So we went to Roztocze region, which is at the south-east of Poland. We stayed near Zwierzyniec--small town next to also small but much more famous Szczebrzeszyn. Szczebrzeszyn is peculiar because it contains `sz' (twice) `cz' and `rz' sounds, which are extremely difficult to pronounce for foreigners. So Szczebrzeszyn is near-impossible to pronounce for strangers. There is also a short poem by Jan Brzechwa (for children so every Poles knows it) which starts from ``W Szczebrzeszynie chrząszcz brzmi w trzcinie'' (cf short video)

We arrived to Szczebrzeszyn about 18:00 and made a quick 1 hour tour. Then we went to Zwierzyniec or to be precise to Sochy--a village 3km away from Zwierzyniec. Next day we walked around Sochy/Zwierzyniec and went by car to another small town Józefów. In Wednesday we visited famous Nature reserve ``Cascades on Tanew River'' (cf https://roztocze.love/p4871) and similar reserve on river Sopot nearby. In Thursday we completed a kayak trip from Zwierzyniec do Szczebrzeszyn on river Wieprz. The best kayak trip ever.

In Friday we moved west to Sandomierz, a medium-sized city at the Vistula river (160 km from Cracow); It is an old town in the center of an interesting region. We stay there for two days. We returned home in Sunday about 18:00

Photo-track of our trip is here (or here) and the photos are available at my flickr account.

The weather was sunny and warm Monday--Friday and cloudy but (almost) no rain in Saturday. Perfect.

Museum of the Second World War (Muzeum II Wojny Światowej) was opened in March 2017 midst open dispute between the Museum director (a former director now) and deputy PM/culture minister Gliński. Officially the dispute concerns the political message (the government insists on more patriotic education and more attention to suffering and heroism of Poles/Poland while the former director wanted a more universal message of horrendous sufferings of all involved nations.)

While generally I agree with the line of the former director I do not like/recommend the museum at all. It is very, very poor. And it is poor as it lacks interesting exhibits---which is more than visible from the very beginning (cf. photos). Lot of empty rooms, or huge showcases with almost nothing inside or boring stuff (everyday objects: spoons, plates, bicycles etc...). Many replicas/models, very often ridiculously small (ship 30cm long or a tank even smaller). Some stuff not particularly relevant (replica of pre-war Warsaw street or drawings from children competition "How you imagine a war")

In my opinion for a person with a decent knowledge of the subject visiting the museum would be a pure waste of time (and money---less important as the tickets are pretty cheap).

It seems Charlie Hebdo massacre is a big surprise in France but what shock me even more is that the plain fact that France is at war with ISIS (cf French planes carry out air strikes on Isis targets in Iraq) was so efficiently obliterated from the awarness of the french populations, that the attack is met with naive incredulity and the reaction to it is so infantile.

The victims are presented now as defenders of freedom of speech which is not the case. They just produced stupid pictures, went to war with religion and (to their surprise) the religion retaliated. True free speach hero is (among many others) Norman Finkelstein who comments Charlie Hebdo massacre with the picture reprinted here.

Not very long ago, there was a lot of LGBT propaganda before Sochi Olympics Games related to alleged Putin's war with LGBT Russians. Opinion leader Stephen Fry's open letter to PM Cameron/IOC was a good example of hysteria created then.

IMHO the letter was extremely stupid (as stupid as its creator), namely Putin was compared to Hitler and LGBT Russians to Jews in the 3rd Reich (He is making scapegoats of gay people, just as Hitler did Jews).

Unfortunately Putin started a real war, not a war with some scapegoats.... And of course comparing 6 millions murdered Jews with `suffering gays' is pure and simple grave robbery (taniec na trumnach in Polish).

Fry's letter is here