Day 11: Krakow

We get up a little later than in previous days, knowing that the main focus of today is our visit to the former Nazi concentration/extermination camp at Auschwitz.  We aren’t due to leave until 1.45pm, and so we opt to have a relatively easy morning before that.

We head downstairs for our hotel breakfast.  One of the things we’d read about in the reviews was that the breakfast at this hotel was superb.  This, in addition to the tip that this hotel has air conditioning whereas others in the same price-bracket don’t, convinced us to book.  As it turned out the breakfast was passable, and there was no way to turn the air conditioning on despite it being a hot and humid city.

We leave the hotel and decide to take a wander down to the castle.  Actually, we plan to walk to the nearest tram stop and take the tram to the castle, but by the time we get there we realise we’re already half way to the castle and so choose to just walk the remainder.  Nearby a signpost indicates distances to major cities: 300km to our next stop in Bratislava, 295km to our final point in Budapest.  Standing here, our planned route seems a bit daft!

 

High on a cliff above the river an enormous medieval fortress was built.  Most of the gates and walls are still standing, but the interior has changed dramatically.  Originally built as a military stronghold, over time the castle began to shift into being a place of residence rather than just of defence.  The main structures had been replaced, sometimes in the 15th and 16th Centuries, with an elaborate Renaissance palace and gardens.

 

We walk around the walls and look out over the river and the Old Town.  In one of the former turrets is the “dragon’s lair” – an attraction for kids.  All around the city we’d been seeing dragon symbolism, and it wasn’t until later that we read the story of an old Polish king who had subdued a dragon’s attack on the city and kept it for defence.

Inside the walls the original Cathedral is still standing, even though its main domed roof was being renovated.  It is interesting to see a new copper roof before oxidisation took hold and turns it green, however.  The Cathedral was where the kings of Poland had been crowned, and where they were later buried in elaborate caskets.  The relics of a number of saints were venerated in smaller side chapels.

 

We leave the castle and walk back down to the road.  On the corner a small boy is playing accordion.  He’s mastered both the rhythm and the flourish of pushing and pulling the bellows, but he definitely needs to work on the melody and chords.  Although tempted to give him a bit of busking money for at least trying, we remember a poster in the main square that warned about the use of children as an income source in the city.  Krakow, it appears, is fighting an epidemic of parents who send their small children out to make money from tourists rather than attending school.  We don’t give him any money.

We walk back into the Old Town up a quiet cobbled street.  Compared to the circus that is the main square, the southern alleyways and squares are much quieter.  It’s midday, and a number of cafes and bars are just opening their shutters.  We spy a place that advertises ‘Ale Ale’ beer, and make a mental note to come back to give that a go at some point.  We pass a car full of cabbages.

 

Arriving in the main square, we take a look in the old cloth hall.  A 16th century construction, it’s now a souvenir market with dozens of stalls all selling the same range of cuddly dragon toys and amber jewellery.  Round the corner, though, is the entrance to Krakow’s newest museum.  In 2005-6 an extensive archaeological survey was conducted at the eastern end of the main square before it was repaved.  The finds, which included digging down to – and below – the original street level from the 13th century, exposed the foundations and basements of previous structures and in one place even a 12th century burial site for people suspected of vampirism.  We decide we want to visit, but as the exhibition involves walking around the exposed remains entry numbers are, understandably, limited.  We therefore buy a timed ticket for the following evening.

By this point we decide it’s time to head back to the hotel and prepare for our visit to Auschwitz.  Impossible to express in words, we simply felt we couldn’t be so close and not visit.  We change out of our shorts and t-shirts in an attempt to wear something a bit more ‘appropriate’ to visiting such a site.  It’s a shallow gesture, but frankly it would have felt wrong walking round as if it’s ‘just’ another day trip.

We get to the tour office, which is just behind the Barbican of the old city walls, and decide to get lunch at the cafe next door while we wait for the tour to set off. The place looks nice enough and quick enough from the outside but when we get in and start looking at the menu we think something is missing, but at first can’t work out what. It turns out to be a vegetarian restaurant, but this isn’t a problem as we tuck in to some good food; including some of the famous Polish potato pancakes we enjoyed last night. We finish and head outside to wait for the group to gather.

Looking at people waiting for the tour there seem to be two groups; one is the older visitor to Krakow and the other is the younger back-packing/inter-railing visitor. More people start to gravitate towards the tour office and we realise that actually it is quite a large tour that is going -  over a coach-load – and so we hope that we’ll split into smaller groups when we get there. With hindsight we figure that this is maybe the downside to booking with a popular company.

On the coach and we trying to reserve judgement of the younger people that are on the trip. It’s unfortunate that the first 10 minutes of the journey are spent with the company guide trying to get the microphone/speaker system to work as people towards the back are saying they can’t hear.  Although there’s definitely a problem with the system, it isn’t helped by people at the back of the coach talking over her.  A particular group really gets our hackles up – a bunch of girls in stupidly short shorts and strappy tops seem to be acting like they’re the cool kids at the back of the bus on a school trip.  Finally someone “shushes” them and the guide begins to present an overview of the history of the camp.

Having taught some difficult topics – including the Holocaust – I know the important of finding the right balance in presenting a narrative.  The guide, we feel, gets it right with a calm yet direct description of Poland’s history from 1939 and the Nazis’ development of the Final Solution.  You can’t really pull any punches with this stuff – you either tell it in full, or do the history a disservice.  It was interesting to hear this from a Polish perspective, however.  After all Poland was home to an enormous number of Jews and gypsies before the German invasion in September 1939, and Poles who did not belong to these notable minorities were themselves targets of Nazi hatred due to their Slavic origins or active role in the resistance.  To have such a place as Auschwitz built on your land by an occupying force and then used to kill your own people is unimaginable.

