Each year on 22 September, the world celebrates Car-Free Day, and to mark the occasion, Koleje Mazowieckie offers free travel on its entire network. The provincial rail operator ran its normal Sunday service, and the chance to get to Łowicz and back without paying a grosz was appealing. Łowicz is on the Koleje Mazowieckie network but lies outside the province of Mazowsze; the limited-stop RE3 service from Warsaw to Płock makes the 77km journey from W-wa Zachodnia to Łowicz Główny in a mere 42 minutes. And today – for free. The double-deck train was on time in both directions but crammed; passengers had to scramble over piles of bikes in the vestibules to get to the seats.
And so – on to Łowicz. Below: first impressions of the town – the post office building between Łowicz Głowny station and the old town. Good to be here.
Below: the Piarist church of the Merciful Mother of God, Łowicz. A beautiful piece of baroque architecture from the mid-18th century. The Piarists (the Order of Poor Clerics Regular of the Mother of God of the Pious Schools, or Ordo Clericorum Regularium pauperum Matris Dei Scholarum Piarum) are a religious order of the Catholic Church dedicated to education, founded in 1617. Photographed in late afternoon as the Equinoxial sun starts creeping around to illuminate the western side of the church.
Below: the gorgeous interior. Music quite splendid too. The gilded angels, the silver clouds, the paintings, the marble, the statues, all designed to impress.
Baroque architecture was designed to appeals to the senses. This was the Counter-reformation at full blast. Protestantism eschewed decoration and song, its black-frocked pastors read and prayed in the vernacular in their bleak chapels. The Catholic Church, however, knew how to draw the crowds on a Sunday after a week's toil in the fields. An hour or so spent immersed the splendour and mystery of God was an attraction not to be missed. Incense and angelic voices, the architecture and rich visual treats drawing the spirit to a closer communion with the Numinous and Eternal.
Below: the Cathedral Basilica of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary and St. Nicholas, Łowicz. A neo-Gothic structure dating back to 1420, standing on the site of an earlier wooden church from 1100. Refurbished in the 17th century in the baroque style, it competes with the Piarists' church in terms of gorgeousness. Stunning in the sunlight.
Below: the interior of the cathedral, looking towards the southern nave. The high altar is around the corner and to the left. Magnificent.
Łowicz was home to the primates of Poland from Gniezno, who resided in the castle (now in ruins) to the north-west of the town centre, the cathedral served as their church.
Rich as the ecclesiastical history of Łowicz is, the town is probably best known for its folklore. In particular the colourful striped cloth used for costumes.
Left: a plate from the 1960 Encyklopedia Powszechna PWN (a copy of which can still be found in most Polish households today!) illustrating Polish folk costume (
stroje ludowe). Those from Łowicz on the right of the middle row. The town's influence on folk culture is out of all proportion to its size. [Incidentally, I'm thinking that Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa would have better been translated into English as the 'Polish Folk Republic'.]
Łowicz has an excellent local museum in the Old Market Square, opposite the cathedral. (Between the two is the Hotel Polonia, where Napoleon stopped to dine before setting of on his ill-fated invasion to Russia.)
The museum itself focuses on the folk culture and traditions, as well as putting the region into a broader historical context. There's a strong emphasis on the folk costumes themselves; the process of spinning linen into thread,weaving the thread into material and dying the material with vibrant colours.
There are several rooms dedicated to
naïve art from the region, with its own characteristic style. Best known are the
wycinanki, intricate, colourful cut-outs used to decorate items or as artworks in their own right. Seeing how time-consuming their production is makes a modern person realise just how attached we've become to our devices, how much easier, and less creative, the battle with boredom is these days.
In the gardens stands a skansen – a replica farmstead from the end of the 19th century, showing how rural people would have lived and worked at the time. Below: an 'izba' or room in which families would cook, eat, sleep and spin and weave. Note the decoration: cornflower-blue walls, wycinanki on the walls and beams, and a floral garland hanging from the ceiling.
Below: Polish consumers from whatever part of the country they're from will be familiar with the logo of OSM Łowicz, a dairy-produce company based in the town. The logo refers to the 'paski' or colourful stripes.
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