The Best Plans Are To Have No Plans

A very different way for me to travel

And I’m loving it! I’m more relaxed if I don’t have a bucket list of things to do in each place I wind up. Maybe it’s because I have no preconceived ideas about these places in Poland. I haven’t researched them and literally know nothing except how far my hostel is from the train station. If it’s not too far, I’ll walk but generally I’ll call a Bolt.

Most of my hostels have been booked in or near the Old Town so the rest of the time, I just walk. I’m not looking for anything in particular unless I’m hungry and then it’s FOOD!

Would you like to come walking with me today?

I started off in the Town Square.

And at the other end of the town square are some colourful houses. The gardens in the photo are in front of City Hall.

There’s two statues in the square on opposite corners.

The first statue is called the Well and shows two children playing with a goose. It was erected in 1909 to celebrate 100 years of the family pharmacy business where it was placed. It was destroyed in 1940, but the bronze pieces were saved and it was reconstructed in 1948 in its current position in front of the biblioteka. I knew this was the library because the word is similar to the French bibliothèque, but I also saw a girl returning a book!

I imagined what the second statue represented and sure enough, when I walked around to the back of the statue, there were four plaques. I can’t read Polish but I could work out that it was another atrocity committed during the Second World War, but I had to find out the details.

The first plaque says that on 9 and 10 September 1939, 40 hostages were executed on the site on the order of the German military commander of Bydgoszcz. The monument portrays a group of people symbolizing martyrdom and struggle. It has an interesting history — it wasn’t meant for Bydgoszcz at all. The second and third plaques have the 40 names engraved. I’m not sure what the fourth one says, maybe something about the sculptor of the monument. Another sad moment in history I’ve discovered accidentally.

Around the corner, I find the Cathedral of St. Saint Martin and Nicholas, Sanctuary of Our Lady of Beautiful Love with an open door. I don’t need any other invitation.

I could fill this page with dozens more photographs of the cathedral, but I won’t. It seems every church I enter is simply more… more everything. Maybe some of this beautiful Polish religion will seep into my bones.

I wanted to view the cathedral from the other side and what did I find? Another accidental but beautiful find.

I continued to walk along the river and across the bridge to the other side. I didn’t venture further as hunger pangs were starting niggle at me. But I did take some photos from the bridge.

I’ve done a lot of research to find the reason behind this statue suspended above the Byda River. Lots of information came up about a tightrope walker who walked across the Danube in Budapest and only photos of this guy. With persistence, I found out that the not-quite-statue (because it’s constantly moving) called “Man crossing the River” was unveiled on the 1st of May 2004 to commemorate the Polish entry into the European Union. Good one, Poland!

And the swallow? In German, schwalbe. Schwalbe is the founder of the Pomeranian Philharmonic in Bydgoszcz. There’s a reason for everything if you dig deep enough.

There’s a lesson to be learned here. Don’t go into a sweet shop when you’re hungry. But I don’t like lollies (that’s what we Aussies call candy) but I do like chocolate. And down in the back corner they had every type of fruit you can think of covered in dark chocolate- even rhubarb!

There was a restaurant across the road with a lovely Halloween display out the front, the Restauracja Sowa. It had a picture of a delicious looking meal on the window. I entered the vestibule and tried to open the door; first one and then the other, push, pull. Nope. A group of three guys came in, and tried to open the door. I’m not stupid as it turns out. A guy from inside comes and tells the men the restaurant is closed today in Polish of course. I asked them what did he say. One of the guys translated that they are closed today and commiserated with me when I said I was really hungry. He dumped his friends and took me to lunch.

Not really, he parted company with his friends who were business associates and told me the Sowa was the best restaurant in town but he knows another one and he wanted to show me the area as well.

While we were walking through the streets and along the canal, he asked me wasn’t I afraid to go walking with someone I just met. I thought it was a strange question, but I answered in a general way that I’ve met lovely people — and I have. There wasn’t the instant “click” like I had with Jesús but I can’t expect that with everyone I meet.

He comes to Bydgoszcz for work which is why he is here today. He’s an architect who lives in Warsaw and is working on a project here.

The area is a relatively new development actually a restored mill called Rother’s Mills. The entire area is called the Mill Island. I’m not sure if he was involved in this redevelopment but he did know a lot about it.

He ordered my lunch — the menu was entirely in Polish — and it turned out to be shakshuka which I first ate in Morocco. It was delicious. I ordered a beer while he had coffee. I showed him a photo of my two-year-old grandson and he showed me his two-year-old son! Well, I thought Caelin was advanced for his age but his child is doing arithmetic calculations and learning Polish, English and Russian into the bargain. I suppose his father is an architect and is mother is a scientist!

We chatted until I almost finished my beer. It was half a litre and I just couldn’t drink it all. I felt bad because I got up to pay while he was calling his wife, but he rushed over and insisted on paying. I told him I appreciated having someone sitting across the other side of the table — it was the downside of travelling alone.

After lunch he took me into the huge mill building and asked permission to go to the rooftop terrace. He was up here this morning. It’s ten floors up and a wonderful view of Bydgoszcz. You can even see the communist brutalist buildings on the horizon. Being an architect, he explains the advantages of them and I tell him that my son loves them, but I just think they’re ugly. He tells me the brutalist style is not all bad and airdrops me some photos of buildings he thinks my son will like.

He left me up on the roof taking photos while he dashed off to catch his train back to Warsaw.

So what did you think of my day without plans?

I hope you enjoyed wandering around with me exploring and finding what was around the next corner. What do you think of me letting strangers take me to lunch? Let me know in the comments if you’d like to read more stories like this.