Luiza's Hometown: Bytow /bytuf/, Poland

Quick Intro

The place I grew up in is Bytow, a small town of roughly 15 000 inhabitants situated in the Kaszuby region in the North of Poland. Bytow received its municipal rights as far back as in 1346 and has continued celebrating this event ever since in the annual Days of Bytow (Dni Bytowa) festival. The celebration goes on for a couple of days in July and invariantly features numerous concerts of more or less well-known bands, shows by more or less funny Polish stand-up comedians and folk dance groups, as well as seemingly real-life tournaments of knights which take place in our gothic castle, the second biggest castle in Poland (anyone from Chojnice try to challenge me on this statement and you're doomed to fail!).

The Language

The majority language spoken in the Kashuby region is of course Polish. The linguistic situation is rendered more complex by the presence of an endangered language, Kashubian. The Kashubian language is present in the media through Kashubian shows on local TV and Kashubian newspapers. Moreover, several schools offer courses in Kashubian as electives. This setting, which undoubtedly fosters the development of local culture, is reinforced by favorable social perception of the Kashubian language. In fact, Kashubians take pride in their heritage and demonstrate it in a number of ways, for example, through contributing to Kashubian cookbooks, widely popular online, and various local blogs, as well as by giving their full support to the Kashubian Prime Minister in the Polish government. Yet, despite this seemingly general enthusiasm for local culture, the Kashubian language has sadly been dominated by Polish in almost all contexts, to the point where now it is officially classified as nearly extinct. Upon closer investigation, it transpires that few aficionados of the Kashubian culture speak the language, and the language is marginally present only in small, rural communities. Outside these communities, it is extremely rare to hear Kashubian spoken.
If you're interested, I encourage you to read more about Kashubian on the ethnologue ( Ethnologue on Kashubian ).

The Castle

The castle in Bytow was built on a hill by the Teutonic Knights in 1398-1405 and surrounded by a moat. Although the moat is no longer there, the quasi-gorge that remains was converted into a park. Just look how marvelous it all is:

Needless to say, the castle no longer constitutes a border fort. This doesn't mean, however, that public life ceased to revolve around it. In fact, the castle houses the public library, a Kashubian museum brimming with centuries-old exhibits of folk culture, a restaurant, a hotel, and a pub located in the depths of eerie dungeons. Even though the castle has been adapted to modern uses, it still manifests a connection with the Teutonic era, through the presence of a ghost. Indeed, it seems that no square building with symmetrical towers can flaunt the status of a castle without having a decent ghost haunting its walls. In the case of the castle in Bytow, a white ghost allegedly comes out at night, grabs loose bricks from the castle's walls and throws them into the moat. Interestingly, if you look hard enough you will see that parts of the walls are in fact chipped...

The outdoors

To those familiar with Kaszuby the name incites images of a picturesque landscape, dotted with clear lakes and swathed in lavish greenery. Bytow is, indeed, a perfect summer vacation destination for those who like the outdoors: there is a number of jogging and biking trails ranging from 2 to 8 km in length and leading through winding paths along rivers, lakes, swamps and elevated terrain. Since ecotourism is quite well developed in the area, urban professionals wishing to have a taste of agricultural life often come here to add a local flavor to their vacation.

Here are some pictures of me taking advantage of what Bytow has to offer:

My favorite lake Dabie, one of the myriad lakes in the region. I recommend it for the peace and quiet you get here, clear water, grassy beach, and Chata Pirata (Pirate's Den) barbeque. My dog Pikus, in turn, loved it for the generous tan-addicts who would always fall for his puppy eyes and share their snacks with him.

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