Thursday in Warsaw
Trip Start
Aug 31, 2008
1
22
37
Trip End
Oct 05, 2008
Warsaw,
Poland
Thursday, September 18, 2008
Breakfast in this hotel is an extra cost, and we chose to have it today - but probably not again. There wasn't a huge amount or range of food & service was incredibly slow too. We were served jams, then bread & then had to wait ages for plates & knives. I received a cup of coffee & sugar bowl, but no spoon. We had almost finished & were ready to leave when David received his cup of tea. All this on a morning when I was feeling a bit "itching to get out there & looking at things".
1-Royal Castle Interior
We had previously asked (by email) the hotel did they sell the Warsaw tourist card & had been assured that they did. There is a 10% discount to the hotel accommodation, which pays for it alone, and then it provides free or discounted entry to museums etc, as well as free on public transport. Last night they said they had 1 1-day card only but would have more by today. A 3-day card is less than the cost of 2 single day cards, and we need that if we're to get a discount on 3 nights of accom. Come this morning though it was all too hard & no they didn't have cards - "buy it at a tourist information office".
We had also read that cards could be bought at many tourist attractions, so decided to try at the nearby Royal Palace - no luck. From our guidebook we found the tourist information office - but that turned out to be the Old Town tourist info. Tourist Cards could only be bought from the MAIN tourist info - and that was down the street & not even marked on the map.
When we finally reached that place, yes they could sell us tourist cards, but they had never heard of the Chopin concert I'd read about on the internet. Eventually they called the palace where the concert will be held, and they provided the name of the tourist company - and the person there knew nothing about it but could we please call back after 12 o'clock
3-Royal Castle Interior
.It all became a bit of a farce for a while there. Then the Royal Palace had one door for going in to buy tickets, down the street to another door where people were delivering chairs etc for a function, and down the street further, at the other end of the building, was the way in once you'd bought your tickets.
This Royal Palace was rebuilt after WW2 by contributions from former Poles who had left to live overseas. It was another gilt, stucco, some treasures from the centuries - and at the end there was an art collection, including a couple of really lovely Rembrandt pictures.
After spending a couple of hours in the Royal Palace, it was time to come back to our hotel & try to make the phone call about the Chopin concert. Talk about a well-kept secret, but the receptionist at our hotel made the phone call & booked us in & arranged for us to walk to another nearby hotel to be picked up from there.
Then we went out again, this time to look at more of the Old Town. The weather was grey & overcast but not raining. Oh yes, we had a funny experience in the cathedral. We went in to have a look at the church & David looked in one of the side doors that was open & a priest asked him did he want to see the crypt? 1 zloty to do so, so we said yes. He led us to some stairs and we went down, after a bit he followed us down, locking a gate behind us. "I think we're locked in" said David - great comfort to me!
After a bit the priest followed us into the area, he directed us to the next room, and the next..
11-Royal Castle Interior
. There were various tombs. One was the pianist Paderewski who became president of Poland. As I say, this priest followed us through, encouraging us to look or photograph, but locking up behind us.Eventually we came to some stairs back up to the cathedral - there was a chain across the top, but we removed that in order to get out, and it turned out that the cathedral was dark & locked up & there was one guy standing waiting at the main door to the cathedral, to unlock it again to let us out. (Tourists outside, trying to take photos through the window into the now dark cathedral.) Just as well that priest remembered we were in the crypt!
We followed the route described in our guidebook, through the Old Town (originally 13th century, largely destroyed in WW2 & then rebuilt according to plans & pictures), past the bastion & remainder of the Old Town Wall - and into the "New Town" (14th century - and thus now much older than the restored Old Town).
In the Old Town Square is a statue of a mermaid - a symbol of Warsaw - standing in the centre of the square where once stood the original Town Square. Apart from the tourists, there was a guy busking playing an accordion beside the Mermaid & a very bored looking driver waiting in a horse & cart.
Also on this square is the History of Warsaw Museum - and, you know us, we don't often miss a history museum!
This museum was a multi floor museum starting from very early days
5-Royal Castle Interior
. My feet were aching & I was feeling bored when I reached the rooms devoted to the early 1800s & was thinking about the Shuter brothers (born 1819 and 1825) & we paid attention to the various partitions of Poland, when Poznan & Lissa were under Prussian control.And then of course pre & WW2 history of Poland was very sad. There was enough English for us to pick up the despair & panic as Poland waited for "the inevitable invasion" of Germany.
Unlike Lithuania's version of history, which mentioned neither the Jews nor Nazis, this Warsaw museum spoke sometimes of "this happened to the Poles" and "this happened to the Jews" - sometimes making these sound like 2 distinct groups, and other times apparently including the Jews amongst the Polish residents.
Perhaps because so many Poles were killed by the Nazis there was more sympathy for the Jewish experience.
In 1944 when Germany was obviously losing the war and the Red Army was approaching, residents of Warsaw rose up in riot against the Nazis - and Stalin ordered the Red Army to stay outside of Warsaw & let the Germans finish off the rioters
6-Royal Castle Interior
. In retaliation, Hitler ordered all residents of Warsaw to be killed & the city razed. 85% of the city was destroyed, 500,000 Warsaw residents were killed & 650,000 were deported. After all this, then the Red Army came in.Chris told us last night that after all that, there was some thought of leaving Warsaw eradicated as a memorial to the victims & almost a museum to war. But some people came back & started clearing out the rubble & rebuilding...
We went to a number of other churches today. In one, a convent, it was quite lovely to hear the nuns singing & chanting. Another church we hesitated at the door when we saw a service underway, but in the end went inside & sat in the back row for a while.
Some churches I find very beautiful & peaceful, leading me to contemplation as well as to pray for my family. Some are sufficiently foreign that I don't "connect" with them, and can only be an observer.
Having read about the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, it was moving to see the Monument to the Warsw Uprising. The weather was a pity, but the monument was modern but obviously spoke of a lot of pain.
Walking back from there, we found a little Delicatessy - a general food store, including bakery & cold meats & hams & a small amount of other foods. We bought some bread rolls & ham to have with us in our hotel, as a "dinner in" before our Chopin Concert.
7-Royal Castle Interior
We had sore feet by the time we got back to our hotel, and it was good to rest a bit before going out again.
We walked up the street a bit to the Hotel Bristol, from where the bus picked us up to take us to the Myslewicki Palace, in the grounds of Lazienki Palace. (The bus stopped at a few other hotels on the way, to pick up others.) The pianist we heard was Marek Bracha, playing an assortment of Chopin pieces.
Obviously pieces selected for an audience who may or may not have been particularly educated in Chopin music. It was a lovely concert though - starting with Fantaisie Impromptu, some mazurkas, then a Polonaise.
At interval we were taken into the dining room of the palace for a glass of champagne each, standing in a room with a wall of significant art pieces. Back into the 2nd half of the concert, which started with my absolute favourite Chopin piece - the Polonaise in A major, then a tender Nocturne & then a brilliant Scherzo. There was sufficient applause at the end that the pianist came back for a short but fast & clever (piece of a?) mazurka.
Then back on the bus - we got off at the Hotel Bristol again & walked down to our hotel, experimenting with taking night photos again.
And now I've just realised that it's after midnight again, so time to stop.
From Kerry & David in Warsaw