Auschwitz, we learned, was the Germanised name for the Polish town of Oswiencen.  As a major railway junction surrounded by miles of fields in every direction, its remoteness suited the Nazis plans.  The original camp – Auschwitz I – was converted from Polish army barracks shortly after the Nazi occupation.  Thousands of Poles were forced out of their homes and off their land, to be resettled elsewhere in the country.  Indeed, Auschwitz was the only Nazi camp with an enforced military safety zone surrounding it – miles of land were not only a buffer, but also would later allow for the enormous expansion of a killing factory with the construction of Auschwitz II Berkenau nearby.

In preparing to visit, a line from The History Boys was constantly running through our minds.  “They do trips to Auschwitz now, you know.  My question is where do they eat their packed lunch?”  On a coach with 50 other people, half of whom had probably been on a pub crawl the previous night and were planning on walking around the site in flip-flops and a pair of shorts, the ridiculous nature of the ‘day trip’ really began to gnaw away at us.  Having been divided into smaller groups to view the site, we were relieved to be grouped with some of the older members of the tour and not the aforementioned party-goers.

Arriving in the coach park was as surreal as it sounds, especially considering the blazing sunshine.  Joining the crowds of people walking through the visitor centre in single file to collect our radio headsets for use during the tour seemed ironic in the worst possible way.  Gathering into groups, the rules of the visit being listed as if from a script…it all seemed highly mechanised and, well, efficient.

Conducting a tour in this way was, however, incredibly effective.  After passing under the iconic gate – if something that represents vulgarity can be iconic – with the words ‘Arbeit Mach Frei’ above you, there was no time to just stand and look at where we were.  Normally we’d be heavily critical of such an approach, but in this case the constant ‘and this, and this, and this’ of information and statistics from our guide completely saturated your comprehension.  It’s possible to read the books, to watch the documentaries, to be able to reel off the facts and figures.  But nothing – no matter how much you know (or think you know) about Auschwitz prepares you for being there.  Similarly, the scale of the destruction of humanity is impossible to capture.

Although they are actually keen for you to take photographs, and many did, it would have been simply impossible to capture the amount of material presented there as an indicator of the quantity of murders.  The desire by some people, however, to be photographed in front of the buildings struck us as rather macabre.  Perhaps Facebook’s hold on people, and the importance of ‘tagging’ yourself in photographs, means that you can only prove to have been somewhere if you’re in the picture.  but quite why you’d want to be photographed under the gate at Auschwitz, or outside a gas chamber, is completely unfathomable to us.  However, it is true that no words can describe entering the one remaining gas chamber and crematorium (the Nazis blew up the others when it was clear that the Soviets were advancing).  It is a place that, put simply, has to be seen.

After a short break we were driven 2km to Auschwitz II Berkenau.  This was the site of the largest number of murders; the place with the red-brick gatehouse built over the railway line, at the side of which the ‘selections’ were made.  There are few surviving buildings here now - again the advancing Soviet troops meant the Nazi’s destroyed what they could -  but a handful of wooden barracks remain and row upon row of crumbling chimneys mark where those that were burnt down would have stood, whilst at the end of the site the overgrown concrete rubble of were once the gas chambers and crematoriums lie.  The only new construction on site is the central memorial at the end of the railway tracks.  Everything else has been left as it was found by the Soviets in January 1945.

 

During the journey back to Krakow we were shown a film consisting of extracts from the Soviet footage of the liberation of the camp.  The bus was notably silent.  We couldn’t help but feel reassured that those people whose attitude boarding the bus in Krakow had given us cause for concern had clearly been affected just as much by the experience as we had.

Arriving in Krakow at about 8pm, we are exhausted.  It’s been a tiring day – physically and emotionally – but we need to eat before heading to bed.  We head to the main square and grab a table at the first place we come across.  As it turns out, Hawelka has a long and distinguished history and we have made a good choice.  After eating we stop off at the ‘Ale Ale’ pub for a drink before heading to bed.  We order an ‘Ale Ale’ and an ‘orange beer’, which turns out to be lager mixed with orangeade.  It’s surprisingly tasty, but we’re completely knackered by this point so rather than stay out any longer we limp back to bed.

Day 10: Warsaw to Krakow

It’s time to check out from our hotel in Warsaw and catch the train to Krakow. It’s a shame to be leaving Warsaw as we’ve found that despite initial reservations based on stories we’d heard about the city, we’ve had a good stay here and really enjoyed ourselves.

We finish packing after breakfast and, large newspaper in hand, we head to the station. We walk there and make sure we allow ourselves more than enough time as we’re not sure how clear the signs are going to be to find the right platform. On our way we pass a large prefab with some astounding graffiti covering the entire end wall.

 

At the station we locate a departures board and are able to find our train, which appears to be running on time. Platform 4 it says. As we make our way downstairs we look again for another departures board, wanting to verify what we’ve just seen. We do and then make our way onto Platform 4. There the train isn’t even listed yet as we’re still quite early, so we find a space and settle our bags down. It’s confusing, though, because there are a lot of other numbers apart from the number 4 on the signs here. It’s all in Polish and it takes us a while to figure it out, but it seems that each Platform has two ‘tracks’ and each track has three or more ‘sectors’. I’m sure this makes it easier for people to work out exactly where to stand on long platforms for their train, but for us it just increases our anxiety as – with there being so many numbers – maybe we got our initial ‘4’ wrong? Alice is about to head onto the main concourse to check the main board when our train finally pops up on the board on the platform.

