There’s one thing to do at Dworek w Kaputach, and that’s walk around the lake. You can circle it in about five minutes, but the truth is it always takes longer. No matter how many times you go around it, there’s always something that halts you in your tracks: five baby ducklings following their mother, or a bizarre wood carving peering from the flowerbeds.
Built in 1738 by a local nobleman, this rambling manor house has served time as both an orphanage and then a field hospital during the Warsaw Uprising. Today, it is the definition of pastoral calm. Sitting amid the chirping sounds of nature, it’s hard to believe that central Warsaw is under 20 clicks away. “I’m sure,” says my colleague, “we can get pizza delivered.” It’s something we consider. Kaputach’s website doesn’t do the best job of informing guests that there isn’t a restaurant, but the owner soon springs to our rescue. Within minutes the BBQ is fired up, and we’re dining like Gods on a small wooden pergola that sits on the lake. As we make inroads into a pyramid of beer cans, the food keeps arriving in big meaty heaps. The good life.
While the private cottages that fringe the gardens look like something Goldilocks would emerge out of, our accommodation is a bit more brown and basic. The rooms could do with a little more personalization, a little more nostalgia. Honestly though, that doesn’t really matter. Opting to see out the rest of the day in a downstairs fireplace room, we sit amid leather-bound books and chiming clocks. Outside, distant Baskervilles howl in the blackness. The feeling is one of contentment and escape. Big, bad Warsaw has never felt further.
(Text: Alex Webber | Photos: Ed Wight)
Dworek w Kaputach (dworekwkaputach.pl, rooms from zł. 200)
