Beginning of Polish trip report

Well it's a cold, rainy miserable day here in Munich. And, a long weekend to boot. How does the weather know to be bad, when people have a holiday? I'm going to post some of the Polish trip report, then catch the train to go grocery shopping. I also hope to buy some shoes - my walking shoes are suede. They were OK in the fall when it was cold, but now in the rain they just get too wet.

Poland Tour Day 1: March 31
Friday march 31 was the start of the tour with Picturesque Poland, the tour company that my friend Ewa has just launched. 5 of us were to take the inaugural tour: me, Barbara, Chris, Debbie and Janice. Ewa was going to meet us in Warsaw, our first destination, and tour with us to check that everything she’d arranged was to our liking.

I got to the airport a bit early. Breezed through check in (love Lufthansa), Lot Polish Airlines checks in through the Lufthansa Star Alliance. Got to the gate around 8:00 am, and there was no one else there. Hmm, maybe I am way too early. Debbie and Janice arrive in 15 minutes. We chatted until the gate agent called everyone for Warsaw. We all piled on to the bus, which took us out onto the tarmac to the plane. So of course we're then outside, climbing onto the plane in the Munich rain. Cold rain. Janice got on the empty plane first; she said she'd never walked onto an empty plane before. No sign of Chris & Barbara yet.

We waited a bit; they announced that more passengers were coming. Another bus pulled up and from that crowd Chris & Barbara joined us. The group was now complete.

An uneventful and fast flight got us into Warsaw by 10:30. We waited outside and Ewa showed up in about 5 minutes. She got us 2 cabs and we zoomed off to the hotel. Warsaw was overcast, looked a little grey. There are still quite a few old Soviet-style buildings: flat, ugly, and concrete. The most interesting was the Palace of Culture & Science (nicknamed Stalin’s penis) that was right across the street from our hotel. We’re told it was a “gift” from Russia to Warsaw, and the locals really dislike it. Our hotel, the Polonia Palace, was lovely though, Ewa says it’s a leading and most prestigious Grand Hotel in Warsaw, been operating since 1913. It underwent a recent renovation. The hotel as Poles say has Polish Soul, it’s a very rare find in Warsaw, a city of chain hotels. We dumped our luggage off, checked in and piled back into a couple cabs to get to old town.

The cabs let us off just outside old town. We walked across the square, with its plinth topped by King Sigismund, and set off up one of the side streets to find lunch.


Heading out across the square



We ended up at Grandmother's Place. Everyone but Carole ordered pierogi; she had bigos. It was a good lunch with lots of flavors to try. Some of the flavors were a bit unusual though, and they would remain so for most of the trip. It seems that the Poles are not yet wine connoisseurs, and not even real familiar with how to pick and store wine. Barbara and Chris are wine connoisseurs and they valiantly tried glass after glass of yecchy, too- sweet or too-long-open wine throughout our week. Sometimes just one sip and the glass was set down at the edge of the table with a shake of the head. "It's not dry at all." Or "It's gone off." and back the wine went.

After lunch, we headed back to the square to go to the castle. We toured it on our own, looking at many of the rooms that had been the king's apartment. It's good to be king. Debbie liked the floors best - beautiful parquet work, while the entire room of Canalettos impressed Janice. The castle was built relatively recently, and redone only 20 years ago - it had been destroyed just after WWII ended. We stopped for coffee in the small café inside the castle. Some of us found out later it was a bad idea to have coffee at 3:30 in the afternoon - Ewa and Carole didn't sleep very well that night!

Barbara, Debbie and Chris outside the Palace


Chris, Debbie and Ewa outside the Palace


We met up with our first guide of the trip, Anna, back in the square outside the castle. Of course by now it's started to rain. Umbrellas up, and Anna started acquainting us with Warsaw. She told us that the castle had been destroyed after the war, in a fight between the Germans and the Russians. We walked up a main street, Past the presidents’ residence, the statue to a famous poet who never lived in Warsaw; saw some of the street palaces built by the nobles who wanted to be close to the king.

Street Palace


At one point, we saw the royal guard parading up the street on patrol. Debbie got a good picture of them against the swirl of everyday life on the street.

We went in to Holy Cross church, famous for containing a relic of Chopin - his heart is interred in a pillar in the church!

We walked to the big modern "square" - not actually square but a vast open space. Workmen were constructing bleachers and a backdrop - the memorial to Pope Jan Pawal II was going to take place on Sunday evening, a year after he died, April 2nd 2005 at 9:37pm. Across the square, we saw the tomb of the Unknown Soldier. Anna told us that they had chosen between 3 soldiers to inter there; from WWII.

The square, setting up the bleachers for the memorial service of Pop Jan Pawal II


Tomb of the Unknown Soldier


We walked back through another section of the old town. Past St John's Cathedral, went inside. This church was destroyed during the Warsaw Uprising. On the outside wall, there is a tank tread embedded as a memorial. Nearby underneath and archway in the street is a symbol for the Warsaw uprising. I can’t imagine tanks rolling through my city, and the havoc and destruction and terror or war.

We continued on the Royal Way and came to a very pretty square with old houses ringing the cobblestones. The mermaid fountain in the middle of the square is the symbol of Warsaw.


We walked out the other side, past old city walls. Apparently Poland was not a very war-like country. It took some persuading to get the city walls created, and at one point in history, it just so happened that the Polish army was elsewhere when the Swedes invaded. So the Polish army ended up fighting for Warsaw, against their own walls!

We then saw the monuments to the 1944 Warsaw Uprising. Just as WWII was grinding to a stop, the citizens and soldiers of Warsaw rose up against the occupying Germans. The Russian army was just across the Vistula River, and the Warsawians assumed they'd come to help. They didn't. The uprising raged for more than 3 months, and the city emptied as people fled into the countryside. As the Germans were leaving the city, they destroyed it block by block so that there was nothing for people to come home to.

This statue depicts the soldiers leaving the city through the sewers


This ended the formal tour. We went back into the old town, stopped at a café for some warm drinks (Polish Glühwein). Barbara and Chris had another "wine surprise", bummer! We walked up the way in about an hour, and went to a new restaurant called Secrets for dinner. It was elegant, the food was wonderful and the wine was good. We got back to the square by the castle, caught 2 cabs back to the hotel. We piled back into our rooms - we all shared, 2 to a room.