Tag: Katowice

With around three and a half hours before my flight from Katowice to London Luton, I thought I’d see how busy the lounge was. Fortunately I was flying on a non-Schengen flight departing from Terminal A, as the lounge at Terminal B has now stopped accepting Priority Pass. I hadn’t realised I had been to this lounge before, but it seems that I came here in 2019. I am a creature of habit sometimes.

There was a friendly welcome from the team member at the reception desk and it was evident that there weren’t any capacity issues as I was the only customer in the lounge. Indeed, that was the situation for nearly two more hours. That gave me a choice of seats, so I sat near the runway to look out. I’m easily pleased.

This was the limit of the food (other than for some yoghurts and sausage rolls) and the Caesar salad on the right didn’t look entirely fresh, but the Greek salad was entirely acceptable. And those jelly sweets on the left, let’s just say that the team member in the lounge had to refill those.

I was impressed at the beer fridge with five different local options from the Cieszyn brewery, which is the longest continually operated set-up in the country. I tried a couple of the beers and it’s a shame that more UK airports don’t offer a local beer, even if they can’t manage five of them.

This wasn’t a bad set-up, there was a decadent 9% beer, coffee, salad, sausages with insufficient pastry and jelly sweets. This pleased me…. And there were also plenty of power points in the lounge which was handy.

The facilities were a little limited with just one toilet, but when you’re the only person in the lounge, that proves to be less of a challenge. I’m not sure that it would be worth paying full price for, unless you wanted to drink several beers, but I found it a useful resting and working place for the few hours that I was in there.

During my week in the city, I managed by chance to see some of the celebrations marking 100 years since Katowice became part of an independent Poland. No longer would it be Kattowitz under German control, it would be part of what is now known as the Second Polish Republic. The Government has also created a new public holiday for 20 June, marking the Silesian Uprisings and the country’s President, Andrzej Duda, came to Katowice a few weeks ago to sign that into law. My photo is hardly ideal since there’s just lots of backs, but I understand there were some important military figures amongst that group, as well as the country’s Culture Secretary.

This was the formal parade on 20 June at the Silesian Insurgents’ Monument and I think this was more focused on marking the new public holiday. The pride in the city was evident and there was a large turnout of locals of all ages.

This photo was from the day before, and the focus on this was Katowice being 100 years as part of the independent Poland, or at least, that’s what I understand the arrangements were. I noted a brief history of all this in my Bytom post, but it was on 20 June 1922 that the Weimar Republic formally ceded the lands to Poland, with Polish troops moving in two days.

Stanisław Szeptycki (1867-1950), the leader of the Polish troops in Silesia, on his horse taking Katowice for the Polish on 22 June 1922.

I don’t know who they are, but those suited men came in Government cars which swept in, which added to the excitement of the event. Indeed, I was so excited I went to get a beer to help the Polish celebrate.

There were numerous musical performances taking place over the weekend, including also a gathering of Scouts. This made it challenging for the tram network (I mean that there’s a big performance space over the tracks, not the gathering of scouts), which crosses over this square.

There was then a parade of what appears to be of numerous uniformed services which I caught the tail end of.

Beautiful, a proud nation state.

The temperatures in Katowice were what I consider extreme, so these useful water cooling systems were handy for pedestrians in the area. I made several detours over the weekend to walk through this.

A little tank in the main square.

Residents wouldn’t have had any difficulty in finding a police officer during the weekend.

Anyway, I enjoyed visiting the city at this time. I like to think that those in Katowice 100 years ago would be proud of what it has become, still one of the most important cities in what is now the Third Polish Republic. I think it’s got a very positive future in front of it, and I wonder what it will look like in 2122, hopefully there will be plenty of craft beer bars then.

Well, I couldn’t not post about some random food and drink options I discovered during my week in Katowice. I have been to the city numerous times before, mostly pre-blog, hence why I tried to go to places I hadn’t visited before.

This little oasis of peace and calm is Coffee To Go, inside the Katowice railway station complex. They had power points, rather lovely coffee and friendly staff. It’s actually almost a little too grand an interior for a railway station, but it did work in creating a comfortable atmosphere.

