Tuesday 18 January 2011

Poland – February 2007

Waddling around Warsaw

The Guinness

It took a while to find Jimmy Bradley’s Bar as it was hidden away on the ground floor of a shopping development with no exterior signage. We weren’t the only ones who found it challenging – my colleagues also had some comments.

Good news too – they served Guinness, all be it poured into a Beamish glass, and very tasty it was too. No need for the extra cold version of Guinness today though. The bar was in a bit of upheaval when we arrived, seemingly being reconstructed after being used as a film location. We watched as a team of men rebuilt a half-wooden barrel and then removed a snooker table from the premises. I just hope the scene worked out – it’s not an easy task moving a full sized snooker table around.

Enjoying a Guinness at Jimmy Bradley's Irish bar in Warwaw.

I was doing a bit of work for an environmental consultancy at the time and had been working with some colleagues in Warsaw who kindly joined me for a drink. We therefore had a pleasant evening with Magda, Radomir and Mateusz learning more about Warsaw and Poland in general.

Colleague Magda picking out my next destination



Getting There and around

It was another very early start from Coventry, up at 4pm to get to Luton airport in time to get parked up and checked in for the 7.55 flight to Warsaw. Wizz Air, despite its very alarming name (not quite as worrying as Albania’s Albatross Air) turned out to be adequate. It had the standard free-for-all non-allocated seating arrangements that meant I ended up in the front row and Kevin in the back row next to a Polish gentleman suffering from volcanic sneezing fits. Kevin was to remember him a week later as he suffered with flu.

We caught the express non-stop train to Krakow that would take only two and a half hours. The time passed pretty quickly most probably, as Kevin pointed out, because I proceeded to fall asleep when the ground was flat and snowy and did not wake up again till it was green and undulating near Krakow.

Trams - a handy way to get around, and warm too.

Leaving Krakow for the airport we confidently strode to the bus station having already sorted out where we thought the bus departed from. We squeezed on a very crowded bus when it pulled in. Over the next twenty minutes it slowly dawned on us that the bus was probably going in the wrong direction – especially when we were the only ones left on the bus! It turned around at a terminus near a college and headed back to town. Back at the bus station we stayed on board and pretended we knew what we were doing. Fortunately we had left plenty of time so when we did eventually get to the airport we weren’t last in the check in line. The ironic thing was that a new train line has been built out to the airport from the central train station that only takes some 15 minutes, as opposed to the one and a half hours on out contrived bus journey

Team Makeup

Kevin was my intrepid travelling companion and valued photographer once again, the family preferring to wait to see what next country capital came ‘out of the hat’ here in Warsaw before committing themselves to a holiday

Accommodation

The hotel I’d booked using an Internet reservation agency was fortunately expecting us. Having a travelling companion certainly makes such accommodation very affordable. Here we were staying in a modern three star hotel, breakfast included, for £17/night each – cheaper than a Youth Hostel in the UK these days.

Tributes to war-time resistance in Warsaw are never far away.
Food

We thought we’d eat later once it had got dark, but needed something to tide us over, not having eaten since 4am that morning. A woman at the nearby shop prised open the glass shutter with a surprised look on her face, not expecting anyone in there right senses would order pizza and chips to take-away when the temperature was minus 13 outside. It was just what we needed. I was expecting some strange looks as we sat on a statue plinth with snow all around us but there was nobody else around to give us strange looks. I wish there had been – they could have helped lever us off the stone plinth once we’d finished eating.

In Krakow we actually found an authentic Polish restaurant for our last meal of plumb pork and Krakow potatoes – very tasty indeed. A local musical trio serenaded the diners which would probably have seemed very cheesy had it not been for the Guinness aperitifs.

I'm not convinced that borch should be that colour



Mention sightseeing in Warsaw to anyone and they immediately talk about the Old Town. In fact they ‘only’ talk about the Old Town, other than to mention in passing that there is little of any other significance to see. Our decision on where to go next was therefore pretty straightforward – the Old Town. To add to the irony of this situation, the Old Town isn’t that old, it is newly built after the war using the original plans.

Warsaw Old Town

The large square with a view of the brick walled Palace makes a pleasant change of scenery as does all the narrow cobbled streets of the area. It didn’t really matter that much of it was rebuilt; it was just a pleasant area to be in.

