The 21st European Gliding championship was taking place in Leszno during our stay there; Flemming and I wanted to see some of it, of course.
We arrived just before the take-offs were going to take place. Leszno is the only town which has hosted the World Gliding Championships 4 times (1958, 1968, 2003 and 2014).
There were teams from Denmark, and we came by to say hello and to wish them safe flying and victory. They kindly invited us to join them for dinner in the evening, or to just visit their camp site.
Flemming even knew one of the pilots:
The skies were quite dramatic that day, but it didn’t rain:
It was fascinating to watch how quicly the gliders were taken up by the towing airplanes. The cloud base was low with not much thermals, and many had to land back. That was also fascinating to watch, they were coming back very low (fighting till the very end). Every time we thought “will he make it to the airfield?”, and yes, they did:
Eventually we got enough of the competition, and made our way back to the town. In Poland, they often have market squares lined up with trees and restaurants. That was also the case in Leszo. The Leszno Town Hall was was residing in the middle of Rynek. It was built in 1639, but burned down 17 years later:
Raised from the rubble before 1660, it burned three more times later. Its reconstruction carried out in the 18th and 19th centuries. In its earlier years, there was prison in the basement.
We had a long walk in the town, looking at its charming old buildings, having a crepe in a cafe, just enjoyed the day.
The town’s unrecorded history dates back to the 13th century. It became a town in 1547.
The church of the Holy Cross:
Besides the usual umbrellas, the streets of Leszno had other interesting decorations, like crocheted garments:
For dinner, we went to Zielona Antresola restaurant, but this time we started from a deliscious cold beetroot soup:
My Sangria was terrible! I had two of them the day before, and it was excellent. Now probably a different person made it, who wanted to earn some extra money – there wasn’t even a trace of alcohol, and it was sour. I told the waitress, and the answer was “I will give this message to the kitchen”.
After trying to eat all the different pirogi we ordered (we didn’t succeed!), we became tempted by a special desert – warm raspberries in red wine. Served with ice cream on the side, it was very tasty:
A stroll around the central square after dinner; a phone box that didn’t work, but was kept there as a fun thing from the past:
We liked the lighting on the streets – it created a nice atmosphere:
Next morning Flemming and I were going to Germany. Our flying vacation was getting to its end…