Warsaw Rising

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Warsaw. It sounds pretty grim doesn't it? That tends to happen when you put the words "war" and "saw" together. Then you add the city's history and its association with the Eastern bloc and you have a connotation for the word "bleak". Yet it is exactly this which also gives the city intrigue - and all that stuff was a long time ago now so it was time to see how Warsaw has changed.

I think I've been pretty fortunate with border crossings on this trip. I've not had any dramas like this or any ridiculously long, nightmare ones.
Well, on what was to be my final proper border crossing from Ukraine back into the EU and Poland, it appears my luck has finally run out.
Getting past Ukrainian border control was fine - that only took two hours. FOUR HOURS LATER however, my bus had still to go through Polish immigration and customs. It seems that the EU is determined not to let in any animal diseases and therefore we had to go through a customs process as strict as New Zealand's. Any food that anyone was carrying had to be thrown out. Dogs came a'sniffin'. I kid you not, the queue stretched back for kilometres and kilometres and kilometres. People were out of their cars, drinking beer and smoking cigarettes - it was a complete standstill. And I could understand why - after everyone had taken all of their bags out from the hold, there was ONE officer and ONE scanner to process every single passenger crossing the border. And they didn't look like they were in any hurry either. It was quite simply, scandalous. At least we could hang around outside; summer had temporarily returned and it was lovely and warm but a total sauna inside the bus when it wasn't moving. There were also a couple of big, bald Polish guys who provided everyone with a few laughs. Desperate for beer, they ended up buying some off other commuters stuck in the queue. When we eventually got to a service station they bought a 24-pack of tinnies and started smashing them back.
Anyway, seven hours is now officially the longest I've ever spent stuck at the border. Perhaps surprisingly, with the help of my iPod, the seven hours between midday and 7pm didn't actually feel like the slowest seven hours ever. I had been warned about a long wait so I guess I was expecting it. It was still a marathon though and I was impressed with my patience. I was more concerned at what time I was now going to arrive in Warsaw, with Poland's capital almost 500km away from the border.

It turned out to be 11pm as the road was very good and the driver was doing some serious speed in a bid to make up time. I am always a little nervous about arriving somewhere at night - especially when you have no idea where you're being dropped off - but as things turned out, I had nothing to fear. There was one young Ukrainian dude on the bus who spoke English and he was kind enough to point me to the right bus stop outside the bus station. I then caught one bus and two trams going in the general direction of where I was going and I got off a short walk from the hostel. I didn't have to wait at all for any of the buses and trams and they are all brand new with ticket machines inside them. And where I got used to being the only guy of colour in Moldova and Ukraine, I was pleasantly surprised to see a very cosmopolitan population here in Warsaw. With loads of brand-new glass buildings everywhere along with the very efficient public transport system, I felt like I was back in Germany. I definitely felt like I was back in Western Europe anyway and I realised that Ukraine - and definitely Moldova - still has catching up to do in terms of development.

I was staying just two minutes away from the old town so naturally that was where I started the next day. Naturally, it was also where almost every tourist was at that exact time and because it was a Sunday, half of Warsaw's local population were also wandering around the old town's pretty, cobblestoned streets, on what was a warm and beautifully sunny day. Loads of tourists seemingly here for the weekend was just something I didn't see much of in Moldova and Ukraine, so it was a little bit of a surprise. Sunday also meant that in relatively conservative and majority Catholic Poland, there was a service on at St Anne's Church which has an impressive interior. Warsaw's old town is pretty small and reminded me a bit of Riga and Tallinn, what with all the colourful facades that fronted almost every building.
Saxon Park and its well-kept gardens is also a nice place for a Sunday stroll and indeed many of the locals had the same idea. In this park is the tomb of an unknown soldier, a common memorial to have throughout the world. Rather less common is having two guards either side of it at all times, looking expressionlessly straight ahead like a guard outside Buckingham Palace or Whitehall.

Sunday also meant that the Warsaw Rising Museum was free. Poland has had it rougher than most when it comes to history, particularly since the 18th century when it has gone through occupation after occupation after occupation. And it was during the Nazi occupation during WWII that the Warsaw Uprising occurred, an event I admittedly had no idea about. With the Soviet Red Army advancing upon Warsaw in July 1944, the uprising was a planned Allied operation which was supposed to coincide with the Soviet advance to liberate Warsaw from the Nazis. By way of background, there were two underground political forces at the time; the Polish Underground State (PUS); and the Polish Committee of National Liberation (PCNL) who were backed by the Soviet Communists. It was the call of the PUS to start the uprising on August 1st, hoping to liberate Warsaw and Poland so the PUS could assume power before the PCNL could.
Sadly, this never came to pass as with the Red Army's march stopping short of Warsaw and with Allied support limited by the Soviet refusal to allow Allied aircraft to use their airfields, the rather piecemeal resistance effort was crushed by the Germans and their superior resources after two months. It said that Stalin deliberately let the insurrection die so that the Communists could assume power post-war - and the fact he tried and executed many of the PUS high command after the war seems to back that up. Stalin was one ruthless, arsehole dictator.
The museum is very impressively themed and decorated; lots of video and sound creates an immersive and interactive experience and there are loads of cool objects on display from the uprising including guns, radios, uniforms, a replica model of the sewers through which Polish fighters traversed the city, BMW motorcycles with sidecars and machine guns and an entire Allied plane. There were separate sections on life during the insurrection, how the forces communicated with each other by radio and through runners, young brigades of kids and teenagers who contributed to the resistance effort, individual stories and photographs and video of executions. Some of it was very moving. Outside the museum are memorials for the fallen - around 16,000 Polish insurgents were killed but perhaps even more tragically, 150,000-200,000 civilians were killed, mainly executed by cowardly Nazis completely in contravention of the rules of engagement. I found the exhibits were a little haphazardly placed however and although there were signs pointing out the route of the tour through the museum, the different and often unrelated sections in close proximity made it difficult for me to piece together the exact timeline of events. Nevertheless it was definitely a worthwhile visit.

