Peterstravels Leave nothing but footprints take nothing but photos and remember that souvenir is being carried for over 10000 miles!!

First impressions are always a little suspect but I was pleased to see that Poland is far more advanced than Estonia, Latvia, or Lithuania. The difference in the agricultural practices were evident as soon as I crossed the border, crops and animal all look if far better condition. The grain being grown here looks as good as at home and the grass fields look to be seeded with modern varieties of grass with fewer weed species in evidence. The field size is bigger and cows are in herds rather than the one ones and twos I have been looking at for the last few weeks. As a whole the whole place looks much better kept! There are of course the small units around but they are few and far between. Housing also seems to be better here, even right on the outskirts of the towns and cities the Old concrete blocks have had work done on them. They might need a coat of paint but most as sporting UPVC windows and seem to have had an insulation job done on the outside. I arrived in a town called Augustus in the far East of the country, Having only a small Zloty’s I needed a bank and as it happened there was a Santander Bank right in the middle of the town, I parked the van and walked to it with my bank card and some Euro’s to change. On the door was a notice in both Polish and England and it said, “We do not offer a currency exchange facility. We do not have an ATM and we do not handle any business from other countries even from other Santander banks. Have a nice day” So it’s nice to see that Santander uses the same customer service ideas here as in the UK!