Promoting Poland's autumns

Everyone knows Vermont is the place for a beautiful autumn, or fall as Americans call it. The combination of multi-coloured leaves, on a spectrum from green through yellow and gold to red, set against a clear blue sky, does it. America promotes autumn well. Listen to Sarah Vaughan singing Autumn in New York...



Now, given that Poland enjoys similar weather at this time of year - and that the 'Golden Autumn' that generally occurs from late September through to early November is usually warm, sunny and visually attractive - why can't Poland's tourist authorities start promoting the country as an autumn destination for mini-breaks and longer holidays?

Let me take you for a short walk around Jeziorki at this beautiful time of year. By the railway track, on the footpath north of the station (left and below), with the afternoon sun shining from the west, the trees are ablaze with colour. Birch tree trunks set off the golds and deep blues.

I've uploaded photos as they came out of the camera. The colour saturation, vividness or contrast has not been tampered with in Photoshop. I have used a polarising filter.

Below: further on up the line, the reddest bush in Jeziorki, against a cloudless sky. Today's top temperature was 17C, in shirt and Barbour jacket, I felt uncomfortably warm.

The mood sublime. This needs to be promoted to tourists from the British Isles...

London and South East England

BBC Forecast Summary - This Evening and Tonight

Cloudy with outbreaks of rain, this locally heavy in Kent and Sussex. Rain will clear more western and northern counties by the early hours of the morning, but may linger in Kent and Sussex

Below: ul. Dumki, the the golds of the birch trees splendid against the indigo sky.

At times like this, one should spend every possible moment outside, in the sunshine, topping up on those vitamins. For Polish autumn comes in two halves - the golden autumn, and the grey, dismal, damp and chilly one, which lasts from early November until the first snows set in. And the clocks go back next weekend.

This time last year:
Visceral and permanent - a short story

This time  two years ago:
Crushed Velvet Dusk in my City of Dreams II