I’m currently travelling Europe with my twin brother. We’ve spent the first three weeks in Poland with our mom visiting lots of family. My mom is heading back to Canada this weekend and we are continuing on and traveling through Austria, Slovenia, Portugal, Spain, France, England, Scotland, and Ireland! We are so excited to see more of this beautiful continent but we have loved our time here in Poland. We don’t have much family in Canada (my brothers and I are first generation Canadians) so it has been so fun to have time with more extended family than we can count. Make sure you follow along on Instagram (@michellekarst) for more photos and insights!

I am planning on doing a blog post at the end of every country so here is Poland. We have three more days here and then we are off to Austria! The first few photos are from Paris – we had a ten-hour layover there at the beginning of our trip!

PARIS

PADEREWEK (the little village in Poland where my mom’s aunt and uncle live on the family farm. We were here for a wedding and it was one of our favourite parts of Poland).

WARSAW (Here we went to the Warsaw Uprising Museum on the first day. If you get the chance, I would highly recommend it. It was so well done and informative. On the second day we went into old town Warsaw and walked around, enjoying some real hot chocolate!)

SMIGIEL (this is the town where my family had a home and mill before the war. After communism came we lost most of the land surrounding the house along with the mill but the house stayed in the family. After the aunt who lived in the house passed away, the house was given to a family that fosters kids. They were so fun and even though I got sick on day one, we enjoyed a beautiful bike ride through the country).

WROCLAW (This is my mother’s home town, her beloved Wroclaw as she always says. The town square here was my favourite, we had the best ice cream ever, and we got to go the top of a church tower to see a panoramic view of the entire city).

KRAKOW (We drove to Krakow and only spent one full day here but two nights so we managed to fit a lot in. The first evening we explored the town square and went to a museum under the square which held the ruins of 14th century Krakow. On day two we went on a tour of the Salt Mines in the morning and spent the rest of the day at Auschwitz learning more about history and remembering the people who died there).

More Wroclaw

Jelenia Gora (This is the mountain town where my grandparents have lived for years. My grandmother passed away three months ago but we have enjoyed exploring this beautiful place with my grandfather. The first photo is from the place where we had lunch on our first day. It was unreal).

BOGATYNIA (An hour out of Jelenia Gora, this was another highlight. We went to visit my mom’s favourite aunt and had a great time. We went to the spot where the Czech Republic, Germany, and Poland meet. SO cool to be in three places at once).

A special note about this sweet lady. She is my grandpa’s sister’s husband’s mother so technically not related to me but like a grandmother to everyone in the family. She told me not to take her photo but I did anyways because she is one of the most beautiful people I know. I could listen to her tell stories for hours and loved looking through her old photographs with her).