“An extraordinary guy can never have an ordinary day” – Noel Gallagher.
It was a joy and pleasure to be invited to speak about my travels at the inaugural Siedem Stron Świata Festival in western Poland in June 2021. I would love to have written more about this, but times are busy, so here goes.
A Quirky Paradise: My Stay at Siedem Ogrodów in Łowicz Wałecki
Siedem stron świata translates as Seven corners of the world. This fits impeccably with my global whackpacking days of yore. In my time backpacking the globe I smuggled 188 countries into my backpack, didn’t get married, wrote 6 books and ended up in Poland. Along the way, I ran two main blogs, Don’t Stop Living and this one, Northern Irishman in Poland / Północny Irlandczyk W Polsce. None of any of that was planned. It is just the way that life happened. Here is the festival program.
Attending the Siedem Stron Świata Festival in Łowicz Wałecki, Western Poland
The scene was all set for this festival, which ran for three days from Friday 25th to Sunday 27th June 2021.
Attending the Siedem Stron Świata Festival in Łowicz Wałecki, Western Poland
To go hand in hand with my own wacaday travel preferences, this was in a village I had never been to before, Łowicz Wałecki . And on route to the festival, I’d also be in another settlement I hadn’t been to before, the town of Wałcz. I had time to tour some of Wałcz which I found pretty and a textbook Polish town. By no mean coincidence, these were also the first two new settlements that I backpacked through in 17 months.
Łowicz Wałecki -A Quirky Paradise: My Stay at Siedem Ogrodów in Łowicz Wałecki
On arrival at the Siedem Stron Świata Festival, I was shown to my room at the fantastically quirky resort, 7 Ogrodów. That means 7 Gardens and was as legendary and idyllic a venue to befit a festival of this nature. I already covered my stay there. It’s a countryside paradise drenched in nature and quirkiness.
A Quirky Paradise: My Stay at Siedem Ogrodów in Łowicz Wałecki
The entire weekend featured a mix of music, presentations, videos, travel speeches and of course mingling. Chatting and drinking. Sadly I was too busy to dedicate all three days to the festival and witness every event. But I did my best to enjoy it while I was there. I got to meet a few new people, including Patryk the organiser. I attended the Saturday night field festival with a DJ by a campfire, which rolled into Sunday morning.
Patryk, the organiser
I also met up with Polish global traveller Zbigniew Piotrowicz, who gave a speech about West Africa and Voodoo. Zbigniew also acted as the translator for my own speech.
Attending the Siedem Stron Świata Festival in Łowicz Wałecki, Western Poland
My speech was on the Sunday at 13.00 which was fine for me. But it also meant that I had to leave early, almost immediately at 14.00 to catch my train back to Warszawa.
Ready for my speech on the Sunday at the Siedem Stron Świata Festival in Łowicz Wałecki, Western Poland
I was really happy to be able to speak again and chat about my travels. I did a few travel speeches in Poland before, including these.
Northern Irish night presentation at Klub Dialogu, Warszawa
English travel presentations to High School children in Gdansk
English travel presentations to High School children in Gdansk
This one, the Siedem Stron Świata Festival in Łowicz Wałecki was for sure my favourite to date and I hope to attend a similar festival again soon. Here is where the festival was held:
https://www.facebook.com/7ogrodow/
Here are all the videos of the various presentations and performances during the weekend:
You can see my entire presentation from the Siedem Stron Świata Festival here:
Here is the speech from Zbigniew Piotrowicz about Voodoo and West Africa:
Here are some more of my videos from my time in Lowicz Walecki:
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