It’s just a three hour journey to Krakow so we’re looking forward to arriving around lunchtime. We’ve been booking first class seats where possible (and affordable), and we find ourselves in a six-seater booth with seats opposite each other by the window. Another couple are in the booth, and when they see us swapping seats so that we can use the netbook without the glare of the morning sun, they ask us if we would be happy to swap seats with them so that we are out of the glare and that they can use the light from the window for reading their books. We agree and manoeuvre ourselves around the tight central area.

Settled in our seats, the man strikes up a conversation with us. He tells us that he’s from Belgium but has been visiting Warsaw with his mother.  She had been invited back to take part in the WP celebrations because, when she was 20, she took part in the Uprising. It’s fascinating to hear a bit of her story, including the fact that after the Uprising she was a political prisoner.  It’s quite saddening to hear that having being freed after the war she was not able to go back to Poland as she would have been arrested – the Communist government regarded the member of the Uprising as traitors. It was only after independence that she was able to return.

We get out in Krakow and make our way downstairs under the platforms. Here we find a subterranean run of stalls which remind of the train station near the airport in Budapest – a Star Wars cantina full of odd characters and shady activities – and of the Attaba book market. It takes us a moment to see the sign to the exit and Scotty is the first to spy it on the floor. We follow the signs to the main station, and when we are above ground realise that it’s undergoing major works with most things being covered in dust sheets and only a few signs still visible.

Our hotel is not far from the station and so it’s really not worth attempting public transport.  We set to dragging the case for the 10 minute walk, knowing that as it’s only just after noon we’re unlikely to be able to check in.  The hotel, however, is very helpful and announces that our room is ready so we head there to dump our bags. The room is a pleasant enough room but, although it has AC (one of our requirements after reading reviews of how hot and stuffy Krakow can get in the summer, although with the current weather we probably needn’t have bothered) there is no sign of the remote control.  Also, the safe is playing up – at first it’s locked itself, but then on getting the key from Reception to unlock it again we find that the batteries have run out. Not wanting to cause a fuss we use our own batteries, but the next day find that actually it’s probably the contacts that are flimsy as these batteries stop working too. Despite this being one of the less fancy hotels we’re staying in, it’s also one of the more expensive thanks to Krakow’s popularity with tourists.  We’re pleased that we still have the majority of our cash left from Warsaw thanks to being able to buy most things on card, as we think we’re going to need it here.

We head out and our first task is to find something to eat. After a lovely sunny morning on the train it’s grey outside and we have to unstrap our waterproofs from the bag as soon as we leave the hotel. It’s just a short shower and soon it’s clear again. We’re hopeful that the weather will stay as ‘showers’ rather than the thunderstorms we experienced in Warsaw.

We quickly find ourselves in the Old Town centre – thankfully the scale on the map here is a lot more in our favour – and start a slow hunt for food. The Old Town is truly old, as it wasn’t destroyed by the Nazis.  Apparently that is attributed to Hitler declaring that he quite liked Krakow, although the main square did receive the misfortune of being named after him during the occupation.

Our hunt for food is sped up by a rain shower and we dash into one of the nearest places on the main square. It actually turns out to be a good choice and Alice has a sandwich for lunch whilst Scotty tries one of the Krakow delicacies of meat dumplings. These look – and taste – a little bit like Chinese dumplings.

The shower has stopped and so we head on to task two of the day: getting some tours booked. We know that we want to go to Auschwitz (as we feel we can’t be so close and not visit) and we have heard excellent stories of visiting the a nearby Salt Mine, so we want to book a tour there too. The guide book (In Your Pocket again), online searches, and leaflets at the hotel show us that there are dozens of tour companies that offer these trips. In the end we just opt for one that has some good reviews and is noted in a few places as the best value for money, so we head towards the office of Cracow City Tours.

We find the office opposite a memorial to the Polish Uprising that is adorned with fresh wreaths. Inside we talk to the bookings manager about what we want. We know that they offer both of these tours on one day, but we’re thinking this would be too much and that we should spread them over the two full days we will have in the city. However, She tells us though that we could actually go to the Salt Mine this afternoon if we wanted as a tour leaves in an hour and a half. We look at each other and then nod. This seems like a great way to make the most of having an afternoon without travelling, and means we’ll have more time in the city. With the promise of more rain showers later in the afternoon it also seems sensible to go underground!

To celebrate booking the tours, we go into the newly opened shop next door and get a milk shake made from chocolate bars (we’re assured that this is the first shop of its kind in Krakow but we’re familiar with the idea after many visits to Shake Away in Kingston – yum!).  Returning briefly to the hotel to pick up a sweater – the mine is apparently quite cold – we head back to the tour office and board the coach to the mine.

Our tour guide is everything you want – knowledgeable, charismatic, and funny.  We’ve begun to realise that the Polish sense of humour is quite sarcastic and self-deprecating, and this appeals to us.  They’re not afraid to laugh at the problems of their country, but are also keen to celebrate the positives.  Our tour guide is also brutally honest.  “Don’t buy anything in the cave.  It’s overpriced and bad quality.  You can’t get orange salt in this cave – anything orange is from Pakistan and processed in China.  If you want real Polish salt, buy it in Krakow.  The stuff they sell there is shit.”

