WARSAW

Getting out of Moscow was very easy – everything from security to border control was efficient and matter-of-fact. Nothing fancy – just a job done well, right down to the body scan image we watched as it came to screen. Flight to Warsaw took two and a bit hours as we passed into a new time zone, gaining an hour along the way.

Not a good start to Warsaw. We had a thermal hoodie stolen from on top of our luggage which was right in front of us on the trolley. As soon as attention was diverted to getting transport directions the said item went astray. We had purchased tickets to catch the 175 bus into the city but just as before we were about to board a leg ‘snap’ meant a reconsideration of how to get into the city. So the taxi became number one option – a trip costing 31 Polish Zloty, about US$9.50. A very comfortable option. However, things were about to get more difficult: (a) it rained and (b) the reception desk for our apartments (Platinum) had changed location to about 250m away: it felt like a long way in the rain but having checked in we had to make our way back, 250m where we started from. Stupid arrangements! But we finally made it  - and went to sleep waking up the next day after a solid 14 hours. The early start and the hectic schedule of the previous two weeks had finally caught up and we had the chance to sleep it off.

Warsaw's Palace of Culture - another of Stalin's Wedding Cakes

After eating breakfast out the first morning we walked to the Soviet styled tower near to Central railway station [buying rail tickets to Krakow along the way – and even that was a bit cumbersome as the woman didn’t understand we wanted tickets for two days away; however, with some help from a passerby the matter was sorted but there was a longish queue behind us by the time we had finished] and caught a ‘hop on – hop off’ bus tour which (a) didn’t go where we thought it should have gone and (b) didn’t go to a couple of stops because of some reconstruction. So it was a bit of a time waster  - not to mention the 120 ZL!

Modern Warsaw Architecture

   

Street Art in Old Town Waesaw

The modern skyline Warsaw, 2015

Finally, however, we got into the Old City and walked through the reconstructed streets and buildings, many of which, having been bombarded or blown up by German troops during WW2 have been reconstructed on the basis of paintings by artists over the years up to 1939. And it seems that they have been doing a great job in rebuilding a city that was flattened both physically and emotionally.

   

Monuments to the Memory of the Warsaw Uprising and Jewish Dead

But Warsaw is still rising despite an ageing population and where there are still more dead than living. Museums abound but churches abound even more. This is a very Catholic city where churches dominate the horizon along with the multitude of statues and memorials to …. well, just about everyone and everything.  The Memorial to those who perished in eastern camps in Russia, the memorial to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in the square where Pope John Paul II celebrated his first Mass in Poland after becoming Pope and where his memorial Mass was held after her died in 2005 – these are among several monuments to recognise the struggles and achievements of the Polish people. These are all moving in their own way. Walking the streets through both the old and new towns brought us back to our apartment block just near to the remaining wall part from the Polish ghettos of WW2.

St Pope Jean-Paul II - proudly remembered by many

The next day we went to Mass; it was a Sunday and this was the most crowded Mass we have been to anywhere along the way. But the people were mainly elderly. [Perhaps the younger people were out participating in the ‘2015 Business House Run’ that we stumbled across just prior to its starting and which was being led by thumping music as part of the pre-run warm up.] A walk from the church took us back to the Old Town and to a very quiet main street – we were there at about 9.45am, too early for a Polish Sunday but we managed to find a coffee shop, had a bite to eat and then waited for the [free Sunday] entry to the Castle Palace Museum. This was one of the almost 100% destroyed buildings – if not from the German bombing raids of 1939, then from being blown up by retreating losers in 1944! More walking through the churches of the main street – around a wedding, a photo shoot of models in old cars, a movie/advertisement clip being filmed – to more monuments, to the changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier [and who were those guys dressed in old style regiment dress walking the street with ‘weapons at the ready’] and to the church with Chopin’s heart encased as a memorial in one of the church pillars; to the Synagogue quietly sitting under a leafy roof in fringe-suburban new town…..

The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, Victory Square

Warsaw - the Old Town

  

Warsaw is a city on the rise – still! New architecture sits alongside the old. The past and the present are one and there is absolutely no way a local [or a tourist for that matter] can be allowed to forget the tragedies that this city has battled through – not just once! And tomorrow we’re off to Krakow – a once former capital city of this former communist country – and now fiercely looking western and upwards.

'Girl in a Hat' and 'The Scholar at the Lectern'
Both works of Rembrandt in the Royal Castle, Warsaw