Pottery Shopping in Poland

It was a random four day weekend in November.  Usually, this means I plan a family trip to explore some remote part of this incredible world we are lucky enough to live in.  But this time B had to work on the Monday smack dab in the middle of our short vacation.  So, instead of a long holiday weekend, we took two separate trips.  The first I chronicled here (read it, it's worth the pictures alone).  It was a family weekend, full of fun and laughter and togetherness.  And it isn't a trip that I will soon forget.  But the second part, ah, the second part, that was all me.  Just for me.  Though I was taking the kids along so it couldn't be all about me.  And I was joined by one of my closest friends, who happens to be the mom of two of the girls closest friends...so who am I kidding?  This trip was not all about me.  It was all about fun and friends and adventure...with a bit of pottery shopping thrown in.

Bolesławiec, Poland.  Located just inside the Polish border (about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Prague) it is Polish Pottery central.  And if you don't know what Polish Pottery is, here is a link to the Wiki site.  Have a read and come back to me.  Ok - now you are in the know.  And you can see why I have been coveting a set of coffee mugs.  And perhaps a new set of cereal bowls.  Maybe some baking dishes.  And ornaments for the tree...And. And. And.  

I convinced my good friend H to accompany me on the quick overnight trip.  She has two children (ages 3 and 6), so we were going to be taking 4 children, aged 7 and under to shop for pottery.  Breakable pottery, all around.  Pottery that is just soooooo not interesting to shop for if you are under the age of 30.  This was sounding like a not so good idea.  But if you know me, I am always up for a challenge, and thankfully, so is H.

We packed our cars and headed out pretty early in the morning.  We wanted to get to Poland by lunch time because we had heard about the delicious Pirogi at the restaurant that resembled Snow Whites cottage. First bribe to make the kids more agreeable to shopping for pottery - take them to a fairy tale cottage, let them order pasta stuffed with potatoes, fried chicken and french fries.  Wash it down with some soda.

Bellies full (maybe too full) we went off in search of an ATM (we got a 15% discount for paying cash).  Zlotys in hand, we plugged in the address for Andy's shop into the GPS and prayed Svetlana (yep, that is her name) would get us there as she had a bit of trouble with the location of our hotel.  She must have decided that she liked Andy because we were there in no time.

Before heading in we gave the kids a quick talk stressing the importance of looking, but not touching; walking and not running; using inside voices and not shouting; and most importantly NOT picking anything up. 

It took them about 3 seconds before the first thing was picked up.  10 seconds before one of the kids was running, with pottery in hand, to show us something.  And about just as long before two of them were huddled in a corner picking through a basket of ornaments.  Obviously, they had not absorbed any of the rules.  Time for Plan B.

Plan B - put the kids in the vestibule outside of the showroom, but inside of the store.  Hand each one of them a cell phone loaded with games and let them have at it while H and I shopped furiously.

You could see how this would be tempting to run through and touch everything, right?

I found the mugs I wanted (2nd row in the picture above).  I had already decided before we left that I wanted 12, mismatched mugs.  That way if I ever broke one of them, it wouldn't be impossible to replace because I couldn't find the exact pattern.  I had also decided that I wanted them to be 1st quality, and that I would try to find as many UNIKAT as I could...

The 1 QLTY stamp means that it doesn't have any flaws.

The UNIKAT stamp means that the piece has been crafted by a master potter.  The artist has created the design from scratch and is the only one allowed to recreate it.  They also sign each of their pieces.  Accordingly they are the more rare, and expensive, of the pieces.

I did pick a 2nd quality piece from this lot.  The snowman plate on the bottom left.  It has the smallest of spots of thin paint underneath the glaze on his scarf so it is marked as 2nd and sold for about half of its original price.  On most of the pieces you can hardly see what their defect is so there are some great deals to be had here.

There are so many things to choose from and something for every holiday or occasion...

The girls were allowed to pick out their own ornament for the tree (MadHatter changed her mind about 20 times - and ended up with a heart instead of a snowman)

I never wavered in my decisions.  Part of my haul is shown below (I couldn't get it all in one frame)...

Thanks to this voucher from the hotel, we saved a bunch of Zloty!

The store packed it up and we packed the car - full of pottery and kids.  

Time taken to get to Poland - 3 hours.  Time to eat lunch - 1 hour.  Time to shop for the pottery we drove all the way to Poland for - 20 minutes.  Seems a bit lop sided but well worth it.

We could have dragged the kids to about 25 more shops.  But H and I are the type of people that go to the one with the best quality and largest selection and make our choices.  We did not need to shop around, compare prices and quality and patterns.  And we certainly did not need to drag 4 children around the city while doing it.  Do I wish we had seen some of the other shops now that we are home?  Nope, not even a bit.  I am thrilled with the pieces I brought home.  If I have time to get back there, without children, I will certainly visit some other places.  But I don't regret not doing it on this trip.

Our mission accomplished it was now time to let the kids have some fun.  Thankfully there was a school playground just across the street from our hotel.  We bundled everyone up and headed to the park with our snacks in hand.  And we lamented the fact that even though H had brought a bottle of wine, we had nothing to drink it out of, as we had no glasses.  Until about 20 minutes later when it dawned on us - I had just bought 12 mugs.  12 large mugs!  So we broke them in...

That's not coffee.

After 2 hours of park play, we walked over to dinner and once again ate until we were stuffed.  The meat pie was just that good.  We took a slow amble back to the hotel and settled in to sleep.

We packed up early, because there was really nothing left for us to see or do, and after a hearty breakfast, were back on the road.  And home before lunch.

What a fabulous way to spend 24 hours.  Friends, food, and shopping in another country!