I arrived in Warsaw on the afternoon of July 15th after a 7.5 hour train ride from Swinoujscie. I had a first class ticket for the train so was quite comfortable. Although there was no air conditioning, the breeze coming in the compartment kept it quite cool. For the first couple of hours I had the cabin to myself and for the last part there was one other girl with me. She spoke no English and I spoke no Polish so it was a very quiet journey.
I should back up and say that the train station in Swinoujscie is pretty small with only four tracks at most. It wasn't very busy when I arrived there hobbling along and trying to carry my luggage at the same time. Luckily there was a rather strange baggage handler available to help me with my bags. He was a young guy just trying to make some extra money and most people were seriously trying to ignore him. He was a bit odd but he was certainly well worth the 6 PLN ($2) he got from me. He told me when the train was coming in and said we had to start moving down to the end of the ramp. I followed him but I must say I thought he was perhaps wrong when no one else was heading in that direction. We went way down off the platform and along the stone walk beside the track and sure enough my car was the last car and it was way off the end of the platform. He quickly took my bag into my assigned cabin and came back and helped me up into the car - the first step of the train was about four feet off the stone walkway. I never would have made the train without him!
I couldn't figure out why they would put the first class cars so far from the platform but when we came to Poznan it became a bit clearer. At that stop we pulled into the station and waited for awhile. It was then apparent that they were adding cars on to our end of the train. When we left Poznan in the direction we had just come from it was clear that the added cars were the engines and first class was now back at the front for our arrival in Warsaw five hours later. And since there weren't many people getting into first class at Swinoujscie, I guess they really didn't inconvenience that many people. I just happened to be one of the lucky ones.
Leaving Swinoujscie there was thick forests on both sides of the track. Within half an hour that became cleared farmland. Occasional pine forests and patches of birch trees (or at least something with white bark) passed by. Sometimes the ground was covered by thick ferns and sometimes it just looked like sand. Eventually we ended up in farmland that looked very prairie like with lots of grain. Then it looked more like southwestern Ontario with corn and beans thrown in. At various points we went through orchard lands and closer to Warsaw the fields became beautiful patches of cooler with all kinds of produce - cabbage, red cabbage, beets, carrots, etc. - in the various sections.
I took a taxi to my hotel in Warsaw because I knew it wasn't near the train station. What I didn't realize was that it wasn't near anything. Jordan's, the group I booked through for Krakow, had recommended this place and I could see why it would work for them. However, it just wasn't going to work for me. The hotel came with breakfast which was fine but there were no other restaurants anywhere nearby. None of the tourist attractions were close and none of the tour companies picked up at this hotel. I went for a walk on Sunday and went way too far to get absolutely no where. All I did on Monday was rest my feet, check the internet and try to come up with a plan.
On Tuesday I moved to the Novotel downtown and it was in a much better location right across freom the Palace of Culture and Science, two blocks from the train station, and within a block of such famous restaurants as McDonalds and Pizza Hut and Subway. Stop laughing. The last two came in handy in the evenings after a long day when food was required. The hotel was also across the street from a huge internet cafe with well over 100 machines. It cost 4 PLN per hour during peak times and went as low as 1 PLN in less peak times. The Novotel had two internet stations set up and they were charging 15 PLN per 15 minute session. Needless to say they weren't very busy.
Tuesday afternoon I took my first city tour and went to the old city and the Royal Castle. Warsaw is a truly unique city in that 95% of it was destroyed during the war. What wasn't bombed or burned during regular fighting was systematicaly destroyed - every house, library, church, museum, palace, etc. was demolished because the people of Warsaw tried to fight back on several occasions and the Germans decided to leave them with nothing. Even the Royal Castle was blown up, the tour guide telling us it took over 100,000 charges to totally demolish the Castle to the satisfaction of the Germans.
Since 1945, Warsaw has been rebuilding, and reconstruction of the Royal Castle started in 1971. Everything in the old city and the Castle have been reconstructed as it would have appeared originally. The Castle was totally reconstructed by donations from Polish people around the world. Both the old city and the Royal Castle have been declared UNESCO's World Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites because of their authenticity.
I have to confess that I didn't see a lot of the old city because I was too busy looking at the cobble stone streets to make sure I had my feeet and my crutches in the right spots. And I had to keep up to the tour so I couldn't just stop and look around. The mail square was very busy and there were lots of small stores and shops throughout the journey - certainly lots of cafes and bars with open air seating. Most buildings were tall 4-5 story brick buildings. There were also many churches although some of them didn't really even look like churches from the outside and you could have just missed them as you walked down the street. Many of them didn't have any separate space or courtyard around them and their front seemed just like any other street front.