Something we noticed in Warsaw, and which is also in evidence here in Krakow, is that the entire population of Spain appears to have moved to Poland for the summer.  The hotel in Warsaw was full of Spaniards, and half the tour bus is made up of Spanish speakers.  There are, however, plenty of English voices in their multiple dialects from America to Australia.  Krakow appears to be quite a party town, and later in the evening we notice a much larger number of bars and clubs, and that drinks prices are about 25% cheaper than the capital.  Krakow has certainly exploited this market – or the market has exploited Krakow – and it seems to be a key stop on the InterRail route if you choose to head into Eastern Europe.  Consequently a lot of the people on our tour are backpackers – something that for this trip is not anything we’re particularly bothered about, but makes us a little nervous about how such a crowd might behave if they have also chosen to visit Auschwitz.

The coach journey is rather uneventful through the countryside, and Scott demonstrates his usual ability to fall asleep in a road vehicle.  For some reason he can’t sleep on planes or trains, but put him in a car or a bus and he will doze off.  It’s not a long sleep, though, as we soon arrive at the mine and after a brief break to go to the toilet we gather round our guide to descend into the mine.

We begin by walking down 200-plus wooden steps and emerge in a large chamber.  The mine itself is the oldest working salt mine in the world, with the earliest excavations taking place in the 13th century.  They’re not actively mining salt in the mine anymore but, in order to keep it open for tours they need to run the pumps to remove water.  This comes out as a saline water from the salt still left in the rock, and just from the water being pumped out they’re able to extract 13 tonnes of salt a day.  When you realise that the mine itself has over 300 kilometres of tunnels and that during our 2.5 hour tour we’ll barely cover 2km you really start to get a feel for the sheer size of the place.

 

The salt is old sea salt, caught within the rock as a layer but then broken into blocks as the Carpathian Mountains were formed.  Consequently the salt is not found in seams, which results in the impressive appearance of the mine.  After walking down the old search passages and transport routes you emerge into a large chamber, which is where the block of salt was found.  When the miners found the salt they dug to the top of it and gradually worked their way down the block until they hit rock at the bottom and began a new search.

The salt gained from the mine made Poland an incredibly wealthy country in the medieval and early modern period.  As warfare tactics demanded longer and longer sieges, it became more an more important to be able to provide your army with food that would last a long time.  Salt was therefore an enormously valuable commodity, and was often worth more per gram than silver.  Consequently whoever controlled the mine – in this case the king – was a very wealthy person.  Salt revenues accounted for 1/3 of the entire royal budget at its height.

The tour wound around various corridors and chambers, some showing signs of water activity such as salt stalactites and stalagmites, or ‘cauliflowers’ that formed on the walls.  The most impressive formations, however, were manmade.  The miners often created statues and architectural features in old chambers, and the tour focused on showing these off.  The most impressive was – by far – an enormous chapel created in the mid-19th Century by three miners and decorated by a fourth miner in the 20th Century with Biblical images and an astounding copy of Leonardo da Vinci’s Last Supper chiselled straight into the salt.  The chapel also houses a statue of Pope John Paul II, created in honour of his visit to Poland in 1999.  Sadly he never made it into the cave as his health was too bad.

   

The mine also contains a number of large underground lakes, some of which are now being exploited by the mine as health retreats.  The water is, understandably, incredibly salty and consequently deionises the air in the chambers very effectively.  People with breathing problems can visit such chambers and basically just sit around there and breathe.  Whether it works or not, we can’t be sure, but our tour guide swears by it.

The 2.5 hours of the tour goes by incredibly quickly.  Some people are noticeably tired, but we feel quite energised.  We muse that all the walking we’ve done over the past few days has conditioned us.  But, of course, once we’re back on the bus Scott falls asleep again.  It’s a road vehicle thing.

Back in Krakow it’s approaching dinner time, but we opt to wander the streets of the Old Town first.  The weather has cleared up and so we find a bar selling locally brewed beer.  It’s nice to sit on the street (Stolarska) and not get soaking wet.  We like the beer glasses, too.  The bottom has a rather cute engraving of a bear.  As we sit, a parade of at least 40 backpackers walks past.  We can’t imagine where they’ve come from (or where they and their roll mats are going), and it makes for a funny sight.

 

We’ve read very good things about a new restaurant in the city called Marmalado, so we head there for dinner.  We get our first experience of the city’s amazing internal architecture as we are led deep inside the building to a table.  Trying to find the bathroom was also an experience.  Heading downstairs, a warren of passages and smaller dining rooms eventually lead to a bar.  It turns out that the bathrooms are behind the elaborate gold doors down the corridors; we’d missed the subtle bronze triangle (male) and circle (female) that designated them as toilets.

The food is, again, superb.  However, the portion size of the traditional potato pancakes we have as a starter would normally be enough for lunch, and result in us each failing to finish our main course.  We decide an evening stroll is in order and so meander around the touristy Old Town looking at tat, and trying to memorise where the best ice cream places are for future ‘research’.  We have read a lot about a particular Irish Bar as being a focus for Krakow’s expat population and, always keen to find out what it would be like to live somewhere from people who actually do it, we head there for a drink.  We should, however, have thought about this a bit more.  After all, a lot of expats in Cairo leave during the summer to go home.  The expats in Krakow do the same, and so the bar is virtually deserted apart from a couple of Poles drinking Guinness and watching Manchester United suffer an embarrassing defeat.  We do, however, pick up the city’s expat newspaper which makes for interesting reading.

On our way back to the hotel we see a superb trio of buskers playing classical organ works on accordions.  Perhaps more impressive, though, is a wonderfully named shop.

