Crossroads

This is a country of contrasts.

Today, we toured the Zamoyski palace in Kozlowka. To get there we drove through a number of villages. The contrasts are the new builds, with jaunty colours and unique designs, versus the screeching poverty of the old buildings with peeling paint and cracked windows. It's like the country is really trying to resurrect itself, but cannot quite get there yet.

It's like that with roads too. They are so plugged with cars, because cars have all of a sudden become affordable. So people are getting cars and going everywhere, but the infrastructure is not there. The roads are so narrow and traffic is atrocious.

I thoroughly enjoyed touring the palace. They showed us about six different rooms. The most amazing things were the heating fireplaces. Made out of porcelain tiles. This family was so exclusive and rich that they had things made to order, such as the designs of these fireplaces, and then they had the blueprints destroyed, so that they could not be repeated. They had a 500-year-old rosary on display. It was made out of agate and silver. Likewise, the dinner service was made about 300 years ago, but now they have no idea who made it, because the family did not want the mark of the craftsman on the dishes, so they just had their family crest on the bottom.

The Canadian connection with this place is that they emigrated to Canada after WWII and settled in the Montreal area. Neat.