Quirky moments

The Palace of Culture, a present from the Soviets and mirroring the six or so similar Palaces we’d seen last year in Moscow. Apparently, the government of Poland was given a choice of either this ugly concrete monstrosity or an underground system and chose the former – something that has never been forgiven by the people of Warsaw. They say that the best view of Warsaw is to be obtained from the top of the tower – where you don’t have to look at the tower itself.

Palace of Culture - a good view of Warsaw - from the top!


We were just cold but these girls must have had a headache too.

In Karkow we went to a pub called the Irish M Bassy in a hope of catching the Wales rugby match. It turned out however that the match was being shown on BBC2 which was not available via satellite. I was shedding tears into my Guinness when another group of Welshman behind us had a bright idea. They got the owner to flick through the channels and amazingly found S4C, the Welsh version of Channel 4. So we sat back and watched the march in Welsh, in Poland!

Lasting Memories

Let’s face it, visiting Warsaw in the depths of winter was always going to be a risk. The Warsaw temperatures had been tracking an acceptable five degrees below the UK temperatures for the last couple of months. The day before this trip commenced however the Warsaw temperature chart mirrored a temporary stock market crash, falling some 15 degrees to minus 13oC. As our Wizz Air flight approached Warsaw I mistook the white views out of the aeroplane window for cloud when in actual fact it was snow, as far as the eye could see.
Brrrrr - it can get a bit chilly in Warsaw in February.

Out of the City

Krakow was a great contrast to Warsaw. The castle sits on a prominent rock to the west of the city centre. This was the old capital of Poland and therefore home of the royal family in around the 16th century. We climbed up, heard a bit of the mass being sung in the cathedral. Virtually everybody famous in Polish history is buried here including most of the 45 Polish monarchs. On the way out of the Cathedral we spotted the collection of prehistoric bones that include a whale’s rib, mammoth’s shinbone and skull of a hairy rhinoceros. Legend would have it that these were actually the bones of the dragon that Krak killed. I suppose it makes a change from a big painted thermometer signifying the state of the roof replacement find.

Krakow cathedral

The square is overlooked by the giant twin towered St Mary’s church. On the hour, every hour, a trumpeter blows out a tune but stops half way through a bar in memory of the moment in the 1300s when a trumpeter watchman was blowing out a tune to warn of approaching Tatar invaders when he took a direct hit in the throat. The present church building obviously post-dates that occasion otherwise the Tatar archers would have had to be very good shots.
Central Krakow - spot the trumpeter


Also marked on our map was Shindler’s factory. He was guy with the serious speech impediment depicted in the Spielberg film Shindler’s Lisp. Seriously though he was a Krakow factory owner who gave local Jews jobs and stopped many being sent to their deaths. We didn’t quite know what to expect when we got there after wandering though the suburbs for a while and under a railway. When we got there and we were hovering outside an old factory-like building, a security guard came out and ushered us in. It turned out that the place was being converted into a museum but it was not yet open. He showed us around, plonked us in front of a brief slide show, showed us a desk and chair he claimed were Shindler’s actual desk and chair though I had my doubts. I thought we’d get fleeced on the way out but quite the opposite, our impromptu guard turned away not expecting any payment, but I forced some zloty on him.

Shindler's Factory - soon to be a museum, or so we were told.

 
On the way to the pub for a Guinness we found a few sights of interest including baroque Holy Cross Church where Chopin’s heart is entombed in one of the pillars. Chopin used to play at the church in his youth and it was his wish that his heart be returned there after he died in France. Given that the French eat virtually anything, I can understand his motivation.

Saturday 1 January 2011

Croatia - November 2006

Zigzagging around Zagreb


The Guinness

Tolkien's House was atmospheric and did indeed serve draught Guinness though rather strangely not served from behind the bar itself but what looked like the mantelpiece.


A Guinness poster advertising Halloween night celebrations hung from the ceiling. Zoran, the owner, poured a good pint and with a little help from the younger barman I explained what I was doing and he did the necessary and picked out my next destination ‘out of the hat’. It was Warsaw, Poland.

Zoran pouring me my Guinness

Getting There and around

When I’d researched the cheap airline routes the nearest I thought I could get to Zagreb was Ljubljana with Easy Jet. I’d missed the fact that the comparatively new airline, Wiz Air, flew direct from Luton to Zagreb – but did I really want to fly with an airline that called itself Wiz Air?

