After several days of bustling around Krakow we headed off to the small village of Zalipie. Zalipie is a village of about 60 or 70 homes 100 kilometers east of Krakow.
Around 1900 some of the women in the village began to paint flowers on smudges on the outside of their homes caused by wood smoke. They used a paint made of powdered dye and milk.
This art spread from home to home in the village. The artists were mostly the women of the village. The flowers are not based on real flowers, but the imagination of the artist.
We joined a tour of several of the homes in the heart of the village. As we were parking for the tour we met up with a Polish/Dutch family who now lived in Switzerland. I heard the mom asking someone if it was ok to park where we were in Polish, after I heard her speaking English with her daughter. I asked her to translate the answer for me and she laughed and said yes it was ok. They were a very interesting family of polyglots. Mom was Polish, Dad was Dutch, the kids were going to school in Zurich which is a German speaking town, the daughter who was about 10 and spoke English with almost a perfect American accent to both parents. The son seemed to speak to his Dad in Dutch and his mother in English. Grandma was along for the trip and only spoke Polish, but was having a great time looking at the houses as it reminded her of her childhood.
The tour gave us access to the interior of three homes that were very beautifully painted. They also gave us an idea of a typical country home from the early 1900’s in Poland.
We visited the cultural center for the town. They are trying very hard to preserve the tradition in the village. A lot of the women who were doing the painting have passed away over the last 20 years. They are trying to develop a new generation of people to continue painting the homes.
Our last stop for the day was the local church. It was also well decorated with a flower theme.
We probably would not have found this village if we had not been forced to slow down in Krakow. So today we were glad we had to slow up.
