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GRINDS OF MACHINES AND HISTORYa journey in search for the most interesting and innovating technical monuments

This time we would like to invite you to the land of Polish technology and show you some monuments which witnessed the rapid developing of the technical era and all the changes which it made along the history. Most of these structures stopped to call our attention many years ago, but to some of them one decided to say "thank you" and to transform them into the technical monuments. In many places in Poland you can find such Skansen museums in which there are old-fashioned machines and some technical installations placed there to show the visitors the old history and old methods of industrial working. Giving them a new tourism function has led to their re-birth and conversion from the world of dust, noise and very heavy work to the modern times in which they can be the real heroes with the opportunity to satisfy our curiosity about the past...

We can convince you that you do not have to be an expert to be fascinated by discovering the old spirit buried many years ago in the piles of steel, coal or the wooden logs... Remember that the description you will read below is only our proposal. There are many others, really interesting technical monuments in Poland which are ready to be discovered by you. It is enough to contact us and we can create a special industrial trail wherever you want especially for you!

Day 1. Wroclaw

This day we will meet each other in Wroclaw - a beautiful Polish city which is willingly visited by foreign tourists thanks to its interesting history and diversity of architectural monuments. But of course, you do not have to be afraid of too many people on your way, because we would like to propose to you a trail which is quite different than the typical tourist trails of the city. We would like to show you a capital of the Lower Silesia as a city of a "Big River", a place which was always strongly connected with Odra, its ports, sluices and hydroelectric plants. During the short walk through the city, the local guide, instead of showing you the overcrowded Main Market with its places of interests, will tell you something about the 19th century developing of the city and show you its extraordinary technical monuments such as an old water tower "Na Grobli", the only Polish inland steamship called "Nadbor" or many Wroclawian bridges outspreaded along the Odra River...

Day 2. Wroclaw- Wieliczka - Krakow

Today we will go to Krakow, but on our way we would like you to visit Wieliczka with its famous Salt Mine prescribed into the UNESCO World Heritage List and a small mining museum with an outstanding rock and mineral collection. After the meal in a real mining restaurant and a short break in a Krakow's hotel, we would like to invite you for a short evening walk around the Nowa Huta district. This place was constructed by communists after the Second World War as a separate industrial city and now is a real open-air museum of what is left here after the heavy steel industry, communist times and the socialistic history of the city...

Day 3. Krakow - Rabka - Krakow

Our proposal for the morning is to discover Krakow's industrial monuments. Let's take a walk during which you will see an old railway station of the city, an interesting brewery building established many years ago by the Gotz family, the theatre's power station, an old gas-plant, interesting tram depot and the famous Schindler factory among others. After the meal in an industrial part of Krakow created here as a new city by Austrians during the partitions of Poland, we would like to invite you to a short trip to Rabka, a small mountain city where you can find a unique Rolling Stock Heritage Park. In the evening you can witness the live music concert or theatre performance organized inside an old production hall of one of the Nowa Huta factories...

Day 4. Krakow - Lodz

Today we are going to visit Lodz - a 'Promised Land' of all 19th century rich manufacturers, a city which, thanks to the rapid development of a textile industry, converted from a small village into the second largest city in Poland (after Warsaw). Here we will visit a real industrial open air museum, 'Ksiezy Mlyn', together with its outstanding merchant palaces, factories, gardens and poor workers' houses and we will have a walk through the Piotrkowska street, a famous Lodz's promenade, with richly decorated villas made by the best artists in the time of its glory. In the evening we would like to propose to you a farewell supper inside the old manufacturer palace during which we would like to present to you a movie about the incredible history of Lodz made by A. Wajda based on the novel "Promised Land" written in 1899 by Polish Nobel Prize Winner Wladyslaw Reymont.