Warka, for the shopping

The main difference between what in Poland is considered a village (wieś or wioska) and a town (miasto) is the presence of a market square. The former tend to be settlements strung out along a straight road with fields coming off it a right angles. The latter are typically built around a centre, dominated by a market square.

Warka, then, is a town of 12,000 people dating back to the 12th century, a centre for brewing and trade. For a while, Warka was bigger than Warsaw! The town suffered the usual devastation caused by various invasions, from the Swedes to the Germans; little remains of the town's pre-war appearance. In a straight line, about 50km south from the centre of Warsaw, 40km from Jeziorki and 15km from Jakubowizna. My Jeziorki neighbours, Tomek and Ania, suggested a visit to Warka's market on a Saturday morning, and so we went on a beautifully sunny early-autumn day.

Now, in England, the notion of a 'farmers' market' is a recent phenomenon, in Poland it never went away. It's worth pointing out here that the proportion of Polish society classed as urban today (62%) is the same as British society a century and half ago (61.8% according to the 1871 census).

A brief linguistic digression; Polish has three words for market - rynek, targ and jarmark. [There's also the loanword, bazar, as there is in English and many other languages.] 'Rynek' is the physical location for a market, while 'targ' is the event itself, taking place once or twice a week. But then 'targowisko' is also the physical location for a market! Historically, one of the principal rights of a town was to decide for itself on which days the targ would take place. Jarmark (from the German jahrmarkt) was an annually-held fair of regional rather than just local importance.

The bi-weekly market on Warka's targowisko (32,000m²) on Wednesdays and Saturdays (6am-noon) has vastly outgrown the town's rynek, a mere 1,500m², and is situated in a large flat expanse of land below the escarpment, on the banks of the Pilica river.

Below: on the targowisko, behind it the escarpment of the Pilica, upon which stands the clock tower and water tank of the volunteer fire service. Beyond that, the old town square. Plenty of stands, tents, backs of vans, benches, people selling clothing, footwear, tools, fresh local farm produce, lumps of coal, furniture even. And lots of it.

Below - you can get an idea of the size of the targowisko by noting the clock tower on the distant horizon, and how far the picture above was taken from this one. By 10am the early rush has subsided and shopping is relaxed. The range of locally-produced food is far greater than in Chynów and cheaper than in Warsaw hypermarkets. A food-truck or three selling hot, local, ready-to-eat specialities would have been appreciated. Certainly worth another visit!

Below: the steps leading down the escarpment from the rear of the rynek towards the targowisko and the flood-plains of the Pilica.

Below: the north-west corner of the rynek. Tidied up significantly, there's now a fair number of cafes and eateries, the sign of a prospering community. The small shops are for local folk; unlike the targowisko, which attracts shoppers from all over the district, the rest of Warka's retail scene is limited.

Below: ulica Lotników links the rynek with what will soon be the new station, Warka Miasto. As I wrote here, Warka Miasto ('town') station will be just 700m away from the rynek; the present station, Warka, lies a kilometre further away (1.7km). This will make it far easier to visit the town by train in future.

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