) turned out to be the high point of the day. What does it say about a tour when the Polish cooking is the highlight of the day? Well, it says it was good food, and I was starving.
We ate at a restaurant in Zelazowa Wola, where we were fed a traditional meal of country sausage, bread and mustard, lurek, pierogi and salad, apple tort, vodka (or beer or wine) and coffee (or tea).
Stuffed and glowing (thanks to the vodka), we waddled over for a tour of Chopin's birthplace and a walk in the gardens before heading back to Warsaw.
While two of the stops were disappointing, our tour guide, Aleksandra, was not. Not only did she put the events and places we were seeing in historical context, she had a sense of humor.
Poland grows three main fruits, she told us as our bus passed an orchard. "First we grow apples. The second fruit is apple. And the third is also apples. Poland is an apple country."
She also pointed out the roadside shrines to the Virgin Mary. People often congregate at these shrines, she told us, and sing or pray and "sometimes they gossip." Universally accepted and practiced.
Overall, if you have a car, you can easily see these places on your own and save zl. 170. However, you won't have a knowledgeable tour guide. And if you have an annoying guest in town, say your in-laws, it's one way to get rid of them for a day.
If you go:
To reserve a seat, call the tour operator at 668-8394 or call one of the major Warsaw hotels. You can also show up Sunday morning at one of the hotels and pay then. The tour, which operates every Sunday from now until Nov. 15, picks people up at the following times and hotels: 8:30 a.m., Sheraton; 8:45 a.m., Forum; 8:55 a.m., Marriott; 9:05 a.m., Holiday Inn; 9:10 a.m., Mercure; 9:15 a.m., Victoria; and 9:20 a.m., Bristol. The office is at ul. Akademicka 3.
The tour had fulfilled most of my expectations - it was relaxing; our English-speaking guide was very knowledgeable; I got the hell out of the city. Yet I still felt somewhat short-changed.
Perhaps it's because the palace - the highlight of our day, the jewel of the tour, the pie`ce de resistance - was closed for cleaning.
Hadn't anyone at the travel agency checked this out? Couldn't the palace - which receives this busload of visitors every Sunday from March through December - have informed the travel agency? Couldn't we have weaseled our way in for 10-15 minutes?
It is not unreasonable to get what you pay for, and for zl. 170, I expect the tour organizers to ensure that I could see all the sights advertised. On this tour, we were to see the Pilaszkow manor house near Swiecice, the Nieborow palace, a Chopin recital at the museum in lowicz, the church in Brochow where Fryderyk Chopin was baptized, Chopin's birthplace in Zelazowa Wola and finally have a Polish-style meal in Zelazowa Wola.
Before the tour even left Warsaw, the Zaborow Palace had been axed from the list.
The tour went according to plan at the first stop - the Pilaszkow manor house. Birds chirped, ducks landed, the front door opened to let us in. But then came the Nieborow palace - closed for cleaning because a conference was starting there that night.
I'm guessing the conference was for Ford Motors. The Ford banners hanging over the driveway and from two windows of the palace clued me in. They also added a nice, modern-day touch to the old place. Nothing like sprucing up a beautiful, 18th-century palace with 20th-century corporate logos. (For those of you who don't know the true meaning of that logo, here's a tip, Ford stands for: Found On Road Dead. Not that I'm peeved about their conference screwing up my tour, or anything.)
Owned mostly by the Radziwill family, the palace was restored after the war (pick one) and has original furniture from way back when. It also houses the head of Niobe, who, I think, first organized these tours back in the first century A.D. ("And the mud hut on your right is closed today for cleaning because the fine folks from Ford will be holding a conference on reinventing the wheel.") The sculpture, also known as the Nieborow Apollo, is a supposed great work of art that we didn't get to see.
Unable to poke around inside, we wandered around the gardens, which I'm sure are very nice in summer, but in early spring they look a lot like late autumn, which means dead.
After this, we roared into lowicz for the Chopin recital. Held in the baroque chapel of the lowicz Museum, the recital was soothing and, at that point, the highlight of the day. Like many people, when I hear the sounds of classical music, I go to that special place in my mind reserved for such occasions - dreamland.
While in lowicz, we were also able to witness some of the Palm Sunday procession outside the big, honking church in the square. It was a small taste of what the daylong Corpus Christi procession is like. (Hint, hint, for those of you who'll be around in June.)
To keep the rhythm of the day intact, the next stop was a disappointment. In Brochow, we saw the church in which "the man," Chopin, was baptized.
Unfortunately, we could only look in from the front door because the church was locked to protect it from vandals, who, I'm guessing, arrive by the busload every Sunday afternoon between March and December, accompanied by an English-speaking guide, and ransack the church, committing such atrocities as stealing Chopin's baptismal certificate, drinking the holy water and bathing in sacramental wine.
The late lunch (right on time if you're Polish) turned out to be the high point of the day. What does it say about a tour when the Polish cooking is the highlight of the day? Well, it says it was good food, and I was starving.
We ate at a restaurant in Zelazowa Wola, where we were fed a traditional meal of country sausage, bread and mustard, lurek, pierogi and salad, apple tort, vodka (or beer or wine) and coffee (or tea).
Stuffed and glowing (thanks to the vodka), we waddled over for a tour of Chopin's birthplace and a walk in the gardens before heading back to Warsaw.
While two of the stops were disappointing, our tour guide, Aleksandra, was not. Not only did she put the events and places we were seeing in historical context, she had a sense of humor.
Poland grows three main fruits, she told us as our bus passed an orchard. "First we grow apples. The second fruit is apple. And the third is also apples. Poland is an apple country."
She also pointed out the roadside shrines to the Virgin Mary. People often congregate at these shrines, she told us, and sing or pray and "sometimes they gossip." Universally accepted and practiced.
Overall, if you have a car, you can easily see these places on your own and save zl. 170. However, you won't have a knowledgeable tour guide. And if you have an annoying guest in town, say your in-laws, it's one way to get rid of them for a day.
If you go:
To reserve a seat, call the tour operator at 668-8394 or call one of the major Warsaw hotels. You can also show up Sunday morning at one of the hotels and pay then. The tour, which operates every Sunday from now until Nov. 15, picks people up at the following times and hotels: 8:30 a.m., Sheraton; 8:45 a.m., Forum; 8:55 a.m., Marriott; 9:05 a.m., Holiday Inn; 9:10 a.m., Mercure; 9:15 a.m., Victoria; and 9:20 a.m., Bristol. The office is at ul. Akademicka 3.