 

Day 9: Warsaw

We wake up and fortunately our damp clothes from yesterday afternoon are on the way to becoming less damp. As we leave the room to head downstairs for breakfast we find wedged between the handle and the door a copy of The Guardian.

When we’d checked into the room we’d been asked if we wanted a morning paper, and which paper we wanted. We had said the Gruaniad, but as our first morning was a Sunday (and so no paper published) we’d sort of forgotten about this benefit of booking a Business room. The paper is an unwieldy thing, though, having been printed – presumably after receiving an electronic copy – onto A3 and stapled in the top left corner. However, the best thing about the printing onto A3 is the enlarged G2 section which now appears to have much larger 14 point fonts – although disappointingly this doesn’t make the crossword any easier.

The forecast for today is not good again and so we strap our (now dry) jackets to the bottom of the camera rucksack. We’re trying not to feel too disappointed about the weather, but as we check the forecast for the coming days in Krakov, Bratislava and finally Budapest we find that rain features quite heavily in the predictions. Annoyingly the best days for sun/dry seem to be our travelling days and it looks like Sziget is going to be thundery once more (we had thunder storms in 2007). Still, we’re not going to let the weather get in the way of our plans and we head out.

Our plan today is to get our walking done and explore the Old Town while the weather is good, and shelter later as we need to when the showers are forecast to hit. We get outside and the weather is glorious so we take a stroll through the park towards the Old Town. As we walk down the central avenue in the park we can tell that something is going on. There are light metal barriers in the area around the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the plaza area in front of it is clear apart from rows of chairs to one side. Walking along we see the TV crews out again and that wreaths are being delivered and laid against the barriers at the back of the cornered-off area. Today is the 1st August – the 67th Anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, and a ceremony similar to Remembrance Sunday is currently being prepared.

We spend some time looking at the wreaths that have arrived, and watch various scout troops march towards the area in their uniform. A few veterans have started to arrive, proudly wearing their medals and armbands and accompanied by their families. There is a quick change of guard as a group of three soldiers march up from the Palace to replace those standing at the Tomb. It’s hard to tell what time the event will begin. We remember that the Uprising officially began at 5pm, but as it’s just passed 11am now we doubt the ceremony will be that late. We assume it will be a noon ceremony and from the staging being set up to one side on the square we suspect a concert will take place later.

We decide to walk on, rather than wait to watch the ceremony, but as today is the anniversary of the start of the Uprising signs of the commemorations are everywhere. We stop at a few points in the city where we find signs that identify places where Polish men and women died during the Uprising. There are bronzed plaques on the wall, and these are accompanied by small stickers with a translation noting how many people died at each location, and on which day during the war. At many of these sites red candles or flowers have been placed. It’s a truly amazing feeling to be walking through somewhere where the history is marked out all around you.

We walk around the Old Town and it is very pretty, especially in the lovely bright sun that has come out today. It was rebuilt in such precise detail that it was one of the first places noted by UNESCO on its World Heritage List. Walking around you cannot tell, unless you know, that these buildings are only 40 years old and aren’t in fact ‘old’ in the way that an Old Town would normally be. The only way to tell between the old and the new is not in the apparent age of the building, but by whether it looks dilapidated or not. Those in disrepair seem to be the original buildings, rather than those that look old in style.

 

One of the things that we were warned about before visiting Warsaw was to expect a city that was very dull and grey with monotonous architecture. We’re pleased to find that we haven’t found this.  The Old Town and New Town areas where we spent the majority of our time are as architecturally beautiful as anything you would find elsewhere, in fact perhaps even more so because of the recent reconstruction.  It is true, however, that the rest of the city is a bit of an architectural nightmare.  After the Nazi retreat and destruction of the city, so much was destroyed that they had to rebuild almost the entire place – and fast.  Large numbers of Communist-era prefab apartment blocks survive, and it’s only really in the new ‘financial district’ that these have begun to be replaced with more modern structures.  They’re still effectively apartment blocks, but they’re airy glass structures rather than concrete.  The city, also, appears to have lost any sense of urban structure.  Although the Old Town and Nowy Swiat act as a tourist centre, the rest of the city lacks a true CBD.  Even in the financial district, large bank and business buildings stand next to apartment blocks.  It’s an strange experience to look out of your hotel window into somebody’s flat.

We wander through the Old Town and into the New Town square.  This area, which last night had been so busy after the fountain display, is deserted.  Walking down to the fountain park we are quite taken aback by the proximity of a major 3-lane ring road.  Last night one entire direction had been closed to traffic here for the run, and now we get a real sense of the amount of traffic.  We walk around the fountains, and look back up the hill at the Castle.  It’s an imposing and effective defensive position – high on the cliff, and bordered by the river.  Under the castle are gardens where a man has built scaffolding just so he can trim the top of the hedges.

 

We walk around the edge of the gardens, and find a gate declaring ‘Tourists Welcome!’  We walk inside to find ourselves in the arcades beneath the castle.  A huge vaulted ceiling arches overhead, and the floor is paved with wooden tiles.  Originally used as a barracks, and later as stables, the arcades have undergone extensive archaeological surveys to restore them.  The wooden tiles were originally installed on the orders of the king – his rooms were just upstairs, and he could hear the soldiers and horses clomping about on the original stone flags.  We walk up a dimly lit passage before meeting a metal gate and turning to go back down, but next door is a sign pointing to an exhibition.  A series of information boards show the history of the castle, and a small photography exhibition gives an overview of the excavations and renovation.

