The Symposium was over, and it was the last morning in Poznań. I had a train to catch to Germany, but still a bit of Poland to sketch. I slept ok after getting back from the closing reception and the drink-and-draw that went on well after midnight, but still got up early to go out into the sunshine and finally draw that colourful row of chocolate-box buildings on the main Stary Rynek square. I drew fast and used my fountain pen; I didn’t have time to colour in there so did that later, but I drew a lot in a short amount of time. It was so nice out. There were still some sketchers about, and I even finally bumped into Joe Bean who I’d been trying to meet with for a few days. So many people at this symposium, it was hard to find everyone. I wonder how many others I didn’t get a chance to talk to this time. The little stalls in the arches were setting up, it would have been a really good day to just spend all day in the square sketching, but I was ready to move on from Poznań, interesting city though it was, Berlin was calling me. I did have time to do one more sketch below of a fountain I’d wanted to draw, which again I had to colour in later, but then I had to dash back to the hotel and get a cab to the train station.

Here are a couple more Poznań sketches, that I started but didn’t draw until later. Some graffiti I had spotted while about town, I really liked the two-headed cartoon pig. There’s the sign for Zabka, the little mini-market conveniently located everywhere, I missed that when I left. And below, I had really wanted to draw one of the nice manhole covers, these are the things I like to look out for in new cities. So that was my trip to Poland, a week in a very interesting country that had nice people, great architecture, good trains, convenient stores, fresh beer, good food, an attractive sounding language full of long words with frightening spelling. I’ll definitely be back to explore more some day, maybe I won’t leave 27 years in between trips this time.

And so, on to Berlin.