The country brought to a halt
by krystian_capulet on November 25, 2008
in students
If you are planning your visit to Poland, it shouldn’t be at the end of October or the first two days of November. There are All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day then. These days are one of the most important religious holidays in the Roman Catholic Church in Poland. Beside the uncertain weather, as a foreign tourist, you might find a lot of difficulties in a typical activities of daily life. If you are travelling by car or local transport you will find a lot of traffic jams, closed streets and diverted traffic on them. There might be also changes in the railway, city buses and coach timetables. On these days the statistics for road accidents are very high, so take care if you rent a car there – Polish roads are notorious for being dangerous. The atmosphere of these holidays is very momentous and full of reflection. Although cemeteries are lit with candles and people who visit the graves of deceased relatives, you have to be very carefull if you visit these places! There is a very high risk of being pickpocketed. Most of the tourist attractions and shopping centres are closed on these days. TV programmes bring memories of people who passed away. The main attraction seems to be prices of hotel accommodation. In my opinion visiting Poland at that time would be an interesting experience, but certainly not as the first trip to this beautiful country.
1st of November, All Saints’ Day, is one day in the whole year that Catholics and Orthodox celebrate. According to tradition, this day, and the one after, is spent visiting graves. People pray and bring flowers, especially chrysanthemum, candles and lanterns.
It’s a quiet and sad day, everyone looks solemn, because they think about members of their families and friends who passed away. However, it’s an occasion to meet relatives and friends as well. For a few years All Saints’ Day has been also an occasion to raise money for good cases and charities e.g. renovation of historical graves. Lots of famous people and actors are involved in this campaign.
About 60% of Poles have to travel to visit graves. A public survey results show that most of them cover distance between 20 to 100 km, but 5% travel over 300 km. As a result of this roads are full of cars, traffic jams, especially near cemeteries, and the statistic for road accidents jump. Pickpockets take advantage of the crowd and steal.
Despite of all the adverse circumstances Poles travel every year to their home towns, which they left to live in another place. 36% of Poles moved several times and 32% once. 31% say they have never moved.