Post by Jaga on Aug 5, 2008 23:09:16 GMT -7
Szczawnica is really a beautiful place.If you would ever have a chance you could go to visit!
www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-08-05-polish-health-spa_N.htm
SZCZAWNICA ZDROJ, Poland — For more than 100 years, aristocrats and artists came to the mountain health resort of Szczawnica Zdroj in search of cures. Jewish rabbis walked in the park, arguing theological points with their students and sipping water from the mineral springs. Visitors included Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, one of the most celebrated Polish writers of all time.
But this idyllic retreat founded in 1820 was wiped out by World War II and subsequent decades of communism. The Soviet-backed communists seized Szczawnica Zdroj from its owner, Count Adam Stadnicki, and made the resort available primarily to their own apparatchiks and workers. And in the declining years of Moscow's influence, this picturesque clear-air haven in southern Poland, cradled in a valley between the Beskidy and Pieniny mountains, fell into disrepair.
Now, in democratic Poland, Stadnicki's heirs have regained from the state most of the resort's installations and — having pledged to invest some 10 million zlotys (US$4.5 million) by 2009 — are pushing ahead with intensive construction work to restore Szczawnica back to its prewar look and high-society charm. The spa remains open as renovations continue.
"Our family was here for almost 40 years and my grandfather has asked his inheritors to return here one day," said Krzysztof Mankowski, 30, a great-grandson of Count Stadnicki. "This is our heart, these are our family roots."
A Paris-born expert in construction, Mankowski represents more than 20 descendants of Count Stadnicki scattered from Belgium to South Africa, and is spearheading the renovation of the Swiss-style half-timber buildings around the resort's heart, the tiny Jozef Dietl square.
...
www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/2008-08-05-polish-health-spa_N.htm
SZCZAWNICA ZDROJ, Poland — For more than 100 years, aristocrats and artists came to the mountain health resort of Szczawnica Zdroj in search of cures. Jewish rabbis walked in the park, arguing theological points with their students and sipping water from the mineral springs. Visitors included Nobel laureate Henryk Sienkiewicz, one of the most celebrated Polish writers of all time.
But this idyllic retreat founded in 1820 was wiped out by World War II and subsequent decades of communism. The Soviet-backed communists seized Szczawnica Zdroj from its owner, Count Adam Stadnicki, and made the resort available primarily to their own apparatchiks and workers. And in the declining years of Moscow's influence, this picturesque clear-air haven in southern Poland, cradled in a valley between the Beskidy and Pieniny mountains, fell into disrepair.
Now, in democratic Poland, Stadnicki's heirs have regained from the state most of the resort's installations and — having pledged to invest some 10 million zlotys (US$4.5 million) by 2009 — are pushing ahead with intensive construction work to restore Szczawnica back to its prewar look and high-society charm. The spa remains open as renovations continue.
"Our family was here for almost 40 years and my grandfather has asked his inheritors to return here one day," said Krzysztof Mankowski, 30, a great-grandson of Count Stadnicki. "This is our heart, these are our family roots."
A Paris-born expert in construction, Mankowski represents more than 20 descendants of Count Stadnicki scattered from Belgium to South Africa, and is spearheading the renovation of the Swiss-style half-timber buildings around the resort's heart, the tiny Jozef Dietl square.
...