The day was threatening rain and a couple of heavy showers rattled through as we got up, sorted ourselves out and had breakfast. Our friends helped us plan our route home, pointing us to the hills and mountains further south that we had been missing on this trip as well as trying to organise a visit to a bee keeper. The weather this summer has not been kind to the bees this year with low honey production and bees themselves struggling, so we were told it wasn’t possible. Hey ho.
So our friends decided to take us to Lodz instead to show us a couple of places and to visit her parents. So we jumped into their car for the hour journey as the sky got blacker and blacker. As we entered the outskirts, the heavens opened and basically stayed like that for the rest of the afternoon with scattered and very brief respites.
We arrived at the parents house as the rain became particularly heavy and the Pupster refused to get out of the car. She got unceremoniously pushed out as we were getting soaked. Inside Pupster met the family cat which was interesting as she hadn’t met a feline close up and she was intrigued. She did very well, but later wanted to play which didn’t impress the cat – she upset the cat further by eating its dinner, twice.
The mum had got cakes and gone a bit overboard – three large plates for five of us, but they were delicious and thoroughly enjoyed. She had also very kindly offered to do some laundry for us as we had only travelled with a week’s worth of clothing, planning to use a campsite’s laundry services.
We finally left for Lodz city centre, leaving the Pupster with mum (apparently Pupster just fell asleep). We parked up near the centre and walked around the corner which was originally the main industrial heartland of the town and now was in the middle of a big regeneration project. The Industrial Museum had been built around the old blast furnaces with the remnants being an integral part of the modern building. We had a fun hour or so wandering around and playing with the interactive displays and being in awe of the size of the original furnaces. Later on the way back to the car, we spotted one of the cooling towers, surrounded by the modern museum building – it was really well done.
As the museum was closing we headed next door to the Planetarium and booked for the 18:15 film show. We entered a large dome and got comfy in reclining seats to watch the solar system displayed on the curved ceiling – the first part was in Polish so we just had to guess (basically there’s more water on Jupiter’s moons than we have on Earth, so we’re not the only planet to exclusively have oceans) and then through headphones, we listened to the possibility that micro organisms from other planets started life on Earth. It was very interesting.
Feeling hungry, we found an Italian restaurant down a side street that had been recommended by a family relative. It was small, cosy and a bit quirky. With a menu sporting several languages, we ordered a nice meal and even mum joined us after her yoga class. (The dad had arrived back home to look after Pupster and the pair were snuggling up to each other apparently).
We headed back to the family home to retrieve the Pupster, meet dad briefly and collect our washing before driving back in the dark with drizzling rain. We were all tired.
Back at base, our canopy had collapsed (must of been quite windy) so we quickly set it back up (the poles had just toppled over) and connected the electric using our new connector which had arrived. Our fridge would survive! After a quick cuppa, we all headed to bed and quickly nodded off.
apathtosomewhere 