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Why Wroclaw dwarfs other bigger names

24th March 202524th March 2025 funtime65

And not just because we’ve pals on the ground and Click & Go are pitching it as here’s why Wroclaw dwarfs other bigger names.

The millennium-old Polish city on the border of Czechia and Ukraine came onto our radar.

When Asia, Wojtek and their sons arrived in Ireland at the same time as us.

Pierogi and vodka

Part of the great Polish diaspora during the Celtic Tiger when fares encouraged Poles to head to the Emerald Isle.

Now as well as being introduced to the joys of pierogi dumplings. and Polish vodka.

We learned too of Wrocław’s biggest calling card.. its dwarves.

Spelling it out

Long and short of it: Dwarves everywhere

As is the way with Eastern European societies behind the Iron Curtain people found innovative ways of opposing the system.

And so in Wroclaw activists started drawing dwarves on the walls where their graffiti had been painted over by the authorities.

With the Orange Alternative Movement organising a counter-culture response to brutalist Soviet red and star architecture.

By the time the Poles had sent the Russians homeward tae think again in the 90s there was no need for subterfuge.

The 500

And the Wrowclavians decided to build up a dwarf force of wee bronze people to replace The Red Army.

Starting with Papa Krasnal in 2001 which you do the math means next year will be the 25th anniversary of the first dwarf statue.

Artist Tomasz Moczek weighed in with five more in 2005 and now there are believed to be more than 500 in the town.

Including a prison dwarf, a selfie dwarf, a computer dwarf, a Martin Luther dwarf and even a dwarf orchestra.

Click on it

Our friends at Click & Go are offering us a package to Wroclaw from €269pps.

For three nights at the 4-star Scandic Wroclaw Hotel.

With flights from Dublin to Wroclaw.

Now you can try to find all the dwarves yourself.

But better sign up for a two-hour Wroclaw: Following the dwarfs tour at £29.79.

Wroclaw is not short of historical tours while it also runs an Auschwitz excursion and food and culinarily experiences.

Plenty of reasons there then why Wroclaw dwarfs other bigger names.

Africa, Asia, Countries, Culture, Europe, Ireland, UK

Holiday Snaps – let’s Moroccanroll

3rd October 20203rd October 2020 funtime65

And when you fall off the camel the best thing to do is get back on… only it’s a bike. But then when in Morocco…!

Morocco keeps coming up when I least expect it… and that’s just the beef tajine in the Atlas Mountains.

For many Morocco is Marrakech, the Punk City, and the Sahara Desert but there is much more.

The Moroccans are flagging up their mountain hiking, golf (and, yes, there is plenty of sand to find).

And lesser-celebrated towns Tangier (the capital), Rabat and Fez and the seaside resort of Dakhla.

Morocco is currently off the UK exempt list but when it returns (and it will) then join the half a million British visitors who go there every year.

Turkey shoot

Turk that: With Onur Gull of Turkish Airlines in Istanbul

The new strategy the UK government is applying to the exempt lust is now to ignore the stats even they apply.

Which is why Turkey is now off the list because the UK doesn’t trust the figures of infections they supply.

They are reporting 12.9 cases per 100,000, down from 14.2.

The British, of course have always been so reliable on reporting about Turkey.

Remember the ‘Turkish threat’, the invasion of people decamping in Europe and the EU, a key plank of the Brexiteers’ campaign for the referendum!!

Poland and three Caribbean islands have also been added… Bonaire, St Eustatius and Saba. But Barbados is free. Irie!

While Scotland has finally followed England’s lead and put.Madeira and the Azores back in the map.

By Hook or by crook

No witches overhead yet…. Hook lighthouse, Co. Wexford in Ireland

And Halloween being around the corner our holiday providers have been busy stirring the pot to find a magic potion to save Samhain.

Which is the traditional pagan name for the All Souls Festival.

Now I’m reminded of a tale I was told in Bowmore on the Inner Hebrides island of Islay of the circular church where the ‘divil had nowhere to hide.’

Bow I don’t know the angles at the Hook Lighthouse in Co. Wexford in Ireland but why not find out for yourself?

