Warsaw

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August 27th 2006

Published: August 28th 2006

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Mal and Bec

Bratislava

Scenic Bratislava, from the top of the castle

Ok.... it's probably cheating to use an actual city name as a title for a post, but it is in keeping with the theme, and it is a Joy Division song title, so I feel I should be excused.

Anyway, we have now made it to Poland. It is quite a contrast to Slovakia. It is much more developed for one. And nobody speaks English. And there are less tourists. All of which make it a great country to travel through (if only we'd learned some Polish before we left). We also seem to have left the worst ravages of the American package tourists behind us. I should clarify what I mean here (American bashing has evolved to such a level amongst backpackers here that it is actually blatant racism, which is actually shocking, and quite ironic when you consider the 'liberals' that it is voiced by).

At the risk of sounding like those who discliam "I'm not racist, but".... I am not suggesting that the Americans that we have met on this trip have been bad. On the contrary, every American we have met has been great. However, there is a certain breed of American man (aged 45-60)

Not so scenic Bratislava

Bratislava, from the other side. Note the dirty big wind turbines on the Austrian side of the border.

that goes on package tours of Eastern Europe. They wear a uniform. They all (I am not exaggerating) dress as though they are a war correspondent. Ever notice how when a BBC correspondent is 'embedded', or is reporting from the front, they wear either a flack jacket or a vest with several pockets (somewhat similar to a fisherman)? Well, the mature American traveller in Eastern Europe wears the same. From this, I can discern that either this is what everyone is wearing in Florida this year, or, more likely, he will get his (immaculately dressed) wife to take a photo of him cowering behind a (long since abandoned) bombed out building and then brag to his friends over poker about his dangerous experience in Booosssnya. I have no quarms whatsoever in vocing my distaste at *this* breed of American.

Warsaw is a great, sprawling capital city. It was completely levelled during WWII, and, in a feat of Polish nationalism, with a little help from Stalinist central planning, was completely rebuit shortly thereafter. There is a monument to Stalinism in the heart of the city in the form of the "Palace of Culture and Science" (originally the "Joseph Stalin

Not so scenic Bratislava

Our accommodation in Bratislava. I think it was once a very pretty University hall. Now...

Palace of Culture and Science", but renamed after the purges). The locals seem to hate the place, for obvious reasons (it was a "gift" to the Polish people from Uncle Joe, but for obvious reasons is one of those gifts that you can't really give back - it is the tallest building in the city).

In some places you can tell that it was rebuilt so recently, but in the old town (now a UNESCO protected heritage area), there is very little to suggest that this is the case.

Anyway, apart from that, there is little in the way of news. A lot of sights, a lot of museums, a lot of heritage. And a lot of sorrow at the way the Nazis treated this country, and its peoples. I have attached some photos, spanning the period from our last update (so, they cover Bosnia, through Serbia, Slovakia and into Poland).

Additional photos below

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