Biała Małpa (white monkey) which confused me a little briefly, the right-hand side is a Mexican restaurant, but this is the left-hand side and the brewery bit. I went in the afternoon when it was quiet, and it’s a clean and comfortable environment. It’s quite large with an upstairs and also a large outside area.

Some excellent beers here, this is the Risfactor Coffee & Maple, from the formidable PINTA brewery which I’ve mentioned a few times as they’ve got their own bar in Warsaw.

Incidentally, that is a cardboard cut-out at the end of the bar. This is the TIPA TDH Cryo Pop, which the bar gave me as they didn’t have enough to serve it in the larger measure that I had asked for. I thought this was very generous, as they could have charged me for a smaller beer.

Either my regular readers might be able to guess where this is from the decor….

The Cukierni Sowa outlet in Katowice. And I’ve realised that I’ve forgotten, yet again, to go to their London outlet, despite my being in Ealing a few weeks ago. I will remember one day.

I thought I’d go to a beer shop, Bierland, which was highly recommended, and it was just slightly difficult to find in a housing estate, but the welcome was immediate and friendly. They had a couple of fridges, alongside this substantial collection of beers across numerous styles.

The friendly guy at the bar decided he wasn’t sure if my carrier bag from Lidl would be strong enough, so he gave me this instead for free.

That was a larger supply of beers that I had intended to get, but they were all rather delicious and decadent. Actually, I did well to manage to limit myself to these, there were more Funky Fluid beers that I could shake a stick at (not recommended with glass bottles actually) and numerous other Polish brewers.

Mr Fox Pub & Resto, where the service was once again impeccable and welcoming. I think the manager was surprised I wanted to sit inside in the air conditioned cold interior, rather where others were outside, but I had been overheated enough already in the Katowice sun.

It’s more common in Poland than the UK to be offered sauce with pizzas, but I think this should be made the law. It makes things much better, although the pizza was already delicious anyway.

The beer and pizza was £6, an indication of the value for money that is available across Poland. I might have mentioned before, I very much like Poland…..

There seems little point me mentioning again the friendly service in Poland as it’s nearly always brilliant, and this was no exception at Browariat Craft Beer Zone. There’s a music theme and they play from vinyl records to add to the character of the venue, although I was there for the range of beer which was exceptional and a little different as well, they’ve sourced some interesting beers from brewers across Europe.

The Coffee Stout from Pivovar Mazak, a Czech brewer.

Sometimes I order from bottles and am slightly disappointed when they pour the drink and chuck the bottle away. This is what I consider poor bar(wo)manship, the empty bottle should be presented with the glass, as it was here. The label was also presented to me facing forwards, an under-rated skill, I do note when the bar server presents the logo on the glass facing towards me. I’d better add that I don’t get annoyed if they don’t, it’s just a touch of professionalism that I do note. Unusually in craft beer terms (although the situation is getting better), this is a French beer and it’s from the interestingly named Piggy Brewing Company, with the beer being called Monstruous Fat Pig Stout Mexican Cake Edition, and very decadent it was too.

That selection will do for now, the prices in Katowice are lower than in other parts of Poland, so there are numerous restaurants, cafes and bars offering some excellent quality for very reasonable prices.

Another one of my random posts, I just thought that the wording here was a little different. It’s handy when Poles write graffiti in English, it gives me a chance to understand it.

There are some pockets of Katowice where buildings aren’t in great shape, and I include this here as the graffiti in the first photo is just visible on the extreme right of this photo. This building caused some excitement during the week when some bits fell off it (which I think everyone agrees isn’t ideal), with the fire brigade coming out to deal with the situation. I assume it was made safe, although the only evidence of their work is the taped off section.

Whilst I’m writing of graffiti and the like, there were no shortage of anti-Putin and anti-Russian messages across the city.

And some more street art, this is Wojciech Korfanty (1873-1939), briefly the Deputy Prime Minister of Poland during late 1923. He was heavily involved in the movement to get the area to become part of Poland and is a post-war national hero of the country.