Hello Warsaw

Sunday morning we were up before 7:00 AM, packing and getting ready to leave. We had an early breakfast and then found our way to the U-Bahn and then the S-Bahn, to get across town to the Ostbahnhof, the smaller train station that handles trains going to the east. Our 5-day transit pass had expired at midnight the night before. The entire time we were in Berlin, our tickets were never checked. I'm sure, though, that if we had decided to ride on the expired pass, we would have met a ticket inspector on Sunday morning.

The trip to Warsaw takes about five and a half hours. The first half of the trip we had the whole compartment to ourselves. After stopping in Posnan, though, the train completely filled including our 6-seat compartment, so it wasn't quite as nice. When we got into the central train station, we walked past the Stalinistic Palace of Culture and Science, through the mall, and to our B&B about two blocks away.

We are staying at the Chopin Boutique B&B which was recommended in one of Rick Steves' guidebooks. We have a nice, 4-room suite that is very close to the train station and the main shopping street. We didn't get to our room until after 5 PM. It took us a while to unpack, but we were ready for dinner a little after 7. We strolled through the shopping area, but most of the shops were closed on Sunday. We had dinner at a Hungarian restaurant, which offered a selection of goulash dishes for two.

Monday - Touring Warsaw

Kathy and I usually prefer to do our own touring, instead of taking a pre-packaged tour. That way, we can skip the parts we aren't interested in, making up our itinerary on the fly. Our goal for today was the "royal mile", the old and new towns, and the monuments to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising immortalized in Leon Uris' book, Mila 18.

We started out on Jerusalem Avenue which originally lead to a Jewish settlement. Between the wars, the street was renamed to May 3rd Avenue, celebrating the date of the Polish constitution, while the Nazi's renamed it Bahnhofstrasse (Train Station Street). The communists switched it back to the original Jerusalem Avenue.

The 50-foot palm tree at the corner of Jerusalem Street and Nowy Swait was created by a local artist after a visit to the real Jerusalem. It was originally controversial; when it snowed, the pro-palm-tree faction camped out in the traffic circle, dressed in bikinis and beachwear to show their support. They prevailed and it still stands today.

Novy Swait is a shopping boulevard, lined with boutiques, cafes and restaurants; it is the most up-scale, elegant part of the city. 

A few blocks up from Jerusalem Avenue, we came across the A. Blikle pastry shop and cafe, which is apparently the place to buy pqcski, the rose-flavored jelly donuts that we've heard so much about. Not wanting to flout the local customs, we ordered two. However, it was hard for me to restrain myself when there were so many choices.

I also liked the store itself, and I'm thinking that OCC should consider an upgrade on the new Starbucks going into the Computing Center. Something like this would look classy.

After our mid-morning snack, we headed across the street to Warsaw University. They have a very nice entryway.

Further down the street over the doorway to the library I found a group of bearded men contemplating their navels. I decided to join them.

Past the University, we came to the statue of the Polish national poet, Adam Mickiewicz. Every year, 100 days before graduation, Polish high school students have a formal ball. After the ball, students come to this statue and try to hop entirely around it on one foot; it's supposed to bring them good luck on their finals.

Next door was a church with a statue of Cardinal Stephan Wyszynski, the head of the Catholic church in Poland from 1948 to 1981, who was imprisoned by the Communists. Next to that was a park showing photographs of Warsaw from the 1800s. In the park was a statue sitting on a park bench that Kathy had some fun with.

Near the corner of the park is the Bristol Hotel where all of the war correspondents stayed during the invasion of Poland in 1939. I'm reading Leon Uris' Mila 18 while we're in Warsaw and one of the main characters stayed there. Across the street and down a block is Pilduski Square, another local landmark with a plethora of names over time. During the Nazi era, it was Aldolph Hitler Platz.

In recent history, the square is most famous for Pope John Paul II's visit and mass, held in 1979 while the country was still under Communist rule, and the May 31, 1981 funeral of Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski. A large white cross marking the Pope's visit is the only memorial in the square.

Inside the square, separating it from the Saxon gardens, is the tomb of the unknown soldier (You can barely see the soldiers standing at attention). Back on the royal way, we climbed the viewing tower next to St. Anne's church to get an overview of the Old Town.

What's interesting about the Old Town (and the Royal Palace; the pink building in the foreground), is that everything in it was build after 1948. You'd swear it was 200+ years old. However, when the Germans left Warsaw there was, almost literally, "not one stone left standing on another." As you walk through town, you'll see glass cubes containing paintings showing the same scene back in the 1700s. The Poles used these paintings to reconstruct the old city.

In the center of the Old Town is the Market Square with the statue of the Polish Little Mermaid who lives in the Vistula. Unlike the Disney version, this one carries a sword.

After visiting the Old Town, we were really hungry, so we stopped into a little place on a side street for some Polish filled dumplings (almost like ravioli) called pierogi. They can be filled with almost anything. We got one order filled with lentils and one with meat. I think these might be Kathy's new favorite food.

After lunch, we headed over to the former Jewish ghetto area. At the outbreak of WWII, there were 330,000 Jews in Warsaw; the only city with more Jews was NYC. When the war started, all the Jews were confined to a newly created ghetto area, and Jews from the surrounding countryside were brought in. At its height, the Warsaw Ghetto held almost a million and a half Jews. 

By 1942, almost a quarter of those had died of starvation and disease. That is when the Nazis began "resettling" the remaining Jews in the East; about 5,000 a day. By the time the population was reduced to 60,000 word got back that the resettlement was really extermination. 

On April 19, 1943, the remaining Jews attacked Nazi strongholds throughout the city. Surprisingly, they were able to hold off the Nazis for almost a month before the last command bunker, at Mila 18, was destroyed. Today, at Mila 18, the rubble from that last bunker is the tomb of those who died defending it. The rest of the largest settlement of Jews in Europe is covered in Soviet-style apartment buildings.