Ostatni weekend byłem w Pszczynie

I haven't had time to write for a few days, or a week it seems. Last Saturday I went to Pszczyna, a town to the south-east of Gliwice. The town is extremely small, but it is known in these parts because it has a palace and huge park, both of which are worth visiting. I could tell that the place is accustomed to tourists because all of the signs in the park showing either directions or explaining various objects were written in Polish, English and German.

To approach the town from the train station, I had to walk through this tree-lined footpath in the middle of the street. I liked it. I felt it was a sort of natural equivalent of a red carpet, which is the sort of treatment to which I feel I'm entitled.



The palace was nice, but I visited at a bad time because the main facade and one of the sides were covered with extensive scaffolding due to current renovations. The scaffolding was in turn covered with advertisements, which was a shame. I could tell that it would be an impressive palace otherwise, and the two sides that were unadorned with this crap were nice.




The park in front of the palace contains a few old artifacts from the days when the palace contained dukes and things. There's an old teahouse, and icehouse (used to store ice, presumably unnecessary in winter), a gardner's cottage and a grave/tomb to the family of one of the duke's. The graves are probably more impressive in summer, or at least more visible. The memorial is mostly visible, but the individual gravestones are currently hibernating under about a kilometre of snow. These buildings were all constructed at least 100 years ago, mostly during the 19th century, but perhaps even in the late 18th century. I have photos of the explanations of each object, but I can't be bothered reading them now just to find the dates.

The gardner's cottage:


The teahouse:


The icehouse:


The grave/tomb/memorial thing, with the graves that you can't see:


Pszczyna is a nice town, it seemed friendly and relaxed, but very small. The population is only about 26,000 and it's so small that McDonald's doesn't regard it as big enough to warrant a restaurant. I know on one hand that's good, because it means that there isn't a McDonald's but on the other hand, it really means that the town must be very small.