24 September
Feeling lazy tonight so have
dinner in the hotel restaurant where
they are offering potato pancakes with mushroom plus a glass of wine for 29
zloty
25 September
The room at the hotel would have
a great view if it wasn't covered by a giant advertising hoarding for what I
think is a TV series.
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| The window of my room is behind the CZW of CZWARTEK |
Good buffet breakfast in the hotel. First job of the day
is to get my ticket to Cologne.
Walk down to the Central station find the ticket office and it is all very
quick an efficient. Get a small discount because I am over 60.
Next job is to
buy a new phone since my old one is dieing, cannot charge the battery. As in Singapore, most shops are trying to sell a phone
contract but according to Google there
is a Samsung shop in the Arcadia
shopping mall about two stops on the metro from the hotel. Also get list of
phones which will accept standard size SIM card. Get a one day ticket for the
public transport and find the Arcadia
shopping mall with no problem
It is huge. Not so easy to find
the Samsung store but when I do find a phone that is the same size as mine and
, takes a standard SIM card,. it is also the cheapest of those on display. The
very helpful sales guy seems quite shocked that I actually want to buy it. His
colleague sets it up in English for me and Samsung has a happy customer. Have a look round the shopping mall while I
am here. Can match any in Singapore
or anywhere else I can imagine. Not hungry but look at the food court upstairs
where I can even get Pad Thai! Get the
tram back to the hotel and leave new phone to charge. Now all I need is to
learn how to use it!
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| Arcadia Shopping Mall |
Strikes me that many aspects of
life are so simple now provided you have money or the right plastic card, the
right passport and speak English. So simple to book hotels, buy tickets, go to supermarkets,
got to restaurants, et etc.
Use my one day tram ticket to go
to the old city and explore. I think, alone of all the cities destroyed in WW
2, Warsaw
decided to rebuild the old city as it was. In retrospect it was brilliant decision. Looking at it, there is
no way the casual observer would know
that it dated from the 1950's. but it
does make us question what we mean by authentic. One conclusion is that architects up to WW2 were much better
at designing spaces that make people
feel comfortable and happy than those who came later. At strategic places there
are copies of Canallettos showing the space in the 1700's which allow you to
compare it with now. It was a real pleasure to walk around. Get the feeling
that history is still a very hot topic
here. In a courtyard of the palace there was an exhibition celebration get the
partisans who fought against the invades
Nazi in the West and Soviet in the East.
I think in Britain we are always aware of Hitler invading Poland but the Soviet
invasion a few days later is ignored. Many of the partisans, after fighting the
Nazis, and joining forces with the Red Army to "liberate" Poland were then arrested and either deported or
executed by the Soviet occupying forces or the later communist government.
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| Main Square and Royal Palace in Old City of Warsaw |
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| Another Square in Old City of Warsaw |
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| Amber Shop in Old City of Warsaw |
I kept coming across images of battling mermaids in most unusual places. This is the story I found
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| Battling Mermaids, The symbol of Warsaw: Statue in a Square, On Cathedral Door, on Lamp post and on Battery Charging Point |
By late afternoon it was getting chilly and
threatening to rain, so got the tram to the hotel. Left it rather late to go
out for dinner and realised the place I was planning to go was further than I thought and may already
have accepted last orders, so tried another huge shopping mall near the Central
Station but the places there were all closing down for the night. Close to the Central Station the Palace of Culture and Science, Warsaw's answer to Moscow's Seven Sisters looms out of the darkness.
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| Palace of Culture and Science, A "gift" from the Soviet Union and originally named after Stalin |
By shear
chance found the nearby Hard Rock Cafe, which, unlike the one in Finland was
still serving food. My burger and Murphy's stout were not exactly what I had
planned but were very welcome!
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| Murphy's in Hard Rock Cafe |
26 September
After breakfast set out to
explore part of the so called "Royal
Route" because it was lined with the palaces
of the aristocrats. It is very pleasant with lots of pavement cafes but not
desperately exciting. See part of the University
of Warsaw and an interesting exhibition in a small park
showing the changes in Warsaw
since 1989 when it was, in the words of the introductory poster, a grey, dismal
city. There are also several reminders of the Warsaw uprising of 1944. Further along the Royal Route is the
President's palace, in front of which is a massive poster celebrating the Solidarity movement which
started the liberalisation of Poland.
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| Pavement Cafes in Nowy Świat |
Continue to walk past the huge National Theatre and on to the monument
commemorating the uprising in the Warsaw
ghetto in 1943. There is a massive and impressive new museum, "History of
Polish Jews" adjacent to it but the main exhibition does not open until
next month.
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| Monument commemorating the uprising in the Warsaw ghetto |
Had a late lunch of baked cod,
potatoes, sauce and sauerkraut and a
beer in a semi self service restaurant, Viking, in the shopping mall next to the station.
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| Zywiec. Easier to point to than to say! |
