Mindat Crystal Days Meeting Lwówek Śląski 2013

Thursday 11th July

Friday 12th July

Saturday 13th July

Sunday 14th July

Following on from our most successful 1st International Mindat.org Conference in Lwówek Śląski in 2011, we decided it was time to return to the town and their fabulous festival (See here here and here Crystal Days is an annual festival held in the picturesque Polish town of Lwówek Śląski, with an outside mineral show, town fair, mineral exhibitions, and a stage featuring live music and entertainment.We arrived on Wednesday in time to see preparations for the event well under way.During the daytime, several of us went over the border to visit the Terra Mineralia mineral museum in Freiberg, near Dresden, but this was not an official part of the programme and I'll write about that in a different report.The official part of the Mindat Crystal Days Meeting started in the evening with a reception inside the famous Town Hall.We moved to the Hall of Culture on Friday morning to watch four presentations:John Veeveart talked about Benitoite from the Benitoite Gem Mine, California Malcolm Southwood talked about the Tsumeb mine, Namibia Mark Mauthner talked about Yukon's Silver Trail.And, finally, Łukasz Kruszewski gave a presentation about minerals from burning coal dumps.After lunch, we went to the town center to wait for the official opening ceremony. Luckily the rain stopped just in time.In the evening, we gathered for a coach ride for a very special party.We arrive at the home of the 'Valonians', an impressive mountain hideaway called Chata Walońska (or 'House of the Valonians). We enter and await.We went downstairs into an underground chamber. One part surrounded an open fire, another part held their museum of cheap wine.Saturday morning meant a 7am start on the coach to get to our first collecting destination - Strzegom.A short coach ride later and we were at our second locality, the Wekom II quarry We then took the coach into Strzegom town center, where a couple of local dealers were waiting for us with local specimens for sale.After lunch we returned to the Crystal Days festival, and had time to look around.Inside the town hall, an exhibition has been put on of copper minerals. This will run for 100 days.In the evening we joined a party in the local sports hall (our conference venue in 2011) along with the exhibitors from the mineral show and others from the polish mineral collecting community.Our last field trip was to a local agate collecting area.In the evening the dealers packed up and the town started to fill very quickly with people as the evening concert started.Of course, people weren't hanging around to listen to me. They were waiting for the finale, the grand laser show. Previous Crystal Days festivals have culminated in fantastic firework displays, but concerns over possible damage to buildings in the town lead to a change of plan this year - but it was still extremely impressive.John Veevaert took this video of the laser show:After the show ends, at 11.30, we returned to the Town Hall for the after-show party.As before, the hospitality of Lwówek Śląski and everyone involved in the Crystal Days festival has been incredible. We cannot thank them enough. Special thanks must, of course, to go Tomasz Praszkier - Mindat manager, mineral dealer, show organizer, mineral article and book author, who somehow found time to arrange everything for us. Thank you, Tom! Your tremendous efforts are, as always, very appreciated!We enjoyed this event so much that we're planning to make this anCome join us in July 2014 at the Crystal Days festival weekend for more great times!