A weekend in Ełk (Poland) - Beautiful lakeside getaway in Mazury!

This week on A Britain Poland I am in the city called Elk which is in the Missouri region. It's a lovely, let's say, lakeside town with quite a lot of, let's say, water sports activities. So I've spent a bit of time exploring the city. There's an interesting train museum but actually there are some nice parks, some nice kind of natural views. There is technically a castle sort of and all in all it's a very nice place. It's meant to be like the kind of capital of Missouri or so they say. So in this video I will be teaching you a bit about the history and showing you what there is to do here. So please stay tuned. Dzień dobry and welcome to A Britain Poland. This channel is going to bring you everything you need to know about Poland. I am exploring the country, bringing you the history, trying to tell you about the culture and show you what it is really like to live here. So feel free to check out my other media, Instagram, Facebook and I will share links to those in the comments. I also have a website www.britainpoland.com where I collate my videos for easy to view manner. Also you are welcome to contribute to my efforts through Patronite or Patreon and all descriptions are available below the video. I hope you enjoy today's video and please come back for more by subscribing, liking or commenting. Thank you very much. Do zobaczenia. So Elk has a population of about 60,000 people these days and it's located in northeast Poland in the Warmia, Missouri in the voyager ship. This is a rough idea of the main areas to visit when you're in the city and where I focus most of my attention. We're going to start on Lake Elk or Elskija which is the main attraction you could say. The lake itself is 3.82 square kilometers with an average depth of 15 meters though going as far down as 58.2 meters. It's divided into two distinct parts the northern small and the southern large by a narrow span by a bridge. Primarily fed by the Elk River from the southwest the lake discharges into Lake Sonowo at the northwest and Lake Szarek at the southwest and you will find a lot to do on this lake. This for example is a pier guard like a bar which serves some nice local beer. My phone decided to completely freeze up here and I was panicking as I was getting it working again because I was not done with taking videos. You have a beach, you have various water sports so you can rent kayaks, paddle boats, motor boats and you can have a nice little sail. You can go for a swim in certain parts of the lake so it's pretty cool. You go a little bit further along and you encounter this wall which is covered in these colored pebbles which apparently are donated by people from around the world or there's some kind of initiative there. But the key thing at the end of that wall is the observation tower which is not too bad a climb to the top and completely free to enter and you get a lovely view of the surrounding flats but also the lake itself so quite a notable place to go especially if you want to get some nice shots for your Instagram or just for your friends and family. The lake is also absolutely covered in hotels, restaurants and you know tourist shops basically and you have this procession of the various kings and queens of Poland in the form of these wooden statues which extend pretty much along the main area of the promenade. I think there was something like it felt like 20 or 30 of these things as well as various floral decorations just to make the lake look a lot nicer and you would see people doing an occasional bit of fishing. Actually we saw one young lad capture a fish. So we're going to go across to the castle in Elk and this is actually where the origin of the city began. The castle was constructed around 1396. It was originally wooden. It would be burned down by the Poles because it was a Teutonic castle so it was burned down by the Jagiellon and now is a bit of a ruin. It was rebuilt around 1459 with masonry and all the time the settlement was developed around the castle so the people of the local village would be responsible for maintaining the bridge to the castle, mowing the grounds, I guess growing the food and also as a kind of postal service as well. So that's pretty much the whole reason for Elk's existence in the beginning. This castle was basically a kind of borderland, a century point for the Teutonic Knights. So the history of Elk is quite mixed. So the original village I was talking about was probably destroyed around 1433. In 1454 it would join the Prussian confederation and then by proxy to the Kingdom of Poland and it changed many hands during the 13 Years War, ultimately becoming a fiefdom for Poland under Teutonic rule after the Peace of Torun. It was again occupied and then destroyed in 1639 during the Swedish Deluge and there was a pacification by Lithuanian forces after the Battle of Prostky. In 1701 it would join the Kingdom of Prussia. In 1871 it would go to Germany. In 1868 a railway connection was made with Konigsberg and in 1913 a narrow gauge railway was built. It was heavily damaged during World War I and there was a forced labor camp during World War II. German troops would withdraw before Russia came in or the Soviets came in in 1945 who looted, pillaged and destroyed 50 percent of the city and then it was resettled by displaced people from Grudno and Vilnius. After the war it became a place of industry with meat processing, fruit processing, electrical engineering, wood processing, clothing and of course the railway. But from 1989 its focus would become tourism