At the station I bought a ticket to Zagreb and received more good news. The express train that was meant to leave twenty minutes earlier was late and now not expected to leave for another twenty minutes. I dashed to the nearby McDonalds to buy supper (sorry about that – twenty minutes wasn’t enough time to get the Slovenian dictionary out and decipher the difference between shellfish and tenderloin). As I strolled up onto the platform I heard a train pulling away, outdone by a train drive who had put his foot down and made up some of this lateness. The slow train was waiting on the adjacent platform so not to worry. This was a modern train with modern people – opening up their laptops and watching films and playing music.
I've noticed how European train stations have often have an old loco outside.  I like it.

As I changed trains at the Slovenian-Croatian boarder, snow flurries began to fall with crispness in the air. I had a compartment all to myself as first the police and then the guard came around to check my passport and then my ticket. This was supposedly a scenic journey but no views tonight.

In the morning I bought a Zagreb Card at the hostel for £8. This allowed me free travel on public transport and some other privileges such as a mug of coffee from the hostel warden



Team Makeup

Just like the previous trip, I failed to drum up any support for this trip.
Zagreb old town

Accommodation

I had booked three nights at the Ravnice Youth Hostel, (£9/night) a tram-ride out of the centre. The guidebook said get off at the tenth stop near the chocolate factory but either it was written by a non-attentive author or the tram route had a few extra stops. I hoped back on the next tram and stayed on till I could smell the melted cocoa.

I was assigned a bunk in a four bunk room. When I opened the door it looked like every bunk was already occupied but it turned out there was only one other occupant – he was just very untidy. I never met him actually, I was always asleep when he came in and up and away before he was awake.

No, this isn't the hostel!

Sightseeing highlights

I took a bus to the Mirogoj Cemetery. It turned out to be a great place to visit, for me anyway, maybe not for the elderly ladies grieving the loss of their loved ones. Instead of bringing flowers, relatives of the dead bring lanterns – 50p each at the supermarket I later found out. The graves of the famous had hundreds of lanterns surrounding them in all colours emitting a pleasant warmth on a cold autumnal day. I liked the buildings at the front with their green copper turrets, ivy-clad walls and arcades with cast iron lanterns.

Candles galore at Mirogoj Cemetery

My Zagreb Card also included free travel on the cable car up to the1000 meter peak of Mount Medvednica. The cable cars ran once an hour so I had a coffee in the café and looked at the display on the wall which included a section of the cable looking reassuringly thick. Each car took four people and skirted the tree tops on the twenty minute trip to the summit. My elderly Croatian co-travellers didn’t want a chestnut when offered but seemed fascinated by me – goodness knows what they were saying to each other. They asked if I was German and when I told them I was from Wales all they could say back was ‘Boyo’.

Snowy conditions on top of Mount Medvednica

Back in town I took the vernacular railway and zigzagged around the narrow labyrinth of streets seeing St Marks Church with its multi-coloured terracotta tiled roof with the coats of arms of Zagreb and Croatia designed in. I then arrived at the sixteen-century shrine of the Virgin Mary in a narrow covered ally way where a service was just beginning.

The colourful St Marks Church roof

Food

On my second day in Zagreb, I thought that finding a restaurant wouldn’t be that easy, not having seen that many around in my wanderings, but I happened upon one that looked suitably Croatian. I ordered a glass of Croatian wine and sought advice on some typical Croatian dishes. The soup of the day was ‘bacon rind’ and my main dish was beef stuffed with sausage accompanied by two types of dumplings covered in a heavy tomato sauce with yogurt trickled over it for the health conscience. I hadn’t eaten properly for two days and didn’t have to for another two after that meal.

Mirogoj Cemetery


Quirky moments

At the Mirogoj Cemetery there were some strange names to be seen. I was amused by Dr Dean Despot. I ask you, fancy going to see a Doctor called Dean.

I didn't think to bring a gun but just in case here was a sign saying I couldn't take it in this building.

I overslept the following morning, not waking till 9.30 but even then I was the first awake in our dorm of four. I rode the tram into town again and bought a pastry for breakfast and was kept very amused when eating it on a bench outside by a pigeon that had got a crust from a bread roll lodged around his neck. It was the animal equivalent of a human getting a Kentucky Fried Chicken basket stuck on their head.