Leaving the exhibition, we follow signs to the exit and find ourselves inside the castle itself.  A cafe is to one side of us, and set of carpeted stairs go up the other.  We look at the cafe menu but opt against stopping here for lunch – once again the meals are too large for a ‘lunch’.  Don’t the Poles eat sandwiches?

We briefly entered the castle courtyard earlier in the morning, but decided against actually ‘visiting’ the castle – neither of us are that fussed about paying to look at a load of gold furniture and flowery wallpaper.  We see enough of that in Cairo.  Now, though, we opt to take a look upstairs.  After all, we’ve found ourselves in the castle and it would be silly to ignore it.  But, before we make it past the third step, and security guard gives us a knowing smile and politely suggests we might get some tickets if we want to look around.  We smile back, and suggest we’ll just head out instead.  After all, it’s a glorious day and we don’t really want to spend it inside.

We wander back down Nowy Swiet looking for somewhere to eat.  Most of the cafes only serve full meals, but after a dozen-or-so rejections we find a cafe that serves sandwiches.  Here we have our first run-in with a wasp.  Wasps don’t appear to exist in Egypt, and so it’s a bit of a shame to be reminded of them little things.  Our plan of creating a wasp-lure with a small amount of fizzy drink in a tall glass fails, and we eat our lunch while wafting it away.

Further down the road we begin to take notice of the street numbers.  We’re determined to find the ‘Secret Garden’ we’ve read about and, just as the guidebook says, behind the unassuming gate to number 22 we find a courtyard containing a couple of dozen dive bars.  Most are shut – it’s only 3pm – but others, including a trendy sushi bar, are already serving.  It’s a great little hideaway and, if our hotel was closer, we’d certainly come back in the evening for a drink.  We’ll just leave it to the students and the artists, many of whom we’re sure are a complete nuisance to the people whose apartments overlook the courtyard.

It’s mid-afternoon and our legs are really starting to feel it now; since we’ve started this trip we’ve only used transport to get between countries – we’ve walked everywhere else! We think we’re particularly feeling it here because the city (or the areas of the city that we are interested in) are really quite spread out. The Old Town is such a small area that there’s only one hotel there and so although our hotel is quite close to some things, it is a distance to get around everything we want to see. We’ve got a range of maps at our disposal for this trip and not one of them seems to have a scale. Using our Google map that we printed for directions to the hotel we work out that each grid on our Warsaw street map is about 1km (and we then compare this to our Berlin map where we think each grid square is about 300m!). We reckon we have easily been walking 10km a day here in Warsaw, and so it’s high time we give our legs a break.

With this in mind we wander north again along Nowy Swiet, half looking for a cafe for a coffee or ice cream (you’ve got to have ice cream on holiday!) but when we arrive at BrowArmia we realise that actually we’re not that hungry, but do deserve a rest so head back to the hotel.  We know we should make the most of the great weather, but we have given it our best shot this morning.  We also know we’ll go out again later, and so we can justify having a rest.

We only end up taking weight off our feet and legs, though, because when we’re back at the hotel we decide that we want to take advantage of the swimming pool and so head downstairs. It’s glorious to be floating around and in water again. We both swim a few lengths, then take a visit to the sauna and jacuzzi before swimming a few more lengths. The water is cool but not cold, and it’s so refreshing to be in it.

We take advantage of the free WiFi in the hotel on two counts this afternoon. The first is to download the most recent Torchwood, and the second is to Skype ‘sayno’ who listeners of our radio show might recognise, as she’s after some advice before she joins us in Egypt in September. We never know when we’re going to have good internet access (or internet at all!) and so it’s good to take advantage of a good connection. For blogging we have got some new software which means we can write and format the blog off-line and then later upload it when we have internet connection.

We head out around 6.30pm and walk through the park again. The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is now overflowing with wreaths and people are stopping to see them and take photos. The chairs for the ceremony earlier have been cleared away and they are sound-checking on the stage they built this morning. A poster tells us that something will be on from 8–11pm so we make a note to walk back this way later.

We head to the second stage we saw being constructed earlier today, on the edge of the Old Town in front of the Castle. The concert is in full swing when we arrive. At first we just assume that it’s another concert to mark the Uprising, but we then figure out that actually it’s a benefit concert for the Fire Service. We figure this out because firstly there is a fire safety stall and a couple of fire engines around (one of which has all the gear out for kids to see!) and the second clue is that on the banner about the stage is the same word as there is on the back of the firemen’s uniforms. On stage there are six singers belting out Polski Polska to the great enjoyment of the crowd. The song ends and it turns out to be their last one and so it is followed by a not-so-brief presentation and thank-you to all the singers and officials in the audience. Once everyone has had their name read out, applauded and given a flower (a single red or white rose) a final round of Polski Poska is sung. At the end of the concert two marching bands that have been sat in the audience jump up and start to play and march around the square.

 

We enjoy the music, but now it’s time to start thinking about food (and drink!).  As we walk back towards the restaurant area, we begin to see lots of nuns and monks.  A particularly memorable scene is of standing behind two monks watching a group of street-performers breakdancing.  In the photo below you can just about make out the legs of a guy doing a headspin.

BrowArmia had good beer, but we figure it is cheating to go back to the same place and so we try another recommendation from the In Your Pocket guide. It’s the Kultura Kino, a cafe/restaurant below the arts cinema, and we choose a table outside to enjoy the nice weather. It’s a good spot for people-watching, and we see a good number of people in WP museum t-shirts commemorating the uprising, and also a few people dressed up in WW2-era uniforms. Some have pin badges on, or red and white ribbons, and there’s a generally positive and happy atmosphere on the street.