Getting to and from the museum was done on Warsaw's brand-spanking new and modern metro. In fact, many of Warsaw's buildings are pretty new - perhaps no surprise given that most of the city was razed by the Nazis. But Poland co-hosting the Euro 2012 football championships was I think, a real catalyst for the serious makeover that the city appears to have had recently. With buses, trams and the metro, Warsaw is spoiled for public transport and the city appears to be thriving.
Sadly, this extends to the fact that major brands have well and truly pitched up here and left their mark. Caffe Nero and Costa Coffee are just two which have become ubiquitous here, arousing in me a pang of nostalgia for my London days. Perhaps the Poles who have returned from living in the UK have brought the chains and their popularity back with them. There was hardly a local, independent, mini-market around, which you could find everywhere in Moldova and Ukraine. Sunday meant that the nearest Carrefour Express was closed early and this limited my reasonably-priced dinner options to McDonald's and KFC. And perhaps I chose poorly as the portion sizes at KFC were poor.
The street that my hostel was on - Krakowskie Przedmescie - seemed to be the main pedestrian thoroughfare of the city with parks, bars, restaurants, landmark churches and palaces on either side of it. This extended into the shopping street of Nowy Swiat, a shopping street of new, old-style buildings whose curve and lampposts reminded me of Regent Street in London. Perhaps the returning Poles brought that idea back with them from London too?

On my last day in Warsaw, the weather was much more characteristic of the cold, grey, miserable place that I thought Warsaw was in my previous misconceptions - it was cold, grey and miserable, and the rain was incessant. And things got worse. As I checked out of the hostel and went to leave my bags in the luggage room, I was then told that I had to make sure I picked them back up by 4pm because they were closing the hostel for a couple of days for maintenance - a bit of a spanner in the works to say the least. This was because I had an overnight bus that night at 11pm and my plan was to leave my bags here for the day while I went sightseeing, returning in the evening to hang out at the hostel for a bit and charge my devices before taking my bags with me to the bus station. Now I had to find somewhere else to leave my bags - I wasn't gonna bloody well lug them around with me all over Warsaw in the rain. Like travel often does, it made me me think on my feet and I decided the central train station would be my best option, as it was on the way to the bus station and easy to get to once I had finished sightseeing.
So it was to the train station I went and I have to say that everything is very new and efficient there and the facilities were excellent. There were a massive number of lockers of all sizes and were coin-operated and easy to use - perfect. My detour to the train station however did cost me some sightseeing time as I hot-footed it to the Ghetto Heroes Monument commemorating those who died in the ghetto uprisings during the Nazi occupation, and the swanky new Museum Of The History Of Polish Jews next door.

Even though I knew I was short on time, I nevertheless spent three hours and an unexpected 6€ at the muesum - but it was worth it. It basically charts the story of Jews in Poland, all the way from when they arrived in the territory in the Middle Ages through to today. The exhibits were interactive and the content was delivered through a variety of different mediums from audio, video, touchscreens and good old-fashioned signboards. The exhibition spaces were all immaculately decorated too, generally in the style of the times, whether that was a medieval village, a 1920s train station or an 18th century palace. The visual highlights were the recreation of a intricately painted wooden synagogue burnt to the ground by the Nazis, and the dark, metal dungeons of the Holocaust exhibit. The actual building itself was also an architectural gem both inside and out, evoking the Vad Yashem Museum in Jerusalem. What the museum did best though was tell the story of Jews in Poland through the ages and how regional events shaped their fate. I must say that they've had a rough ride - they have been persecuted almost from the moment they arrived and for centuries. All because of a theological argument between them and the Christians. The museum also highlighted how adept at business and trading they were - making them a valuable commodity to whoever ruled over them at the time, which often afforded them protection from attacks and persecution. It didn't always happen however and even to this day there is still anti-Semitism in Poland and indeed the world. I liked the Holocaust exhibition which was relatively information light; it instead presented the atrocities committed through a series of survivor quotes, which brought home just how desperate and hopeless things were during the Nazi occupation. Once again, they were moving to read.

