Trzebnica Kuzniczysko i Stary Mlyn

Having lived in Australia most of my life, travel distance for me is a very different concept compared to Europe. In Sydney, I drove 150km to get to the beach. I drove 750km to get to my holiday resort and that was no issue at all. Hell, Sydney is about 120km between the north and south tip. Distance, I found, is a very relative thing. It means something entirely different in Poland. That is why my plan to visit Trzebnica and Stary Mlyn in Kuzniczysko was met with a scoff and a bit of a smirk from my brother.

My niece, however, was ok with the plan and we set off early in the morning. The roads to these smaller towns are not highways and the further we got away from Wroclaw, the narrower they got. Which was not a huge deal. Most of the way we were actually in a deep forest. I had no idea how much greener Poland has become lately. I heard somewhere that Poland hs the largest portion of its territory set aside for forests. That can only be a good thing. Especially if you like mushroom picking.

To be honest, Trzebnica is not a tourist destination. The old town is… old, and so is the old square but this is Europe. Old things everywhere. If these buildings were in Australia, they would have been a national treasure, but in Europe, we need to add about 1000 years to the age of a building before we take notice Still, it was a pleasant trip and a nice day out. Took us less than 2 hours to get there and we enjoyed the trip.

The real surprise of this trip was the Stary Mlyn in Kuzniczysko. We finished with Trzebnica but the day was still young. So Kasia decided to search the area for anything else worth seeing. What would we do without Google Maps. The Stary Mlyn or Old Flour Mill looked really good in pictures, so we decided to drive the extra 20km to check it out.

The old mill turned out to be really nice. Apparently it was still in use about 30 years ago. Almost perfectly preserved. Still with some old bottles, coins and some tools inside the building. The interesting thing about these things was that they were just lying around. Not locked inside a glass cabinet for people to see but not touch.

Another great surprise was the gathering of bicycle riders around the lake. It was an annual thing they have and there were at least 200 people enjoying the weekend. Very friendly people. Invited us for lunch. Fed us some Zurek, bread, bigos, smalec. It was great. Great trip… and a few nice images as well.