Warsaw: A proud city

September 30, 2014

As we fell into Warsaw we were not physically hurt but we suffered a severe and acute form of culture shock. Here were two elderly people used to riding around on their bikes through the forests, watching the farmers at work, finding little shops that might make a coffee and always on the look out for an old and interesting tractor. Now we were in a massive modern city, there were glass towers everywhere, there were buses, cars and trams and there were thousands of people all walking with purpose at break neck speed and looking as they knew they where they were going. What is more there wasn't an old tractor in sight and they appeared to be digging up the roads.

Tuesday was another day, we woke in our rather awful, overpriced hotel and made a plan. We would relocate (but would inspect the hotel before we committed), we would go to the Old Town find the Information there to answer our many questions, we would find the correct length of cable tie to fix Ken's bike, we would see if we could fix my iPad (really unnecessary as I have got around the problems) and perhaps the airport and check out how it is for bikes.

After muesli and yoghurt in our room we set off. The first stop was the Information in the Old Town, that was a dead loss. There are two types of people running Information Services. The ones who are so helpful they go the extra mile, they look up information relating to obscure questions and there are the other sort. This one was that sort, I am sure she is very good at keeping all her pamphlets tidy but there it stops. She couldn't tell us where to buy a tram ticket or answer any of our other questions and I didn't even get on to the postgraduate one "where do I buy a cable tie?" On we went the next stop the Ibis Stare Miasto and our day changed. The man at reception was fantastic. Yes although check in was at midday we could check in on Wednesday as early as we liked, no problem about bikes, he sorted out our problems buying tram tickets and I am sure if we hadnt found a shop selling cable ties on our way there he could have done that too. So on Wednesday we will relocate.

The rest of the day went well, we rode the trams, went to the airport and the Chopin Museum and had a lovely meal in an outdoor restaurant on The Royal Road.

I am certainly warming to Warsaw although it hasn't got the immediate appeal of Krakow, it is much more serious. Warsaw is a proud city. It is proud of its survival through such hardship. It is proud of Chopin, Capernicus, Marie Curie and Pope John Paul (though not as proud as Krakow is of him). It is particularly proud of the Warsaw uprising of 1944. It is proud of the protests of the students of the University of Warsaw that began in 1968 and that subsequently triggered strikes again communism throughout the country and led eventually to the formation of the Solidarity movement It sees itself as a phoenix that has risen from the ashes and takes great pride in seeing itself as a city of free people. I think that Warsaw has every right to feel so proud of itself.

An installation that commemorates the urising of 1944

These series of powerful sculptures depict the Polish Uprising

This huge building was agift from The Soviet Union, it is called 'House of Culture' . As a symbol of the Soviet dommination it provokes strong feeling even today

A bit different from the small shops in the country

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