Here’s sand in your eye: 38.3 kilometres away, smack between Katowice and Kraków, lies Pustynia Błędowska - a bonafide, genuine, centuries-old desert. The largest sand-pitch in Central Europe covers an area of 32 square kilometres, about 9km long and 4km wide, between Klucze, Chechło and Błędów. Like all strange geographic phenomena, the sand was purportedly dumped by a migrating glacier – at which point the wasteland was considerably larger. With 150 square metre origins, the desert had shrivelled to 80 metres at the beginning of the 19th century. In the 70s, as an accidental consequence of mining in the area (coal, zinc, silver), the desert appeared primed to expand again and the near-sighted government put the kibosh on it. Fearing encroachment into neighbouring farmlands, a programme of forestation was undertaken and today the wasteland finds itself disappearing even more rapidly, strangled by the pine and willow trees that were planted around it. If left unchecked, the desert could shrink to the size of a sandbox or vanish altogether like some sort of mirage that was never there. [In fact, as recently as the 60s, visitors were able to witness strange desert phenomena here like sandstorms and mirages.] Fortunately, action is now being taken to restore the natural area, with the EU even flipping them some coinage. Naturalists plan to strip the encroaching vegetation from the southern edge of the desert and weed out plants which were able to take hold on their own in other areas. Steps will also be taken so that the pristine dunes of the north will be overrun not by vegetation, but by camels. Actually, camels were never mentioned.