lublin | kontynenty travel festival

 
Last week we visited the city of Lublin, in eastern Poland. It was our first time there, and we probably would have waited even longer with visiting this part of our country, if it wasn’t for one interesting festival. Surprisingly, not a music one (which we usually choose), but one dedicated to travels and travel literatutre.

Lublin

It is difficult to say a lot about a place after spending there only two days, so I can only tell you about our first impressions. Lublin – distant and unknown, turned out to be a pleasant city. Not too large, with some elegant streets, lots of green areas, and some interestingly modern places. They have also good ice cream, with just as long queues as those in Poznan 😉 . In fact, Lublin was much more interesting than I expected; even though it was not too big and we walked around the same areas a bouple of times, we still had a feeling that there are plenty of places to see, and that opposed to what it may seem, the city has its fun and lively face.

“Kontynenty” travel festival

It is quite possible, however, that we liked Lublin so much just because the festival. First of all it was held at the Centre for the Meeting of Cultures – a huge building with an amazing minimalist architecture, a place where I would go all the time, if I had it here in Poznań. We anjoyed the festival a lot, not only the presentations, but also the exhibition of incredible photos of Sebastião Salgado. Unfortunately some parts of the program overlapped with each other, so we couldn’t see it all, but those parts we’ve seen were still really exciting and inspiring.

During the first day we had a chance to listen to presentations about Chinese ethnic groups and villages, Norwegian Finnmark and cycling through both Americas, all held by Polish travellers and writers. The second day brough some “big names”: Wojciech Jagielski, Hugh Thomson and Paul Theroux.

I nearly missed this festival (I got to know about it only a week before) and if I did, I wouldn’t forgive myself. Paul Theroux’ travel books are truly my favourites, they are the ones that give me most inspiration to travel and explore the world. It was so amazing to meet him and to hear him speak about his life and experiences, I wish you all that you also have a chance to meet someone who you admire so much. And opposed to Theroux, I am not the best with words, so I’ll leave you with a couple more photos from the festival.