Advertisement
Published: June 16th 2009
Before I forget! We have a Polish mobile number: (+48) 518 672 494 and we’re 8 hours behind Australia.
So, it’s week number 2 in Warsaw and we’ve still been running around and trying to see as much as we can of the things this city has to offer. The weather has improved a whole lot, with today’s temperatures reaching a divine 25 degrees. Hooray! So we ventured out again... We’ve seen dozens of churches, including the oldest in Warsaw - St Mary's Church built in the 15th century, which still shows the scars of fires that were set to it during WWII. Most churches have been reconstructed to some extent as they were targeted during the war.
We went to Zoliborz to the apartment building where my family lived when I was born (no recollection, strangely). We took heaps of pics as apparently it’s changed a lot since my grandparents lived there. Then Uncle Jacek took us to the oldest cemetery in Warsaw - Powazski . It was a beautiful place, filled with flowers and candles, where you could happily roam about for a day just looking at the ancient graves and decorations on them. What I didn’t
previously know is that some of my Wetzlich ancestors are buried there and last year my grandfather’s brother was also buried in the same place. I also found out that who we suspect was my great, great grandfather was named Aleksander.
Speaking of graves, today we popped off to see the crypt under one of the churches in Old Town, where the tombs of many great Poles remain. St John's Cathedral was built in the 14th century and contains the tombs of Kings, Presidents, Clergy and one of Poland’s greatest authors. It was an eerie experience - being surrounded by sarcophagi, some of which were tiny ones belonging to the children of the last Queen. The tombs are under the church and while we were walking through you could hear the organ playing above, which just added to the atmosphere - until Piotrek dropped his water bottle and it clanged and echoed through the tunnels. D’oh! At this point I selected a few choice blasphemies, then I felt bad and have to confess that I may have peeked upward and uttered a small apology. Just in case…
The most amazing thing we’ve done in these past few days
though was to go to the Royal Castle last Sunday - this time we got to visit the interior - for free! I love free stuff!! You actually get to roam about this 16th century castle, and each room is named for its function during the time when it was still occupied by royalty. The walls are covered with tapestries and paintings by some of Poland’s (and Europe’s) most brilliant artists, including Rembrandt. It took us a couple of hours to get through the rooms, largely because we kept pausing to look more closely at the detail in the furniture, much of which was inlaid with mother of pearl or intricate wood working so fine that it looked like it was a print. The floors were also magic - wooden patterns that were interlaced so beautifully we happily just stood there and took it all in. Sadly methinks it wouldn’t translate so well to our little houses back home.
Speaking Polish and English all day is proving... interesting. Poor Nemo is constantly being addressed in Polish and my head is getting all muddled with the 2 inputs. Meanwhile his Polish is still racing ahead, and he’s been entertaining us
with full sentences like, “This sausage is very tasty. Aleks is very pretty, Piotrek is fat and Adam is not fat.” Hysterical. Not to mention the topical ‘Solidarnosc!’ that he pipes up at regular intervals. And for the record, Piotrek isn’t fat at all.
Apart from dealing with the language and bureaucracy here in Poland, we been doing a lot of eating and drinking. No, really, try and control your shock. Nemo is now fairly convinced that Polish is his favourite cuisine and it is all helped along by everyone obligingly cooking us as much genuinely Polish food as possible.
Nemo has thus far only found two dishes that he doesn’t like: wild mushrooms marinated in vinegar and flaki - a tripe dish with a super salty and peppery soup (I’ve also never been a fan). I’m finding the food a bit heavy with a massive lack of vegetables. I love a bit of kielbasa (sausage) as much as the next Pole ;o) but seriously need some roughage.
Happily strawberries are in season at the moment so we’re devouring kilos of them. The local strawberries are sold on the side of the road all over the city
and they cost 3.5PLN ($1.40) a kilo. Seriously. Tomatoes and capsicums are also in season, cheap and divine. You can smell them from the next shop and the tomatoes sold around here are locally grown in Poland. So naturally I’m making salads at home much to the horror of the boys I’m living with. I’ve also made them chicken with a lemon up its arse, Spag Bol and a mushroom, lemon and chilli penne.
There’s heaps of awesome markets about the place (think Flemington but smaller and more of them) where I can get any meat, cheese, cold cuts or fresh food that’s in season. It’s cheap and cheerful and I love shopping there, though it must be said that the supermarkets here seem to have a much higher quality of fresh produce than at home.
There is also a lot more international produce here now as compared to 10 years ago - you can get everything from prosciutto to fetta to sun dried tomatoes. I can also get fresh basil, coriander and lemongrass. There is a pretty large Vietnamese population here so that has really broadened their horizons beyond Europe. I know that when in Rome and
Kronos Statue
The Royal Castle
Warsawall that stuff, but I canna eat any more schnitzels, man! And I’m running towards the end of my cabbage and potato product tolerance though I still have plenty of space for the soups and sweets.
Deli-style food is also cheap - seriously cheap. 250g of quality cheese sets you back something in the vicinity of $1.60. Cold cuts (salami, kielbasa, ham etc) are incredible and they put Aussie equivalents to shame. Having said that, we’ve come pretty close to gnawing on passing cows, we’re craving quality hunks of red meat that much.