and ecology. So you can see we're in the like the center of the city now. So the architecture is pretty beautiful. There are some wonderful tenement houses. It has quite a few very spectacular churches as well. I think this is the Church of the Sacred Heart of the Lord Jesus. This one is the Cathedral of Saint Aldebert, the Bishop and Martyr built in 1893. And it's quite a nice place to explore. So yeah the church is standard. This was a, I don't know if a reconstructed or a new church in process, but you can see there is definitely a very you know Christian sentiment going on in this particular city. Yeah a lot of churches. What can I say? Churches and interesting architecture. But I would also say it's kind of like a capital of culture for Missouri. So there are a lot of celebrating a lot of kind of achievements. There was this incredible statue of I think a kind of water nymph or something like that, that really stood out in the center. That's my friend Jan Berg running around in the background there. As a lot of Poland they really love John Paul II. And when we were heading to the train station on the way out, we actually ran into one of the longest kind of sort of murals I've seen in my life. And so this goes on for I don't know 20, 30 meters maybe longer. And it basically gives you a bit of a recount of the history of Elk and talks about let's say the the main sites of the city now. So if you're really interested, I've tried to focus on the English text so you can pause and read more at your heart's desire. I'm trying to think if I've already covered the water tower. I think maybe I skipped over the footage of that. But basically you should have seen this massive water tower, which is one of the attractions. And it was built in 1895 and fulfilled its function until the end of the 70s, supplying water to 80% of the inhabitants of Elk. And the building has a plastered first, second and fifth story, some of which were divided by Arcade Cornice. Oh actually, I jumped ahead of myself. So this is the water tower here. It is actually a museum as well called the Water Drop Museum, though the opening hours seem to be very specific. So I wasn't quite able to get inside, unfortunately. And apparently it has some connection to this group called Missouri, which is this kind of group of Germans who were still attached to this city. So behind the train station, which is a bit of a trek to get to at the moment because of the construction, you have the Museum of Elk. This particular carriage had a long video talking about its possible history, because this thing is like over 100 years old or something like that. And it was suggesting all of the places that may have been based on historical evidence, mainly pictures of this particular carriage that were drawn over time. And this functions as a railway museum. So if you are interested in trains, it's a very good place to go. It is also the location of the still functioning narrow gauge railway. And you can take a train, which I think leaves fairly early in the morning, probably around nine o'clock. You want to check it out yourself before you go if you're planning on taking it and book in advance, I would suggest. And that goes to a neighboring village. I forget the name of it specifically at the moment. And you also have a little bit of the local history. It's all in Polish, but the conservator of the museum was very, very interested. This is the train coming back from its long journey. But yes, the conservator of the museum was very interested to talk to me and talk about some of the local battles that happened in the area. And to, you know, try and bring the history a bit to life. So another wonderful feature about this place are the numerous parks that you will find. And they were very well kept and very stunning. So I think this is the Nicholas Copernicus Park. I'm not quite sure what connection Nicholas Copernicus had with this city. I know he was operating in this region, particularly as he was conservator of the castle at Olsztyn. There were some interesting benches in the park on the way to the lake with some curious monuments. And then you have the main park, the kind of city park, which is rather stunning, actually. So you have some impressive monuments, fountains, floral displays, and that rather cool amphitheater you can see there. So you can imagine that this is like a place of a lot of kind of cultural activity, wonderfully maintained and truly beautiful to behold. I always think that Poland looks so much better in the summer. And I wonder how a lot of these places survive in the winter. This place was, you could say, relatively quiet when we went, even though there was this big kind of music festival on the first night we arrived. But really, when I think about the various places I've been camping and things, Elk maybe doesn't have the best campsites, I'll be completely honest. But it was a very beautiful city to explore and we had a lot of fun on the lake. And there were a lot of beautiful sights. So I really do recommend this as a nice little tourist spot for a weekend. It's more a place to go and relax, you know, just kind of escape the main cities and just get out to a kind of very ecological and natural place. You know, you're not overburdened with a hundred museums to visit and you have, you know, a fair few restaurants that you can take part in. Visitor centre, there's maybe not an awful lot to do, but there are plenty of shops to keep you busy and parks to explore. So really, I'd say it's worth to give Elk a try. So thank you very much for watching. Do zobaczenia!