One week in Poland is not enough...

My journey to Poland started quite stressfully when, while boarding on the plane, I was told that there was no space in the cabin for my hand luggage... I always travel with a decent amount of food as I know what kind of food is offered on board. I simply repacked everything to a plastic bag and an empty suitcase travelled in the hold ;) It was as easy as that. I just needed to ignore a cheeky comment from the steward asking me if I would be eating all that food during the flight. Well, it was certainly not his business how much I eat and when ;)
Happily, the rest of the flight was all right and I even met a new friend. He stayed behind in Poland with my mum:

Boo!

The first place that I visited with my mum was  Max Ice & Coffee. It was the beginning of a busy day and my mum was dying for a coffee. Unfortunately, this place doesn't have any plant milks to serve vegan coffee, so I ordered fruit tea. I was actually surprised that there were so many types of fruit in my glass.

Fruit tea

I have to admit that I like easy access to vegan food, especially when I am out for the whole day. I am spoiled ;)
Green Way is a health food place that can be found in every big shopping centre in my home town - Lodz. This particular one that we visited is in a big shopping centre, Manufaktura (near to my mum's flat). At Green Way, home-made, dinner-type meals are served with a delicious salad. We didn't try any soups, but portions are big enough that you don't really need a starter. Vegan quesadilla was not very spicy at all, so I enjoyed eating without burning my mouth. In a corner of the photo, you can see a glass of compote :) Real dinner indeed.
I have to mention that this is a vegetarian restaurant, but all meals are marked and it is easy to find a few vegan options in the menu.

Vegan quesadilla

Many tenement houses in the city centre don't look very neat, but thanks to street artists, they look more interesting.

Enormous Easter Egg on the square next to the Manufaktura shopping centre.

Easter Egg

And our second visit at Green Way. On Sunday, we were dining with my grandfather. He and my mum enjoyed their Mexican Goulash (vegetarian) and I had very interesting samosas. They looked like big dumplings :) Again, I loved the salad. I know they are just ordinary salads, but somehow they are hardly ever served in our vegan places in Glasgow. Here we tend to get more green, leafy type of salads.

Vegan Samosa

I was so excited about the dessert that I forgot to ask what kind of cake it was. Unfortunately, there was only one vegan cake option. In my opinion, it was prune or fig cake with a lot of oat. Very tasty and, I believe, healthy too ;)

Cake

My second visit to Max Ice & Coffee was all about ice cream ;) They have four types of sorbet and my first portion was chocolate sorbet. I was told that they are made without diary and eggs and I believed. If anyone has different info, I will be grateful.

Another day, my mum and I passed some sort of artistic installation placed in a wall of the building... I am still wondering if the yellow stars are connected with the EU ;)

Future - Present - Past

This is one of the tenement houses at Piotrkowska Street, one of the longest streets in Europe. It was the main point of the city before all the shopping centres were build.

Still on Piotrkowska... I believe that in the summer this small sculpture works as a fountain...

In the background of this photo you can see that the whole street is in a mess as the surface of the promenade is being replaced for new. Dust was everywhere and I am sure that many people avoid this place at the moment.

After long walk along the dusty street, my mum and I treated ourselves with vegan burgers at vegan pub Niebostan  (could be translated as 'heavenly'). This is not a restaurant and you can't order a full dinner, but burgers were enough for us :)

Bath tube sofa

This place is worth visiting not only because of the vegan food and quite good beer selection (we had a grapefruit beer from the local brewery). The interior design is very eye-catchy and unusual. A lot of upcycled chairs and sofas as you will see below.

Beetroot burger

Vegan burger

One of the owners of Niebostan, little Spinka, greets you at the door. She is a lovely wee dog, very social and well behaved. She makes sure that your burgers are the finest quality :)
 

Little Spinka

As mentioned before: some of the upcycled interior details...

Cutlery Coat Hangers

Supermarket trolley Chair

Second hand book shop

And the last photo from Niebostan :) I can share a secret with you, all of us posed for this photo. It went on Facebook to spread to the world the fact that the sunny terrace was all set and ready for guests. The weather was great.

The same day, later in the afternoon, I met my friend from uni and we decided to have a pizza for dinner. So we visited In Centro, one of the oldest pizzerias in Lodz.  Of course, in a 'normal' pizza place, you can forget about vegan cheese, so this is just vegetarian pizza without cheese. Still awesome and tasty though... Exactly as I remember it from my non-vegan time.

Vegetarian pizza without cheese, please! :)

Last day before my journey home, my mum and I treated ourselves with a banana latte, with soya milk of course ;) Apparently, Coffee Heaven is a part of Costa and they serve coffee with a plant milk, yay!

Banana Latte with soya milk

And here Banana Twins found in a local supermarket. Couldn't resist buying it ;)

It seems that would be everything. Doesn't look like a lot. I still have few places to visit during my next journey to my home town. There are definitely more veggie places to explore. Looks like Lodz might be a really vegan-friendly destination :)