I arrived in Sandomierz on Thursday evening and headed straight to the dinner inaugurating the exporters' conference, which took up the whole of Friday (starting at 8:30am and ending late with another dinner). So to get a chance to see Sandomierz properly, I decided to spend my own money on a second night's stay and check it out on Saturday. This is exactly what I had done on my last visit, this time seven years ago. However, since then, Sandomierz has become a victim of its own success, and like Kraków, it is in danger of becoming over-touristed. Slow death by a million tourists, grazing, gawping, shuffling and being persuaded to part with their money by a thousand garish posters, banners, parasoled pavement tables, cider stalls, post-card stands and fridge-magnet displays.
So to avoid the crowds, which on this, the last weekend of the summer holidays, under cloudless skies, would be huge, I did this. I woke up with the sunrise (05:35), dressed quickly, and without breakfast, I went out to see Sandomierz while there was no one around. And what a visual treat that was.
Below: through the gate and into the old town. Passing through, was one of just three people that I observed over the hour that I was there. The morning light on old bricks and cobbles is beautiful, and the smells of dawn are magical. This is Brama Opatowska, the only one of the four town gates to have survived.
In summer, we're more accustomed to seeing the sun streaming in low between buildings in the evening, when the streets are full of merry throngs on their way to bars, cafes and restaurants. But now - no one at all. It's like wandering around an empty open-air museum.
Below: the old town square with nobody there. It's ten to seven in the morning.
Sandomierz's old town is located on top of an hilly outcrop some 45 metres high overlooking the Vistula. The building below is one overlooking the south-western slopes as they fall away toward a deep ravine. On the far distant horizon, the water meadows of the Vistula.
Below: a prospect towards the south-east - again, the Vistula visible on the horizon (and just about) the bridge linking the town's Zarzekowice district (which is where Sandomierz railway station is inconveniently located). To the left, the vicarage, to the right the cathedral walls.
One of those prospects that creates a double take - isn't this southern Europe? I'd posit that Sandomierz is one of the most northerly located town of southern Europe; climatically it's warm enough for viticulture, and the architecture, when lit by sunshine, isn't dour but joyous.
Although not designed by an Italian architect, like Zamość, 120km to the east, the layout of Sandomierz around the town hall and main square also brings the European south to mind.
Below: a very Tuscan prospect. From here I return to my hotel for breakfast (excellent!) heavily laced with coffee - then a short nap (hence the coffees!) from which I awake to take on the rest of the day.
Below: the Dominican church and convent, and its vineyard. Church and viticulture together - "fruit of the vine and work of human hands". Eight centuries of tradition. Photo taken in the early afternoon.
Climate change has made wine making a more commercially viable proposition for the Sandomierz region; there are now nine vineyards along the
local wine trail, one of which is Winnica Św. Jakuba shown above. But local wine-making is a still small scale enterprise (typically a couple of thousand bottles of a single type per year). Destined, however, to expand.
Below: Sandomierz castle, seen from the Vistula's water meadows below the old town. The tourist throng is to be found on the other side of the castle.
Left: two deep ravines run from the heights upon which the main part of Sandomierz stand down to the Vistula river. Note how green the scenery is for late summer. The electric tourist carts stop at the bottom, but few venture up here, preferring instead to buy ice cream and lemonade at the bottom.
Below: peak season, busy with tourists, Sandomierz's entrepreneurial citizens are busy selling
krówki (cream fudge),
cydr (cider sweetened with honey, with added cinnamon and cloves, and cut with lemonade), and all things themed
Ojciec Mateusz, the TV priest-detective series set in Sandomierz. I'd recommend that the local authorities clamp down on the more garish forms of advertising which try to outcompete one another with day-glo colours and shouty fonts. Not visible in any of my photos as my lens tries to avoid such things. They are quite at odds with the town's character.
Cars are banned from the old town, as they should be, but now there are more and more of these electric carts plying their trade around Sandomierz. I noted in 2016 the appearance of faux Model T Fords for taking tourists around the town. These have been joined by fake vintage Rolls-Royces and these things (below), styled after a late-1930s Chevrolet truck; it is quite out of place visually - the Model T Ford replicas are more fitting.
When I was last in Sandomierz in 2016, I was impressed at its progress in establishing its place on the tourist map of Poland. Plenty of new investment, refurbishment, sensitively carried out. However, I fear a tipping point has been reached. There are now so many ice-cream stands and small tourist-tat stalls competing for custom with shrill advertising that it all risks drowning out the visual charm of the old town.
Below: I thoroughly recommend the hotel in which I stayed, the Sarmata (***). As in 2016, I had one night paid for, the second I paid myself so I could extend my stay and see more of Sandomierz. In 2016 I paid 280zł (then worth £56) for a night, and complained about a poor breakfast. Seven years later, the hotel-night cost 270zł (£52 today) with an excellent breakfast - huge and healthy - lots of fresh fruit, grilled veg, poached eggs, big choice of cheese and cold cuts and fruit juices. And a beautiful hotel complex too, perfectly located for the old town.
So - take my tip, do as much sightseeing as possible around daybreak - before the crowds and the commerce take over. The qualia memories the remain will be that much stronger. And 23,500 paces, the result of two long strolls (and a shorter one back to the bus station).
Great photos. As for ‘Tuscan prospect’ - yes, one or two street scenes do remind me of the architecture of some buildings in the centre of Florence.
ReplyDeleteAlso, there’s a lot to be said for getting outside first thing in the morning on a summer’s day.
Pozdrowienia from Blighty.
@ Michał Karski
ReplyDeleteThanks for your kind comments! One thing is clear to me as I travel around Poland, north or south - POLAND IS EUROPE! Right in the historical and geographical European mainstream.
My best regards!
Didn’t prof Norman Davies call Poland the ‘serce Europy’?
ReplyDeleteCheers and all the best to you, too.