Which country is better SPAIN or POLAND

Same story around the entire world... and then they wonder why white people, asians, even latinos not to mention cops (including black ones) are extra cautious around them...

Spain is a beautiful country though. I'd probably take vacationing in Spain over Poland, but nonetheless Poland is and always will be the motherland...

Spain can`t be even compared to Poland. Poland never in its history harmed heritage of humanity. Never. Spain did and therefore deserve oblivion. How harmed? By burning 5000 ancient books of South American natives in the name of Christ. Books were about history of continent before Spaniards arrived. That was, is and will remain forever one of the greatest crimes ever committed against human kind.

Yet some seem to never learn (cough cough lyzko cough cough)

I love Spain beyond all reason but in many ways Poland is more interesting. One of the reasons I've stayed so long was just the pure fascination of seeing a civil society slow emerging from the communist wreckage, not a smooth or linear process at all but one that's still progressing despite PiS's dogged determination to recreate the PRL (down to being sucked into the Russian 'sphere of influence').

Spain was starting at a completely different place after the death of Franco (not really a true fascist at all but something else - his own creation) and has made progress too but is too intent on looking backwards. The last time I was there the soaps were still obsessing about the godammd civil war (they are still not over it at all...). Poland (or at least the younger generations) are moving on while young Spaniards are still fighting their grandparents' battles.

Maybe, I don't know enough about it to have an opinion.

Why were the camps built by Sikorski? Why did he think they were needed?


It is fascinating. I've been going over since 2001 and the transformation has been remarkable. A lot of positive. However, the attitudes if some of the younger folks has changed from previous generations. Some of it good, but some bad. The younger generation is much more arrogant and disrespectful. When I first visited I was impressed by how the youth treated their elders with respect. That is disappearing.

Closest I've come to Spain is reading Hemingway.

Another interesting thing about Spain is regional variation. A friend had been to the Costa del Sol (around Malaga) a few times and then went to Mallorca (Palma) and thought it seemed like a completely different country. Then he went to the Canaries and.... yep, different again.

Even leaving the regional languages aside, the architecture, dress, dialect of Spanish cuisine etc is all markedly different by place. Poland has variation but it's a lot more subtle and you have to know the country and language to perceive it, while in Spain you can't not notice how different the various regions are from each other.

Would be Spain better off when the regions would go separate if they are so different to each other (Basque)???

I mean....there are different regionalities (like Poland Germany has them galore) which add to the flavour of a still whole country... and then there are people who (sometimes) hate each others guts (English-Scots etc.) but are more or less for historical reasons pressed into the same borders, totally different people secretly (or openly) yearning for independence from each other....

Short answer: No.

Even the Catalan Independence movement was a mistake, those in charge never intended for things to get so far. For the leaders the idea was to use it to get leverage with the central government so they could get more money and power for themselves - then it got out of control and they're stuck trying to put the toothpaste back in the tube (subject of another thread).

Intense regionalism has always been part of Spanish reality, which is why every single region has a functioning independence movement (Valencia and the Balearics have their own separate from Catalonia's....) but there are unifying forces as well (which is why most of these movements are extremely marginal). Even the Basques haven't been serious about secession for years and years now and the Galicians have never really pushed for anything but a little more autonomy.

I don't fully understand what's going on with Scotland but it seems a little similar to the traditional Catalonia Madrid dynamic - I've almost never heard English people say a bad word about Scotland or Scottish people but this good will is met with puerile, reflexive hostility (without any real desire for independence which is back on the 'not gonna happen any time soon' burner)

I've been in places where the temperature is higher but nowhere _feels_ as hot as Andalucia to me. It's like the heat just.... pounds at you from all angles.

Catalonia is a province, Scotland is a country an a nation bonded by a union with England in a away that never addressed England's overwhelming numbers and economical power in fact Scotland become a tail that has to follow the dog - England.

I think there lays the reason for underlaying anti-English sentyment
. For not being treated like a fully fledged partner but an underlaying.
On the other hand it could be less about factual treatment but more about some complexes as in Poland and Literacina union even though their interests oft took precedence they still harbour resentyment or it is because nationalists in today Litwa don't understand their past? Questions.....

The Scotland/England relationship is complex. Despite being separate and distinct countries, there is a connection to England going back centuries due to the intermarriage of the Stuart and Tudor royal houses. The Stuart line were monarchs not only of Scotland but of England too for over a hundred years and spent quite a long time after that trying to retrieve the English throne.

Please keep to the topic, two pages of off topic have already been cleared from this thread