We’re eating at home a lot and from street vendors when we’re out and about, but we’ve found the way forward when it comes to value for money eating in Poland. They have these places called Bar Mleczny (Milk Bars) where the food is partially subsidised and it is unbelievably cheap. You can get everything from salads to pierogi to several soups as well as full meals of schnitzel or rissoles or fish with potato and veggies. And the most you pay is about 10PLN - $4 for those of you at home. A soup or pasta or pancake dish sets you can about 3PLN
which is $1.20. The food isn’t top notch and the dishes available vary from one to the other, but it’s quick and cheap and tasty. Totally the way forward after a day of trotting around town.
We’ve now had wild mushroom soup, zurek (rye soup), rosol (chicken soup), krupnik (veggie soup), cheese soup and of course tons of barszcz. One of those that really blew us away was szczawiowa, made of wild sorrel leaves that are chopped up quite finely and boiled with a vegetable stock. No idea why it tasted so good but I think we had 3 bowls each.
We haven’t had nearly as much experience in the sweet department as we would have liked just yet, though Piotrek is finishing school soon and as he is a chef in training, he’s promised to rustle up czarlotka (apple charlotte) and knedle (fruit rolled in a dough and then boiled). In the interim we’ve made do with paczki (kind of doughnut things, but not even slightly similar?) stuffed with blueberries, advocat custard, chocolate, apple and the normal jam filling. We’ve also had sweet pierogi, filled with cheese or fruit, and crepes that are also filled with cheese
and served with sweet cream. Soooo gooood. And the cukiernie (sweet shops) are filled with home made apricot and sour cherry crumbles, waffles and various other things that we’re still waiting to try.
In conclusion, we may have to buy 2 seats each on the flight out of here.
Just kidding, for some reason it works. We haven’t put any weight on as we’re walking a heap every day. The forest is only a couple of hundred metres away so we go walking through there in search of all the wildlife we’ve been promised. So far nada. I suspect they’re actually following us as we walk.
If we are going to get fat, it will be due to the litres of beer we seem to be polishing off every day.
There are SO MANY beers here, and they are deliciously cheap. A 500mL of one of the better local beers costs about $1.20. So Nemo is a very happy chap indeed. There’s plenty of Bulgarian and Spanish wines that are totally reasonable to drink that cost $5-$8 a bottle. But beer is the local poison, and there is nothing more satisfying than a giant grilled kielbasa, pickled
cucumber and half a litre of sweet, sweet beer.
The other local poison is obviously vodka, though thus far we’ve managed to avoid shots on the most part. Our welcoming night was filled with vodka as previously stated, and whilst visiting my Aunt Asia in Ursus my grandpa tried to get Nemo to join him in a welcoming gigantic shot, but thankfully my aunt saved him by suggesting he shouldn’t mix (wine, beer, cognac) with Vodka. What we do drink lots of is ‘drinki’ or drinks - which is basically vodka with a mixer, usually a juice. And the juices here are to die for. Pink grapefruit and blood orange are cheap and really good, though I’ve also been buying sour cherry juice and raspberry juice to add a little variety. Oh, it’s a hard life...
So from here on in we’re spending our time catching up with family and friends in Warsaw, and planning a few journeys around Poland. A distant cousin of mine, Kasia, found me on facebook a couple of days ago (incredibly good timing!) and she lives in Krakow now. She speaks near perfect English (Nemo breathes a sigh of relief). I last saw
her 10 years ago with her family in Zakopane. We’re going to catch up with her when we head down there, and she’s said that she’s happy to show us around. By the looks of it we might even be heading down this weekend! Uber excited.
So one of our trips is going to be down south to Krakow, the old capital of Poland, and then Zakopane which is in the mountains. I went there last time I was in Poland and it was one of the most beautiful places I saw during my whole trip. Kasia’s boyfriend might be able to put us up there, so we’re keeping it in the family!
We’re also hoping to do a trip to Wroclaw (to visit a family friend), then to Zielona Gora (to visit a cousin), then from there to Poznan, Gniezno and Biskupin - a 6th century village that is a renowned archaeological site throughout Europe.
Our northern voyage is going to include the massive and ancient fortress at Malbork, and then onward to the Baltic Sea, visiting Gdansk and Gdynia while we’re there.
Some of the family has also invited us to stay with them
at their holiday house in Mazury, which is the great lakes district of Poland, dotted with thousands of lakes and hundreds of little villages. And you can swim there!!!
The last big trip we have planned at the moment is to the north-east. I want to go to Bialystok which is the town that my dad was born in. Although the streets that he knew as a child no longer exist, there is a significant area of Bialystok that is still true to the old style that existed back then. From there we want to go to Bialawieza, where there’s a forest which is one of the most ancient remaining in Europe, and animals that used to roam the continent still exist in the wild. Among these there are bears, European lynx, moose, wolves and bison. Can’t wait!
(Nemo - “I like soup, especially when it has nice tasty things in it. But don’t eat soup with tripe in it, because it smells like a butt and is chewy like calamari... Until you realise it’s actually stomach lining”)
Advertisement
Tot: 0.059s; Tpl: 0.015s; cc: 9; qc: 35; dbt: 0.0305s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Michael Wetzlich
non-member comment
Unsettling
Very Unsettling to findout that I have a "Family Grave", also I did not think I had any family ties to Poland. Cheers, Mike