The waiter is friendly and attentive, and he’s good at recommending dishes although it does make us feel a little under pressure to order his recommendations. The food doesn’t quite live up to the glowing review in the guidebook, which is a bit disappointing, but it is somewhat redeemed by two chocolate-based desserts we pick.

Our final walk back to the hotel goes via the stage near the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier where there is a choir on stage singing patriotic songs (in Polish). We’re handed a songbook as we arrive, and by looking over other people’s shoulders are able to work out the page we are on.

 

We do our best to sing along, but we’re not really up to scratch. After buying a souvenir flag (the red and white flag of Poland with the WP logo in the centre) we walk back towards the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

Day 8: Warsaw

It may be a Sunday, but this doesn’t mean we’re having a rest day. Having read so much about Warsaw in the days leading up to our arrival yesterday, and having had such a nice evening out, we’re keen to get around and see as much as we can of this city.

The weather outside looks promising, but we strap the waterproofs to the bag as it’s meant to be rainy on and off during the day. Instead of heading east into the Old Town and main tourist area of Warsaw we’re instead walking west and heading towards what we’ve heard is the best museum in Warsaw; the Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego (the Museum of the Warsaw Uprising).

Our first challenge is to cross the main road that runs north-south through the centre of Warsaw. It’s called the Al Jana Pawla II and it’s the first of many things we’ll come across named in honour of Poland’s favourite son. We’re being extra careful here to cross the road in the right place (zebra crossing of course) and at the right time (with the little green man – who is nice, but not as iconic as the one in Berlin). We’ve read that you can get fined in Poland for jaywalking and don’t want to fall foul of the law because of the way Cairo has conditioned us into crossing the street.

We arrive at the museum and the area around it is definitely busy. Probably because it is a weekend, but maybe also because today there is free entry. From reading around we’ve found that nearly every museum has a “free entry” day once a week. It’s a good idea and one that we’re happy to take advantage of, even though we would have gladly paid for the exhibits we’re seeing today. In the UK the policy towards museums is that central funding should make as many of them free to enter as possible. In Egypt it is that there should be two prices; one for tourists and one for Egyptians. The policies in all three countries are great ways of encouraging people to get involved and visit museums.

It’s busy inside, but nothing compared to the the DDR Museum in Berlin. It takes a little bit of getting used to to navigate our way around, but soon we have a map that we follow and keep an eye out for the street numbers which point the way to the next section of the exhibition.

We learn a lot in this visit, thanks to the good displays and segmenting of information (large info boards at the start of each section, medium sized boards for each subsection and then more detailed information for artefacts and photographs to illustrate the subsections). But we’re also learning a lot because the museum focuses on an area of history during World War 2 that although we (well, Scotty at least) know of, we don’t appreciate the detail of what actually took place.

The Warsaw Uprising was the uprising of the people and army of Poland within the German occupied Warsaw in 1944. People who had been part of the Polish army were joined by civilians who were also willing to help get rid of the occupying forces. It wasn’t just men and boys involved, though, as everyone played a part whether it was providing medical care, getting food and water, making improvised weapons (the only weapons they otherwise had really were those they took from captured Nazi troops or buildings), or being message ‘runners’ through the streets. The German response to the uprising was first one of simply defence, but then a policy came of ‘if we can’t have it, they can’t either’ and there was the active destruction of buildings by the army. What was astounding was seeing pictures of central Warsaw with only a few buildings left standing. By the end of the war over 80% of Warsaw was in ruins. The numbers, and the images, were staggering.

The Uprising wasn’t successful in that it ended with troops conceding to the Germans and being taken to concentration camps – many found themselves in Auswitz. But what the stories in the museum did show were that Polish people, and especially the people of Warsaw, were very proud of what they had achieved – which is very strongly saying ‘we won’t go down without a fight’.

We found the museum fascinating and were musing on our new knowledge and understanding when we left. In the courtyard outside things again seemed busy – we’d not known a museum before have so many security guards and men in suits with earpieces for communications. Our first though is ‘maybe this is what they do here’, but our second is ‘what date is it?’ and we quickly realise that today is the closest Sunday to the start of the Uprising. Looking around we now see about half a dozen older gentlemen in their suits wearing a the red and white WP armband, which shows that they were part of the resistance in the uprising. With the veterans here there’s only one person missing from a significant event and soon a car pulls into the square in front of the museum and there is a small surge of people towards it with cameras as the passengers get out. The President has arrived.

As we leave the museum we pass the garden which runs alongside it. It is set up for the event with a stage, screens and seating. It’s touching to be here, visiting and gaining understanding on such an important day for the city. What we’ll find over the next few days is that celebrations will continue and the Warsaw Uprising, in a way, will be a common thread running through our experience here.

As we walk back towards the central area of town, we take a small detour down some side-streets.  The area here was the former Jewish Ghetto, and hidden behind the new buildings lie the dilapidated ruins of the original tenements.  Earlier we’d passed a plaque indicating an entry point to the Ghetto, but this was heart of it.  There’s no sign – other than the abandoned courtyards behind chained fences – that this part of town held such of dark history, although on one of the street fronts we do see a tenement building surrounded by new builds.

It’s past noon now and we walk back towards the main tourist area. Our sights are set on the PNiK tower and we make our way towards it. The guides were right that it is a landmark to help you find your way in the city, but we’re also enjoying the descriptions of it being like something out of Ghostbusters! We cross the road, marked with a zebra crossing designed to look like a piano keyboard, and try to find our way inside.

