Old Town and New Town

Trip Start Sep 05, 2008
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Trip End Jan 01, 2009

Flag of Poland  , Central Poland,
Tuesday, December 9, 2008

Yesterday I spent walking around again. This time I visited the Old Town and then on to the New Town. There are several palaces and churches throughout. Mixed in between are charming old tenement houses, cafes, restaurants and other buildings alongside cobbled streets. And right now it is all done up for Christmas so there are light displays everywhere and in the Old Town square there is a 26m Christmas tree. It is a real tree and makes the entire square smell fantastic. Around the tree are market stalls selling wonderful Christmasy things.

Old Town is not the oldest part of the city and during the Warsaw Uprising in 1944 the German occupants destroyed 90 percent of the buildings. So Old Town was carefully rebuilt and when you walk around the city you can see before and after shots of some of the buildings. There is a really good display of this at the university that I visited the day before.

It was cold again so I went back to my room in the middle of the day to warm up and this time I decided to wear my pajama bottoms under my pants. When I set back out again I was much warmer. I wish I had thought of it sooner! Since it gets dark so early here I got to see all the Christmas lights in Old Town lit up. I had walked through the entire area before 4:30pm. I went back to the kebab window for a pita and then tried to find some information on Barcelona for my trip there tomorrow. I think I may have to buy a guidebook this time.
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