My mother will be traveling with a group to Poland in the fall, but wants to break away for two days to see Bialystok where her mother grew up. She will be in Lublin and needs to travel to Bialystok and then see the town and areas.

So far looks like she could take a train from Lublin.

Does anyone know of a way to find a local guide who could a) offer transport from Lublin and b) take her through Bialystok?

Thanks!

Hi SS,

Can't help.

However, if a prospective guide thinks that Bialys were invented in Bialystock look for a better guide.

Have you googled the Chamber of Commerce or "tourist information"?

A few years ago, I tried to find a guide for a few towns in Western Poland and it was a problem. I went to Polsih travel agents, went on line to find English departments in Polish universities, and even went to Polish restaurants to ask if someone knew someonw who knew someonw. Maybe you will have better luck because of the location.

Ira:

So where were bialys invented?

Surely the whole point about Podlachia is that, pre-holocaust, it had an enormous number of Jewish-dominated stetls cheek by jowl with Christian-dominated villages in the area?

Jewish migrants from the area took bialystoker kuchen (as they called them in Yiddish) with them to New York, where their name got shortened to bialys. New Yorkers - insular as ever - kid themselves bialys were invented locally. But they do that with lots of things.

Did the Christian Podlachians take the same food with them to Chicago? Well, the Podlachians in the flannerclan brought something a bit like bialys (or rather the memory of how to make them, together with some unpronouceable Polish name for them) when they escaped the Nazis to join the RAF in Britain.

I'm not sure how much of America's Christan-Polish community comes from Podlachia - but the Liverpool flannerskis would be VERY pissed off if they thought someone was implying bialys were an American invention.

Jewish migrants from the area took bialystoker kuchen (as they called them in Yiddish) with them to New York, where their name got shortened to bialys. New Yorkers - insular as ever - kid themselves bialys were invented locally. But they do that with lots of things.

Where do you get this nonsense?

Hey Flan,

Don't believe everything you read at wikipedia. Whatever "bialystoker kuchen" might be, the small flat bread with a depression in the middle (usually partially filled with onions) comes from the Middle East - Syria, I think. They still make it there.