Parts of the old city wall remain intact and the Barbican from 1548 has been rebuilt as it was in that time. There are also many monuments throughout the old city, and if fact throughout hte whole city. I think they have a monument to every bit of history and they have a lot of history going back to the end of the 13th century. Did you know that Poland:
- and Lithuania had a combined parliament at one time - held in the Royal Castle?
- was the largest country in Europe? (which made it very attractive to invaders)
- had democratic elections for its presidents starting back in the 1700s?
- passed the first constitution in Europe and the second in the world in 1791?
- was erased totally from the map for 123 years and given to Russia, Prussia and Austria?
It's an interesting country with a lot of history and thus a lot of reasons for monuments.
The Royal Castle was quite interesting. It is full of paintings and historical pieces that the tour guides are very quick to explain as either an original that has been returned to the castle or as a substitute donated by some one or some country but what really should have been there was ....
The castle is early Baroque style and we viewed the King's apartments and parliamentary halls and some of the state rooms. It was beautiful to see but more remarkable to think that it had all been rebuilt and refurbished in the last 40 years. I was quite impressed.
On Wednesday I was going to take another tour with the same group but the tour guide discouraged me from doing that because she didn't think I'd be able to keep up with the other tour. I found that rather discouraging but went off on my own to explore. I started at the Palace of Culture and Science and I have to tell you I finished there too. It is huge. The Palace was built in 1955 as a gift from the Russians and it is still the highest building in Poland. I have no idea how to describe its style to you but it really is impressive. I looked at it from my hotel room so whether it was day or night, when it was lit, it was still impressive. The building covers over 3 hectares of land, has 33 elevators, and over 3000 rooms. It has banks, insurance copanies, research institutions, theatres, cinemas, museums, libraries, an institute of science and much more in it. I went to the 30th floor observatory for a view of Warsaw and it was quite impressive. I also took in a science exhibit they had going on and just wandered all over the place. I was absolutely exhausted when I left and only had the energy to make it to Pizza Hut before heading back to the hotel.
Now that makes me think of two things I should mention. Firstly, this Pizza Hut was right across from the Palace of Culture and Science so it was in a prime location but it was by far the largest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. I bet you could easily sit 200 people inside and another 100 outside. I had a small Hawaiian pizza and a Pepsi, which did come with free refills, and it cost me a total of 18,80 PLN or about $6.50 Cdn. But the interesting part was that they just don't come and go in this Pizza Hut and treat it like a fast food type of place. They come and stay for the evening. And they don't seem to eat pizza only like I did. They had salads and appetizers to start and then they share pizzas and other main course dishes and then they have dessert. There were no kids anywhere in sight or families. Basically it was young couples and middle aged people out for an evening. Now I was eating reasonably early, maybe 6:30 or 7:00, and maybe there was something on at a nearby theatre that everyone was going to run off to. That I don't know. I just know it seemed to be a different crowd and a different feel to the restaurant.
The second thing this reminded me of was the transportation system. The Novotel was kitty corner from the Palace of Culture and Science. Both of the streets at this intersection were main streets with many lanes of traffic. As well, the trolley system ran down both streets (in the centre between the two directions of traffic) and the buses ran with the traffic. There was a large traffic circle at the intersection and it was the most amazing thing to watch. Trolleys seemed to have the right away. There were street lights to control the movement of other vehicles but the corner was always in motion. And never once did I see a pedestrian on the road. You just didn't do it. All pedestrians had to go down the stairs, walk over to whatever section they wanted, and then walk back up the stairs. Now I'm sure I'm not describing this very clearly for you but people had to get from the sidewalks to the trolleys in either direction on either street so with the traffic circle and trolley set up, there were 8 sets of stairs in total. Now for those of us who really weren't up to doing stair or who had baby carriages with them or whatever, there were little elevators. Luckily the tour guide was telling me about these elevators and how you have to hold the button the whole time or you won't go anywhere, otherwise I might never have made it anywhere. They really just look like phone booths - open glass boxes about the size of a phone booth and you just get in and disappear. Then you get in another one and reappear. Well, after going down once and walking to what I thought was the correct exit and going up again and finding it wasn't the right spot, I just hit the button and disappeared again. Before long I felt like a mouse in a maze down below the street and a golpher at a carnival when peeking up above. You know those games you have where you try to hit the golpher as he pops his head up? Well, that's what it looked like. The more I rode the things the funnier it got and I'm sure people thought I was crazy afterwhile. After the first day I could never look out my window at the traffic circle without trying to guess where the next golpher was going to pop up.
