Top social media specialists in sustainable tourism and slow food representing the Benelux spent a September weekend in Kaszuby (Kashubia).

Benelux bloggers visiting Pomorze (Pomerania) were collecting materials for an action that Polish Tourism Organisation (Polska Organizacja Turystyczna - POT) is conducting to promote the advantages of sustainable tourism, slow tourism and Polish eco-friendly foods. The weekend tour of Kaszuby involved blogger Paulina on the Road and filmmaker Kostas Deko from Luxembourg and Meer Smaak food and travel bloggers from Belgium. The Pomeranian Regional Tourist Organisation arranged the programme of their stay.

The region of Kaszuby is the perfect option for everyone who prefers their leisure in the surroundings of a natural environment and with preserved local colour of traditional culture. Travellers who grew weary of the daily hustle and bustle and have enough of meals served in fast food outlets, an essential ingredient of living in a hurry, can relish regional slow food cuisine, which maintains its traditional one-of-a-kind flavour and quality characteristic for crop cultivation and animal husbandry fit for the local ecosystem.

An item on the agenda of the bloggers’ tour of Kaszuby involved a visit to Lawendowa Osada. Barbara and Bartosz Idczak, owners of the agritourist farmstead, won Polish Tourism Organisation’s competition “There is no place like the countryside - 12 good practices of rural tourism”. Lawendowa Osada and its educational homestead are located in Przywidz in Pomorskie voivodeship. The couple behind the venue skilfully combined ecological lavender growing with a wide range of educational workshops related to the plant’s cultivation and usage, as well as operating a relaxation and rehabilitation centre. More than 20 lavender species with different flower and leaf colours are grown here. Lavender is cultivated in an eco-friendly manner, with no artificial fertilizers and pesticides. As a result, it can be applied in foods, cosmetics and many other products.

Five bloggers also visited the Wdzydze Kiszewskie skansen (open-air museum), where they learnt the art of making colourful tissue paper flower bouquets, baked eco-friendly bread with Karola Bober in Osada Kaszubska, and made clay pots in the Zielony Kot farmstead in Lipusz. Guests from the Benelux took delight in the diversity of Polish cuisine in Przywidz, where in the Zielona Brama centre they had a chance to taste delicious goose meat and appreciate carefully chosen and prepared vegetables, ripening in the sun and then seasoned with herbs. A tasting session of local beer was held in Stary Browar in Kościerzyna. The weekend programme culminated in a presentation of the highlights of Gdańsk and Sopot.

The bloggers left Pomerania in good mood and with comprehensive material at their disposal. The latter will be applied for the purposes of the trip’s social media coverage. It is worth noting that this particular subject matter is receiving an increasingly positive reception among slow tourism fans in the Benelux.