One important location in Chopin's correspondence, referred to many times, was Obrowo, belonging at that time to the House of Romocki-the family of Józefa, the future wife of Dominik Dziewanowski.

It is highly probable that around fifteen years after Fryderyk's summer holidays in Szafarnia, his sister Ludwika spent some time in Obrowo. The following appears in a letter she wrote to her brother in October 1842:

'My dearest Fryderyk,
A week ago today I returned from a three-month journey around the world; I spent two months in Ciechocinek, where the children were on a cure, and one at the home of the Romocki family, and I visited the whole Dziewanowski family, young and old. They speak warmly of you wherever I go. The benches you made in Szafarnia are no longer there, only imitations with pleasant memories of you.' [1]

The composer himself begins his account in the Kuryer Szafarski as follows:

'On the 20th inst. the harvest festival was held in Obrowo. The entire village gathered in front of the manor house was engaged in whole-hearted amusement, especially after vodka, and the girls sang out in a shrill voice, a semitone out'. [2]

The fourteen-year-old Chopin's stay in Obrowo certainly made a great impression on him. It is probably here that he first encountered the rural music of Dobrinland, listened to bands and ditties, and saw the regional dances. A year later, on 26 August 1825, in a letter to his parents written from Szafarnia, he gave an extensive and extremely colourful account of the harvest festival. From this we learn that the composer not only listened in on the merry-making that crowned the harvest, but took an active part: he played on the bass and even danced, which gave him a great deal of joy.

Preserved in Obrowo is the manor house where Fryderyk Chopin was a guest of Hieronim Romocki. The brick building was built around the turn of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and then slightly modified in 1898. Its first recorded owner was Jan Romocki (second half of the eighteenth century).

Today the house is the seat of the Communal Offices, the Registry Office, the Communal Council and the Enterprise Support Centre. Situated near the manor is a small park with old tree stand, including European ash, blue spruce and black locust.

Obrowo is situated in Toruń county, on both sides of the DK10 road.

Worth seeing in the area:

• Church of St Lawrence (with two rococo side altars from the second half of the eighteenth century) in Dobrzejewice
• parish church (with baroque font from the seventeenth century) in Osiek nad Wisłą
• parish church from 1848 and classicist manor house in Łążyn
• mansion and park in Zębowo
• nineteenth-century peasant cottages ('Dobrzynki')

[1] The correspondence of Fryderyk Chopin, ed. B. E. Sydow, 2 vol. (Warsaw, 1955), 70-71.
[2] K. Kobylańska, Fryderyk Chopin's correspondence with his family (Warsaw, 1972), 36.