Oh my, I do digress and I'm sure you now think I'm totally crazy. Alright, back to the sights of Warsaw. On Thursday I decided to try another tour company the front desk clerk recomended. I don't think the tour guide was too happy to have me along for the tour but I survived. We went past the Belvedere Palace but did not go in for a tour. It was built in the 1600s and remodeled in the 1800s and many famous leaders lived there. The most recent was Lech Walesa from 1990 to 1995. Now it is a museum but was not open on the day of our tour. We also drove by the Presidential Palace where the current President now lives. It was also from the 1600s.
Our main destination was the Royal Lazienky Park and Palace. The park was beautiful and the first statue we saw was to Frederic Chopin and right now it is the only one I remember. We walked through the park past several others until we came to the Palace. It was all I could do to keep up with the group so not a lot of time for looking at the park or the monuments or for taking pictures. The Palace on the Water or Palace on the Island was in a beautiful setting and I wish we could have had more time to enjoy it. The Palace itself was originally set up as a bath house and the theme throughout was water. It was quite interesting and unique, but not as spectacular on the inside as on the outside, although the historial background was amazing.
During the bus trip we also passed another buch of statues and monuments: the Tomb of the Unknkown Soldier, the Monument ot he Fallen and Murdered in the East, the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, the Monument to the Little Upriser, the Opera House and others.
On Friday I decided to do some touring on my own. I caught a bus across the street and went to Wilanow Park and Palace. I actually got there in one try and got back again on the first try so I was really impressed. The park was beautiful and since I was on my own I actually had a chance to wander around the flower gardens and the park and down my the water. The Palace was huge and took a long time to tour but I rented a headset and had my own private tour in English that I could pause at any time to match my speed. It took hours to complete the tour but the paintings and staatues were beautiful and the furnishings quite amazing. As a king's summer residence it wasn't too bad at all. It was built in the 17th century and the gardens had beautiful Roman statues throughout. Since I had time on my own I actually got some pictures here so hopefully they will turn out.
Wow, I can't believe how long I've taken on Warsaw and it's now time to head back to the hotel for dinner. I guess Krakow will have to wait for another time.
I must say before I leave Warsaw, that I saw very little of it. I really only did two days of touring and you could probably take several weeks. It is a huge city with many different dimensions to it so I think it might require another visit sometime in the future.
That's all for now.
Jayne
I should back up and say that the train station in Swinoujscie is pretty small with only four tracks at most. It wasn't very busy when I arrived there hobbling along and trying to carry my luggage at the same time. Luckily there was a rather strange baggage handler available to help me with my bags. He was a young guy just trying to make some extra money and most people were seriously trying to ignore him. He was a bit odd but he was certainly well worth the 6 PLN ($2) he got from me. He told me when the train was coming in and said we had to start moving down to the end of the ramp. I followed him but I must say I thought he was perhaps wrong when no one else was heading in that direction. We went way down off the platform and along the stone walk beside the track and sure enough my car was the last car and it was way off the end of the platform. He quickly took my bag into my assigned cabin and came back and helped me up into the car - the first step of the train was about four feet off the stone walkway. I never would have made the train without him!
I couldn't figure out why they would put the first class cars so far from the platform but when we came to Poznan it became a bit clearer. At that stop we pulled into the station and waited for awhile. It was then apparent that they were adding cars on to our end of the train. When we left Poznan in the direction we had just come from it was clear that the added cars were the engines and first class was now back at the front for our arrival in Warsaw five hours later. And since there weren't many people getting into first class at Swinoujscie, I guess they really didn't inconvenience that many people. I just happened to be one of the lucky ones.
Leaving Swinoujscie there was thick forests on both sides of the track. Within half an hour that became cleared farmland. Occasional pine forests and patches of birch trees (or at least something with white bark) passed by. Sometimes the ground was covered by thick ferns and sometimes it just looked like sand. Eventually we ended up in farmland that looked very prairie like with lots of grain. Then it looked more like southwestern Ontario with corn and beans thrown in. At various points we went through orchard lands and closer to Warsaw the fields became beautiful patches of cooler with all kinds of produce - cabbage, red cabbage, beets, carrots, etc. - in the various sections.
I took a taxi to my hotel in Warsaw because I knew it wasn't near the train station. What I didn't realize was that it wasn't near anything. Jordan's, the group I booked through for Krakow, had recommended this place and I could see why it would work for them. However, it just wasn't going to work for me. The hotel came with breakfast which was fine but there were no other restaurants anywhere nearby. None of the tourist attractions were close and none of the tour companies picked up at this hotel. I went for a walk on Sunday and went way too far to get absolutely no where. All I did on Monday was rest my feet, check the internet and try to come up with a plan.
