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.