Reading the latest issue of Lonely Planet magazine, I came across a short piece on the Esperanto Trail in Poland.

Ludwig Zamenhof, the creator of Esperanto, was born in the city of Bialystok, northeast Poland, and the newly launched Esperanto Trail visits aspects of his life including his birthplace. Some train timetables at Bialystok station are even written in Esperanto.

The trail is part of the wider Culture Trail, which includes Bialystock Esperanto Centre. Bialystock is a place where many different languages and cultures meet, and this may have influenced Zamenhof’s dream to create a ‘universal’ language.

This dream was never fulfilled – as evidenced by the Trail’s signage, which is in Polish, Esperanto and English.