On Tuesday I moved to the Novotel downtown and it was in a much better location right across freom the Palace of Culture and Science, two blocks from the train station, and within a block of such famous restaurants as McDonalds and Pizza Hut and Subway. Stop laughing. The last two came in handy in the evenings after a long day when food was required. The hotel was also across the street from a huge internet cafe with well over 100 machines. It cost 4 PLN per hour during peak times and went as low as 1 PLN in less peak times. The Novotel had two internet stations set up and they were charging 15 PLN per 15 minute session. Needless to say they weren't very busy.
Tuesday afternoon I took my first city tour and went to the old city and the Royal Castle. Warsaw is a truly unique city in that 95% of it was destroyed during the war. What wasn't bombed or burned during regular fighting was systematicaly destroyed - every house, library, church, museum, palace, etc. was demolished because the people of Warsaw tried to fight back on several occasions and the Germans decided to leave them with nothing. Even the Royal Castle was blown up, the tour guide telling us it took over 100,000 charges to totally demolish the Castle to the satisfaction of the Germans.
Since 1945, Warsaw has been rebuilding, and reconstruction of the Royal Castle started in 1971. Everything in the old city and the Castle have been reconstructed as it would have appeared originally. The Castle was totally reconstructed by donations from Polish people around the world. Both the old city and the Royal Castle have been declared UNESCO's World Cultural and Natural Heritage Sites because of their authenticity.
I have to confess that I didn't see a lot of the old city because I was too busy looking at the cobble stone streets to make sure I had my feeet and my crutches in the right spots. And I had to keep up to the tour so I couldn't just stop and look around. The mail square was very busy and there were lots of small stores and shops throughout the journey - certainly lots of cafes and bars with open air seating. Most buildings were tall 4-5 story brick buildings. There were also many churches although some of them didn't really even look like churches from the outside and you could have just missed them as you walked down the street. Many of them didn't have any separate space or courtyard around them and their front seemed just like any other street front.
Parts of the old city wall remain intact and the Barbican from 1548 has been rebuilt as it was in that time. There are also many monuments throughout the old city, and if fact throughout hte whole city. I think they have a monument to every bit of history and they have a lot of history going back to the end of the 13th century. Did you know that Poland:
- and Lithuania had a combined parliament at one time - held in the Royal Castle?
- was the largest country in Europe? (which made it very attractive to invaders)
- had democratic elections for its presidents starting back in the 1700s?
- passed the first constitution in Europe and the second in the world in 1791?
- was erased totally from the map for 123 years and given to Russia, Prussia and Austria?
It's an interesting country with a lot of history and thus a lot of reasons for monuments.
The Royal Castle was quite interesting. It is full of paintings and historical pieces that the tour guides are very quick to explain as either an original that has been returned to the castle or as a substitute donated by some one or some country but what really should have been there was ....
The castle is early Baroque style and we viewed the King's apartments and parliamentary halls and some of the state rooms. It was beautiful to see but more remarkable to think that it had all been rebuilt and refurbished in the last 40 years. I was quite impressed.
On Wednesday I was going to take another tour with the same group but the tour guide discouraged me from doing that because she didn't think I'd be able to keep up with the other tour. I found that rather discouraging but went off on my own to explore. I started at the Palace of Culture and Science and I have to tell you I finished there too. It is huge. The Palace was built in 1955 as a gift from the Russians and it is still the highest building in Poland. I have no idea how to describe its style to you but it really is impressive. I looked at it from my hotel room so whether it was day or night, when it was lit, it was still impressive. The building covers over 3 hectares of land, has 33 elevators, and over 3000 rooms. It has banks, insurance copanies, research institutions, theatres, cinemas, museums, libraries, an institute of science and much more in it. I went to the 30th floor observatory for a view of Warsaw and it was quite impressive. I also took in a science exhibit they had going on and just wandered all over the place. I was absolutely exhausted when I left and only had the energy to make it to Pizza Hut before heading back to the hotel.