Getting out of the museum at 5pm, I only had an hour to get to the Poster Museum exhibiting Polish poster art in Wilanow, some seven kilometres to the south. Hopping on the bus, I didn't have time to buy a ticket and the bus was packed which made getting to the on-board ticket machine a real hassle. But before buying a ticket I then had to decide if I still really wanted to go. The bus was stuck in the Warsaw gridlock as it was rush hour, which was made even worse by the rain. It normally takes about forty minutes to get to Wilanow and I was doubtful as to whether I would make it in time. I would then be stuck out there, wandering around a park in the rain. It didn't seem like it would be fun. So I got off the bus and then realised that I literally had nothing to do; it was too wet and now too dark to visit the parks I wanted to visit; I could find somewhere with wifi and surf but I was weary of using up my phone battery since I might not get a chance to charge my phone for another twenty four hours; and I had no hostel to back to, just to hang out. I decided in the end to go to the shopping mall next to the train station but ended up getting soaked by the rain in getting there and my shoes - like in Cuenca and more recently, Odessa - were saturated again.
It was at this point I really regretted staying that extra night in Lviv. It wasn't worth the night out there in the end and I could've had an extra day in Warsaw to check out the other sights that I ended up missing - plus I would have had a hostel to go back to if I had left Lviv as planned. Now soaking and cold and with nothing to do - and little money left to spend - I now faced an a very uncomfortable overnight bus journey.

But I have to say that I do like shopping malls; a place to escape the outside world, they are usually inviting, new, modern - very flash and modern in Warsaw's case - warm and most importantly; dry. You can also always use the clean, modern bathrooms and toilets in there for free! It is a great place to procrastinate too as I successfully shopped for a new SD card for my camera (I somehow rather annoyingly lost my spare one somewhere in South America) and unsuccessfully shopped for some new headphones. I had dinner at the food court there before buying some supplies for the bus ride at the supermarket. And from wondering what the hell I was going to do for six hours, I then found myself scrambling a little bit to catch the conveniently short train ride from the central train station to the bus terminal. All done without having to step outside into the rain at all.
With 9PLN (2€) left to spend - I had saved it for my train ticket - I then annoyingly found out that the bloody ticket machines didn't take coins! So I spent it on a muffin instead and paid the train fare by card - another 2€ I didn't have to spend.
I was served by yet another po-faced Pole at the Caffe Nero, a facial default rather typical of Poland and Eastern Europe. Is it perhaps a result of everything they have been through in the last 100 years?

Anyway, I felt I had done the main things I wanted to see in Warsaw but wished I had just another half day to feel like I had seen the place properly. In any case, it is a city that I have been very impressed with in terms of public transport and infrastructure and the old town is nice - it is definitely worth a weekend visit away. I wouldn't say that it is particularly cheap though, especially after having been in the Ukraine. Cheaper than London and Western Europe for sure but I still managed to go through my entire budget for my stay which wasn't the plan. I guess all this nice infrastructure has to be paid for. But for now, Prague and an uncomfortable bus journey awaited!

Na razie!
Derek

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Photos

Plac Zamkowy
The postcard pic of Warsaw. The Royal Castle is on the right.

Palace Of Culture & Science
Soviet building "gifted" to Warsaw. One of Warsaw's landmarks, it looks a lot like one of Stalin's Seven Sisters in Moscow.

Colourful Houses
At Plac Zamkowy.

Samsung Tower
One of many modern additions to Warsaw's skyline.

Saxon Gardens
Nice place for a Sunday stroll in Central Warsaw.

Warsaw Rising Museum
Very well decorated museum.

St Anne's Church
With Plac Zamkowy in the background.

Rynek Starego Miasta
Main square inside Warsaw's old town.

Tomb Of The Unknown Soldier
Guarded at all times.

Museum Of The History Of Polish Jews
Very immersive and interactive museum.

Painted Synagogue Ceiling
A replica of a painted synagogue ceiling that was razed by the Nazis.

Plac Pilsudskiego
Large concrete square from where you can see Warsaw's skyline.

Krakowskie Przedmiescie
Main (mostly) pedestrian drag through Central Warsaw that leads to the old town.

Zlote Tarasy
Modern shopping centre next to Warsaw's central train station.

Monument To The Warsaw Rising
Outside the Polish Supreme Court in Warsaw.

Survivor Quote
From inside the Holocaust section of Museum Of The History Of Polish Jews.

Chopin Museum
One of the world's most famous composers grew up here in Warsaw and here is the museum opened in his honour. I'm not enough of a classical music fan to pay the entry fee, however.

Warsaw Metro
Brand new and very efficient.

Nowy Swiat
New shopping street that reminded me a lot of London's Regent Street.

Inside St Anne's Church
There was a Sunday mass in progress at the time.

Royal Castle Gardens
Free to enjoy!

Tile Art
On a building just outside Warsaw's old town.

The Barbican
The main gate into the old town.

Memorial
Remembering those who died in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944.

Ghetto Heroes Monument
During the Nazi occupation, Jews were forcibly relocated to ghettoes - this monument remembers those who died in them.