Spooky tours of the 800-year-old Hook Lighthouse will be on offer from October 29-31 from 6-8pm every half hour.

You will be met by a goos witch on every floor (and some surprises).

While there’s pumpkin painting (€7pp) and slate painting (€5pp) from 12pm-4pm in Saturday, September 31- Sunday, November.1.

Each session will be available to a maximum of six children. Book in advance (051) 397055.

MEET YOU ON THE ROAD

Countries, Europe

Holiday Snaps – Virgin insurance

29th August 202029th August 2020 funtime65

It figures that a Virgin would need the best insurance.

So it makes sense that Virgin Atlantic are insuring that we are covered with the best possible fallback if things go wrong when we’re away.

A subject that is very close to my heart as I consider whether to travel to countries which aren’t on the UK exempt list.

Virgin is offering an extension to your own travel insurance meaning that they’ll take care of the health and quarantine costs that could acre if you or one of your travelling companions fall ill during Coronavirus.

My fellow beardie is offering:

*Up to £500,000 necessary and emergency expenses incurred due to Coronavirus affecting your travel should you or your travelling companions be denied boarding or individually requested to quarantine in your destination. Then this free policy will cover many necessary additional costs.

a350_daley0000 — They’ve got your covered

*Repatriation, should it be medically necessary due to Coronavirus.

*Cover for your whole trip, with no upper limit on the length of your time away.

*Cover for all passengers with no restrictions on age, travel class or length of journey.

*No excess payable (unlike many traditional travel insurance policies).

Polish hero of Ireland’s Famine

There’s a game which the travellusty like to play which is more countries than your age… 20+ by 20, 30+ by 30 etc. And while I may look it, I’m not getting any younger and so I cheat.

Although it’s not quite cheating because I play the embassy game where if you set foot in an embassy you’re officially in that country.

So as an example in the last couple of years I’ve been to Georgia and Poland in the same day and spent the rest of the evening in Dublin.

Which isn’t the same as visiting these marvellous countries of course, but that treat awaits me.

For now, it’s the Son and Heir who visited Krakow in Poland for World Youth Day and paid homage to the Holocaust victims at Auschwitz, who has the knowledge in our family.

pexels-photo-3560362 — Cobble me a trip to Poland

All of which ramblings brings me to a shout-out for , a forgotten hero of the Great Irish Famine.

The National Museum of Ireland – Country Life at Turlough Park, Castlebar, Co. Mayo will host an exhibition about the humanitarian who helped more than 200,000 children during the Famine.

It was created by Nikola Sekowska-Moroney at the Polish Embassy. Go see it… and the good news is that it is going on tour around the country.

My Native American name

Now I’ve regaled you with my dealings with Native Americans – and promise you I will do so again, and again, and again.

I met Freckled Face and Eats No Meat in Denver and it got me thinking what my name might be, the first thing coming to mind Farts Like Thunder.

Names are important, what we call each other and it would be wrong to assume in these woke days that we are all oversensitive.

But if we just listen to each other we will get it right.

Which is what the Washington Redskins did and which Squaw Valley Alpine Meadows has done too by just talking to the Washoe Tribe, announcing that after the 2021 skiing season it will b known as something else.

What’s just as important here is and I have my good friend Catherine ‘Skis Like The Wind’ Murphy, the eminent award-winning ski writer’s recommendation here, the skiing is brilliant.

For anybody who saw me in Soll may I suggest my new Native American name ‘Bambi on the Piste’.

Taste of Aberdeen

Don’t shoot me but if it hadn’t been for The Scary One and Daddy’s Little Girl cooking my meals here in North Berwick, south of Edinburgh, I wouldn’t have eaten… or survived on just peanuts!

So I’m happy to blow the mothballs off my wallet so that they can avail of the 50% off deal for meals at the beginning of the week that is operating in the UK but runs out on Monday.

Had I not taken a certain fork in the road we could all be living in Aberdeen and I feel that life is driving me ever northwards to the Granite City.

So I’ve felt for them during their localised lockdowns and that they haven’t been able to avail of these deals.

The Chester Hotel though knows its patrons and are offering diners 50% off all food in their alfresco Gallery Experience on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays from September 1-16.