Now that makes me think of two things I should mention. Firstly, this Pizza Hut was right across from the Palace of Culture and Science so it was in a prime location but it was by far the largest Pizza Hut I have ever seen. I bet you could easily sit 200 people inside and another 100 outside. I had a small Hawaiian pizza and a Pepsi, which did come with free refills, and it cost me a total of 18,80 PLN or about $6.50 Cdn. But the interesting part was that they just don't come and go in this Pizza Hut and treat it like a fast food type of place. They come and stay for the evening. And they don't seem to eat pizza only like I did. They had salads and appetizers to start and then they share pizzas and other main course dishes and then they have dessert. There were no kids anywhere in sight or families. Basically it was young couples and middle aged people out for an evening. Now I was eating reasonably early, maybe 6:30 or 7:00, and maybe there was something on at a nearby theatre that everyone was going to run off to. That I don't know. I just know it seemed to be a different crowd and a different feel to the restaurant.
The second thing this reminded me of was the transportation system. The Novotel was kitty corner from the Palace of Culture and Science. Both of the streets at this intersection were main streets with many lanes of traffic. As well, the trolley system ran down both streets (in the centre between the two directions of traffic) and the buses ran with the traffic. There was a large traffic circle at the intersection and it was the most amazing thing to watch. Trolleys seemed to have the right away. There were street lights to control the movement of other vehicles but the corner was always in motion. And never once did I see a pedestrian on the road. You just didn't do it. All pedestrians had to go down the stairs, walk over to whatever section they wanted, and then walk back up the stairs. Now I'm sure I'm not describing this very clearly for you but people had to get from the sidewalks to the trolleys in either direction on either street so with the traffic circle and trolley set up, there were 8 sets of stairs in total. Now for those of us who really weren't up to doing stair or who had baby carriages with them or whatever, there were little elevators. Luckily the tour guide was telling me about these elevators and how you have to hold the button the whole time or you won't go anywhere, otherwise I might never have made it anywhere. They really just look like phone booths - open glass boxes about the size of a phone booth and you just get in and disappear. Then you get in another one and reappear. Well, after going down once and walking to what I thought was the correct exit and going up again and finding it wasn't the right spot, I just hit the button and disappeared again. Before long I felt like a mouse in a maze down below the street and a golpher at a carnival when peeking up above. You know those games you have where you try to hit the golpher as he pops his head up? Well, that's what it looked like. The more I rode the things the funnier it got and I'm sure people thought I was crazy afterwhile. After the first day I could never look out my window at the traffic circle without trying to guess where the next golpher was going to pop up.
Oh my, I do digress and I'm sure you now think I'm totally crazy. Alright, back to the sights of Warsaw. On Thursday I decided to try another tour company the front desk clerk recomended. I don't think the tour guide was too happy to have me along for the tour but I survived. We went past the Belvedere Palace but did not go in for a tour. It was built in the 1600s and remodeled in the 1800s and many famous leaders lived there. The most recent was Lech Walesa from 1990 to 1995. Now it is a museum but was not open on the day of our tour. We also drove by the Presidential Palace where the current President now lives. It was also from the 1600s.
Our main destination was the Royal Lazienky Park and Palace. The park was beautiful and the first statue we saw was to Frederic Chopin and right now it is the only one I remember. We walked through the park past several others until we came to the Palace. It was all I could do to keep up with the group so not a lot of time for looking at the park or the monuments or for taking pictures. The Palace on the Water or Palace on the Island was in a beautiful setting and I wish we could have had more time to enjoy it. The Palace itself was originally set up as a bath house and the theme throughout was water. It was quite interesting and unique, but not as spectacular on the inside as on the outside, although the historial background was amazing.
During the bus trip we also passed another buch of statues and monuments: the Tomb of the Unknkown Soldier, the Monument ot he Fallen and Murdered in the East, the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto, the Monument to the Little Upriser, the Opera House and others.
On Friday I decided to do some touring on my own. I caught a bus across the street and went to Wilanow Park and Palace. I actually got there in one try and got back again on the first try so I was really impressed. The park was beautiful and since I was on my own I actually had a chance to wander around the flower gardens and the park and down my the water. The Palace was huge and took a long time to tour but I rented a headset and had my own private tour in English that I could pause at any time to match my speed. It took hours to complete the tour but the paintings and staatues were beautiful and the furnishings quite amazing. As a king's summer residence it wasn't too bad at all. It was built in the 17th century and the gardens had beautiful Roman statues throughout. Since I had time on my own I actually got some pictures here so hopefully they will turn out.
Wow, I can't believe how long I've taken on Warsaw and it's now time to head back to the hotel for dinner. I guess Krakow will have to wait for another time.
I must say before I leave Warsaw, that I saw very little of it. I really only did two days of touring and you could probably take several weeks. It is a huge city with many different dimensions to it so I think it might require another visit sometime in the future.
That's all for now.
Jayne
posted by Jayne Brooks @ 5:51 AM
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