Day 519: Exploring Warsaw

Although Warsaw is a huge city, the world heritage area here is comparatively small. It only covers the Old Town which dates back to the city's founding in the 13th century. But it's not listed because of its age - it's on the list because it was almost completely destroyed during WWII and then reconstructed, brick by painstaking brick. Over 80% of the buildings were destroyed which is staggering, but after the war people began to use the leftover materials to rebuild their homes. In many cases decorations were found in the rubble, and reinstalled in place.

We spent a good day here just wandering around and filming various sites - a few cathedrals, town squares, bastions and the like. Interesting stuff. Had lunch at a restaurant in a side-alley, since the main square looked to be full of tourist traps (unpriced photos of food, waiters with menus spruiking) and had a big plate of Polish dumplings each. We both got the mixed plate, which had various fillings - cottage cheese, minced pork, mushrooms, potato and bacon etc. Delicious.

Eventually by mid-afternoon the heat had defeated us - it was about 28 and blazing sun, and Schnitzel was definitely struggling too. I think humans find it easier to adapt to big changes in temperature than dogs do - we can change clothes after all, but he's only got his fur and can only grow or shed it slowly for the seasons. So we retreated to our little studio apartment and relaxed for a while.

Early evening (after another thunderstorm passed over!) we went out and met a travel blogger friend Hanna, who we'd met at TBEX in Manila nearly two years ago. We've actually seen her again a couple of times, elsewhere in the Philippines and later in Kuala Lumpur as well. She's Polish and lives just outside of Warsaw, so we had a few drinks and caught up with her which was nice. Spain is her next stop, to go and work for an NGO in Granada - very cool!Read more