Polish Pottery in Krakow

I went to the post office this afternoon to collect these two boxes.

What ever could they be?

Inside was the Polish pottery I purchased and had shipped whilst on our trip last month!  I already owned several pieces of this pattern (mosquito) that I'd collected over the years.  My mother gave me 4 dinner plates and a large serving bowl, I'd bought quite a few pieces on eBay and through other online vendors and I'd pick up the occasional piece on different trips here and there.  Polish pottery is beautiful dinner and bake ware.  It resists chipping and you can take it from freezer to oven.  You can get it in the US as I've stated above (I'm told TJ Max and Marshall's even carries it in some places) but it is expensive to buy it here.  Just like I'd travel to Iceland and Estonia to buy local yarn, I'd readily travel to Poland again to buy Polish pottery.

This is the fabulous shop Mila at #14 Slawkowska street.  I'd done some research before we left and contacted this shop and they insure and ship to the USA with UPS.  The prices were cheaper than the pieces we'd seen in the shops nearer to the square and they had a vast selection of pieces limited to a few different pottery designs--including my mosquito.  This store is a factory outlet (the pottery is made in Boleslaweic almost 375 km away) and whatever you saw in the shop, they could also order for you in whatever pattern you wanted.  They also sold different porcelain lines of dishes.  The gal at the shop was the same who'd answered my email and was so wonderfully helpful.  As I've said after many trips, we should have taken a picture with her.  We were even going to be clever and pack boxes, bubble wrap and packing supplies to ship dishes ourselves but when I learned this shop shipped, we abandoned the idea.

I chose 8 dinner plates to round out the 4 I already owned for a set of 12 place settings.  I also picked out 12 bread/dessert plates, 12 bowls, and 4 cups and saucers.  I already owned 4 cups and saucers and Mom made a good point that I'll probably never ever use a full 12 at one time.  The shop girl tallied everything up and gave me a slight discount because I'd ordered so many pieces and I was thrilled with the price.  You'd pay 4-5 times as much for it here in the States.  Then she totted up the shipping price...and it was almost as much as the dishes. 

I nearly soiled myself.  I hadn't expected it to cost that much.  I don't know what I was expecting but not that.  And then I started kicking myself that why hadn't we brought the boxes to ship it ourselves?  I was this close to apologizing for wasting the shop girl's time and canceling the order but then my ever sensible mother stepped in.  She pointed out that I had practically 12 place settings worth of heavy stoneware dishes and the UPS shipping was insured and guaranteed.  If we idiots had brought our own boxes, we'd be lugging the pottery home on the packed trams only to pack it like amateurs and then haul it back to the post office for willy nilly shipping.  By paying for the shipping, I was guaranteed professional packing and if anything arrived broken, it would be replaced or I'd be credited that amount back.  And if I'd tried to amass 12 place settings in the US, I'd pay 4-5 times as much for the dishes and STILL have to pay for shipping.  I'd only be able to afford to get a few pieces at a time and it would take 10 years to get my set of dishes.  It was worth it to buy it all at once here and now in Poland!  Looking back, I am SO glad I did it this way!

I felt slightly like I'd kicked Mother Nature in the teeth today because of all the packing materials that were used to ship my dishes but absolutely everything arrived without the slightest scratch!  I recommend this shop to everyone!  And you can contact them and order directly from them if there is a particular item you want.  They were so accommodating!  I took a bag full of fun-sized Pearson's Salted Nut Roll candies with us on the trip because they are made in St. Paul and carried them with us and handed them out as a local thank you to people who helped us out along our way on this trip.  We gave some to the shop gal and she seemed genuinely tickled when we gave them to her.  I need to take a picture of the dishes with a Salted Nut Roll and a sign in Polish saying Thank You!  This shop was fabulous!

It is worth mentioning that there was another Polish pottery place directly across the street from Mila and we did go in and patronize them.  Here is a photo of their showroom--unfortunately I didn't write down the name of the shop but they are literally across the street.  They had almost the exact same prices and they also ship guaranteed to the US but I chose to use Mila because they had an extensive line of my mosquito.  This shop had many more patterns of pottery available but not as many different pieces in each pattern.  I bought my two platters here.  They did have baskets of large Polish pottery beads and I bought 4 to put on the ends of the chain extensions of my ceiling fans!  That was another idea of my domestic goddess mother.  Now that my pottery has arrived, I will be working on putting it in it's permanent home in the china cabinet.  I did some cleaning today and put away the fall decorations and put out a few Christmas items.  When I have the china cabinet and sideboard decked out in holiday trimmings, I will post pictures of them!