Poznan Trip with Kids - Poland weekend trip | The Family Without Borders

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Chill out in Poznan: A Trip with Kids

Weekend trip with kids to Poznan (Poland)

Once I fell in love, in Poznan. But it was long long time ago and it’s not very much connected with our family travelling ;) It was time to come back to this Polish city, in four. And now I fell in love with Poznan itself.

Poznan Old Town

There are cities, where old towns are totally forgotten. Or those, where at the old town you can meet only the tourists. Poznan is different: the Old Town and the Old Market Square are so lively and sweet! A bit of sun and you feel really like in some fairytale.

Old houses and courtyeards – we were walking for ours just there and back, waiting for the noon. Why the noon? Because at every day at 12.00 o’clock there is this thing going on on the Town Hall. Two goats go out of the windows, meet at the the clock tower and clash their horns.

– Mummy, mummy! It’s like saying hello „Kia Ora“ by Maori peoples in new Zealand! – said Hanna, watching the goats. I can bet that she is the first 5-year-old girl in the world, doing such a comparison!

For us the Poznan Old Town was a place of thousands of meetings. With a photographer, who wanted to make a portrait of us for her project. With Ukrainian travel bloggers, who wanted to ask us few questions about our work. With a friendly guy from City of Poznan, who wanted to show us around. With a local TV from Poznan. And with 3 of our readers, totally by accident! It felt so homey.

Huge and natural Zoo

And because walking in the city itself with the kids is fun but just for some hours, we really enjoyed our Poznan Zoo walk afterwards. I think it’s the nicest zoo I have ever visited. Huge and more like a park or even forest, than a zoo. With a big lake in the middle, you can walk for hours. The animals have huge space to run around: bears or tigers for example are in the real forest, if you are lucky you can watch them from a platform. Big fun for four of us was also a ropes-park, closed at that time but we just crossed the little fence ;)

Busy and exciting Castle

Because of the TV interview we ended up in the Imperial Castle (called by everyone just „Zamek“, which means the castle). It is rather a palace, neo-romanesque style, constructed under the German rule in 1910. A huge building with 585 rooms (now there is a museum but also a cinema room, art gallery, puppet theatre, pubs and music clubs). Our totally favourite one was a bookstore with amazing books, including the kids’ one. We all have got lost, Tom reading the books in Polish to the girls even ;)

The courtyard of the Castle seems to be a place of outdoor concerts and movie performances.

Cool interactive Porta Posnania

The other place we have totally got lost in was Porta Posnania (Brama Poznania). It is not a museum. Because there is no artifacts and you can touch anything you wish. It’s a complex of a modern building, bridge over the river and restored Cathedral Lock, which was a part of Prussian fortifications system in the past. It is situated in the oldest part of the city and tells the story about the region by interactive expositions. And inspires.

The visitors are led by audio guides: different ones for the adults and the kids. You walk through the buildings and floors together, but the voice in your headphones gives you other tasks. Kids have to look for things, run, discover. Parents can listen to longer stories. What a perfect solution!

There is also whole-family-fun, like making a picture of yourself and dressing up by different history figures. Everything is so nicely done, really. The wooden exhibition of the old settlement, which you can watch „from inside“, by putting your head into a glass copula. – Mummy! – this one it was Mila. – Those little houses and animals in front of them look like in our village in Vanuatu!! – she commented the 10th-century Polish settlement ;)

Yummy Rogale

Polish Croissants Museum in Poznan: Rogale swietomarcinskie (St. Martin's Croissants) - Poznan with Kids
Polish Croissants Museum in Poznan

The sweet break one can make in this sweet city is… Poznan Croissant Museum (Rogalowe Muzeum Poznania). Poznan is known from them: very delicious old tradition of Rogal Swietomarcinski (the croissant of St Martin). Again, it’s not a real museum. You can just take an active part in the process of preparations. I had no idea that it might be so interesting for our girls. The chief, gives – between our together preparing the dough and the filling – little stories about Poznan, the special language there and croissants itself. For example: on 11th Nov, at the St. Martin day, only people in Poznan eat 1 million of those croissants! Crazy, isn’t it?

All of it happens in one of the oldest houses on the Market Square, with 600-year-old walls and 500-year-old celling. Highly recommended 30 min! Especially the end: eating up your self-made croissant together with coffee. Ah Poznan, we wanna come back!

PS 1. You can watch the TV thingy done during our stay in Poznan, in English : Wielkopolska Telewizja Kablowa: „We love Poznan“

PS 2. Our travel costs and accomodation were covered by the City of Poznan. Thank you!


Our first book is out!

We have published our first book (for now just in Polish:) about our Central America Trip.
See, read and order here »

9 Comments

  • Posted March 20, 2015 at 02:03 | Permalink

    Moja siostra mieszkala w Poznaniu. Odwiedzilam ja pare razy i, musze przyznac, bardzo mi sie tam podobalo. To chyba jedno z niewielu miast w Polsce, gdzie moglabym mieszkac.

    Reply
    • Anna Alboth
      Posted March 23, 2015 at 14:34 | Permalink

      Jest naprawdę zaskakująco fajnie: na luzie, ale ciekawie. Bardzo polecamy! (i my tez wrócimy)

      Reply
      • Jacek
        Posted March 24, 2015 at 09:13 | Permalink

        Wracajcie! ;)

        Reply
      • Ewka
        Posted March 28, 2015 at 10:15 | Permalink

        wracajcie i wpadnijcie do nas na ogródek! ;)

        Reply
  • Jacek
    Posted March 20, 2015 at 09:29 | Permalink

    Bardzo miło przeczytać taki fajny artykuł o swoim mieście! :)

    Reply
    • Anna Alboth
      Posted March 23, 2015 at 14:35 | Permalink

      Musimy chyba więcej po Polsce pojezdzić! (skoro większość naszych czytelników jest z Polski i lubią czytać o swoich miastach :))

      Reply
      • Jacek
        Posted March 24, 2015 at 09:13 | Permalink

        Wydaje mi się, że nie tylko o swoich ;) Tzn. jak czytasz o swoim mieście, to czujesz się z niego dumna, a jak czytasz o innych polskich miastach, to kurcze chcesz tam pojechać ;)

        Reply
  • Posted April 1, 2015 at 10:56 | Permalink

    Cieszę się, że społeczność międzynarodowa może poczytać o polskich zakątkach. Mamy wiele do zaoferowania i pokazania. Let’s visit Poland :)

    Reply
  • Magda
    Posted July 20, 2015 at 17:31 | Permalink

    Hi, my name is Magda and I’m currently working on my MA thesis at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, Poland. For the purpose of my MA paper I invite you to take part in a short questionnaire regarding the translation of Polish place names in travel guides. I would like to include your answers in my dissertation. Note that the questionnaire is annonymous, takes approximately 5 minutes and is targeted at non-Polish speakers. Thanks in advance and enjoy ;)

    https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1sd3LZrJVOcOeuCakMj2ca37aohL9czvgtdLQ9v1WpPQ/viewform

    Reply

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