Early breakfast at 7 a.m. before taking off at 8 a.m. Flemming and I had a long flying day in front of us.
The first flight was going to Czech Republic – just at stopover in Hranice and refuelling. I had called the flying club in Hranice the day before. The person I spoke to was travelling abroad, but he kindly arranged someone to come to the airport and help us.
The typical Hungarian village on the photo below. On the left row you can see how long their houses were, due to the long and narrow housing land they had; we saw it in many places, and in other countries too. There is nothing good or bad about it, just different:
Crossing over Slovakia, we noticed some ruins in a forest – it was Katarínka, the ruin of St. Catherine’s Church that was once part of St. Catherine’s Monastery. The monastery, which used to belong to the Franciscan order, was established in 1618 at a place where, according to legends, St. Catherine of Alexandria had appeared to young nobleman, baron Ján Apponyi. He decided to lead the life of a hermit, but died after being forcibly taken home to his parents.
A project called Katarínka has been initiated to prevent the neglected monastery from further decay and destruction. It is intended for young volunteers and has a form of two-week summer camps held in medieval spirit.
Flying over the mountains landscapes is always so beautiful; we enjoyed those gorgeous view:
One or another monastery or a castle or both… There were many of them on our way:
We landed in Hranovice, and waited for our man to arrive. Flemming was happy we had sanwiched with us 🙂
After refuelling and a short break, we took off again. Our destination was Leszno in Poland:
Again, beautiful mountains landscapes:
There was European Gliding championship in Leszno, and we had agreed with the management of the flying club that we would land before the competition start. That was the reason for our early take-off from Fertőszentmiklós in Hungary. The gliders were laid down on the field in Leszno in their carriages:
We got a nice hangar place by the side of Wilga, famous Polish aeroplane from the 1960s:
Designed as a multi-purpose utility plane, around 1,000 were built. The owner told us many exciting stories about Wilga. There is an association of Wilga owners in Poland; they do fly-ins and other interesting activities.
A short taxi ride to the town, and we were standing by our new home – the grey building on the photo below, where we rented a two-room apartment with a terrace (front top):
Well, it showed up the apartment was just one room, and much smaller than advertised, where the property owners promised a one separate bedroom, one living room, one kitchen. They simply cheated, and I complained to Booking.com about the property. It was a pity, because the apartment was nice – but why promise so much more?
We also paid for breakfast included. Are you curious to learn what it was? One vaccuum-packed industrially-made small croissant per person, you needed to pick up in the morning in a box outside! We didn’t bother to take ours, so they were later taken by someone else. Insted, we walked 100 metres down the road and bought freshly baked ones.
The view from our terrace; it was a quiet street, the same as the rest of Leszno:
For dinner, we did a thorough research – Flemming and I didn’t want to end up in a disappointment again (as with the apartment). We went to Zielona Antresola (Green Mezzanine) that had good reviews.
They had excellent Sangria, and their pirogis (dumplings) were very tasty:
The only thing we didn’t like with pirogi – you would normally put raw meat stuffing inside and then cook them. In Zielona Antresola, the meat was pre-cooked – it takes a bit off the good taste.
Flemming and I otherwise loved the place, and booked a table for the next night. We could see, it was a popular restaurant and well-visited.