 

The building and the complex surrounding it are huge – it takes us 15 minutes to circumnavigate just half of the base and find the way in to the tower.  On our way round we pass a multi-screen cinema, two theatres, a concert hall, and a nightclub.  This truly is a palace of culture, but it’s time for lunch so we start to formulate a plan: go up the PNiK, get lunch in the cafe there, then decide what to do next. The plan seems like a good one but is then foiled on two accounts. The first is that what were blue skies all morning are now turning grey in the distance, and the second is that by the time we reach the top it’s more of a ‘cup of tea and chocolate bar’ cafe than anything lunch-worthy. We’re here now, though, so we enjoy being on the viewing platform of Poland’s tallest building.

 

The viewing platform is on the 30th floor – way below the very top of the structure – but still far enough up to have a good view over Warsaw.  Or at least it would be a good view if it wasn’t for the dark clouds beginning to envelope us and block the horizon!  Before long it begins to rain and, having found that the summit cafe and gift shop are barely worth a couple of minutes’ of our time, we take the lift back down again.  I should clarify that we took the lift up, as well.  Sat on a stool inside is a rather dour and miserable woman who looks up as the doors open, then carries on with her text messaging.  It seems somehow perfectly Communist to employ this poor woman to spend all day pressing the buttons for up and down.

Outside it is completely bucketing it down, so we take a seat on the base of one of the Greco-Roman columns to work out a plan.  We know we need to find lunch, and decide to head down the major-looking road on the other side of the enormous car park/parade ground.  During a period when the rain eases, we head across to find that there is absolutely nowhere to eat other than McDonalds – obviously Warsaw is not a place for sandwich lunches!  With the rain picking up again, we reluctantly go inside and chew over our lunch while the rain continues to come down.  Two motorbikers, their bikes heavily laden, pull in under a tree – one with a Spanish number plate, the other with Turkish – and they too take shelter inside.

As the rain eases, again, we choose to head further down the road towards Nowy Swiat and check out the ‘other end’ of the main street from the Old Town.  We’d read about an are known as the Secret Garden hidden through a small courtyard off the main drag, and which houses lots of dive bars.  We don’t, however, make it that far.  The rain picks up again – truly hammering down – and we are forced inside.  We have luckily stopped directly opposite Warsaw’s other major brewpub, Beirhalle, and so decide to shelter inside.  It’s not as easy as it sounds, though, because we have to walk about 100m down the road to a road crossing first, and then all the way back up the other side to the brewpub directly opposite where we were standing.  We don’t want to take any risks with being charged for jaywalking!

The brewpub is filling up with other people who have the same idea.  We each order a drink, and settle down for what could be a very long wait indeed.  Virtually all traffic on the roads has stopped.  The only vehicles still out are buses, and they have their windscreen wipers going at full speed.  People huddle together under the scaffolding opposite in an attempt to shelter from the downpour.  This is truly an almighty storm, complete with bright flashes of lightning and deep rumbling thunder.  The TV in the pub is showing the Hungarian Grand Prix (it’s wet there, but nothing like here).  After a few minutes, however, the picture becomes choppy and eventually disappears altogether – although we originally thought it was the bar’s satellite dish that had lost reception, it turns out that the Polish national TV station was unable to broadcast due to the severity of the storm and had its own satellites knocked out.  By the time service is resumed it’s just three pundits trying to fill time while they attempt to recover the incoming pictures from Hungary.  When they do, all that are shown are the finishing positions from 11 onwards…we’ve missed the top results due to the storm!

 

The beers here are not bad, but not as good as those we sampled the previous day in BrowArmia. Although this is technically a brewpub we suspect that the size of the premises, and absence of any brewing equipment, means that they do the actual brewing on the site of the other brewpub in the mini-chain which is more on the edge of town. However, at the door there is a fridge containing a lovely looking array of brown bottles with simple stickers on the front. Take-away homebrew! We contemplate getting a few, and later slightly regret not doing so – they would’ve tasted lovely during the radio show broadcast from our hotel room.

The rain continues to lash down, but it’s mid-afternoon and we don’t want to spend the rest of the day sitting in a pub watching intermittent sports coverage.  So, as there is a slight reduction in the rain (although not a complete halt) we decide to don our wet-weather gear and head back to the hotel.  It’s a miserable trek, as the rain soon becomes heavy again, and we feel water seeping through every part of our clothing.

Back at the hotel we throw our soaking jackets into the bath while we change the rest of our clothes.  Leaving everything to dry, we reach out the netbook and prepare for our weekly radio broadcast.  We move the two sitting chairs and coffee table to face out of the window, and open the curtains for a view of the PNiK in the rain.  The show runs smoothly, or at least as smoothly as a radio show broadcast from a netbook using a single microphone can be smooth.  You can take a listen to the show by clicking the link below.

Sziget The Slow Way – Part 2 – Berlin and Warsaw

With the show finished we pack away the stuff and prepare to head out for dinner.  Although we’re tempted to take advantage of the hotel restaurant, and save ourselves a further soaking, we decide to at least walk a few metres down the road to a place called Five.  Alice cracks a joke about it being an eatery operated by the failed boyband, but on entering we find that it’s a very classy and very nice place.  It’s on the ground floor of one of the towering 1960s Communist prefabs, but it is so well renovated you wouldn’t realise it.  The service is slick and snappy; the food is divine.  Everything considered, the price is unbelievable and the waiter knows it.  As he hands us the bill he winks and asks, “A good price, yes?”