Sunday, June 13 - Sierakowo and Zegocin

This is our checkout day at Sierakowo.  We have had a wonderful time and feel like we have learned so much.  Our hosts have been wonderful.  We told them we would take a short walk after breakfast and Weronika asked if we would like her to come along.  Of course we agreed and had a great walk.   As we walked along the road, Weronika and I talked about the flowers, discussing the names of them in the German, English, and Polish. 

She asked me about a small blue flower and I said it was a cornflower, like in German, then sang a few bars of a german drinking song, Kornblumen Blau.   Weronika joined right in and we sang a few other songs as well.  She was pretty impressed I knew German songs at all. 

After the walk, we checked out and hit the road.  It is only about 200 miles, but most of those are not freeway miles, so it took us most of the afternoon.  In addition, we skirted the only big town, Posnan, to avoid traffic.  In Jarocin, we got in the middle of soccer game day traffic.  We arrived in Zegocin, about 7 pm.  I had emailed ahead to ask for dinner that night, knowing that we would be in a very small town, probably without a restaurant.  I was right - not even really a cafe.   In Poland, the large meal is mid-day and dinner at night is often cold cuts.  Our hosts asked if we would like a warm meal and since we had had no lunch, we agreed.  We had cabbage rolls in tomato sauce and boiled eggs with mayonaise.  All of it was good. 

They explained that they always eat mayo with boiled eggs.  After dinner, the hosts invited us to take a walk with them and we did so.  They knew were are interested in relatives, and so they gave us quite a bit of history of the village, including a stop at the former manor house in the village.  Poland had serfdom much later than many other countries, so the people who lived in that home in the mid 1800's would have owned both the town and the people in it, including his relatives who may have lived in the village. 

Manor House Zegocin

Our hosts also pointed out the church and other older buildings that may have existed when his relatives lived in the village.  He also asked around to see if anyone in the village was familiar with the surnames Guzek, Nurska, or Nadolski.  He eventually found someone who said the names sounded familiar and he believed his family was related to those families, but his father, now deceased would have known. 

Anyway, a nice walk to end the day and the start of another leg of this adventure.