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Poland

May - June 2019
A 8-day adventure by Tim Lynette Read more
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  • TravelerPoland
    Day 1

    Arrival in Warsaw

    May 30, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 19 °C

    The travel worked ok, after leaving 45 minutes late, and the apartment was ready for us move in. It's right in the heart of old Warsaw and is light and airy and well-appointed, so every thing is fine. I was surprised to find that I really like Warsaw, the modern parts are full of trees and parks, the streets are wide and tree-lined and everywhere is clean and tidy. The city was turned to rubble in the war, and before the Germans left they demolished and blew up absolutely everything, even blowing up the cobbles in the streets. After the war the communists carefully reconstructed the old town, using old paintings as guides as to what it looked like, so today it's an old medieval city, but built in the sixties and seventies. It should feel like Disneyland, but it doesn't!Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 1

    Luton airport

    May 30, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ☁️ 18 °C

    Luton airport, as always, is a massive building site. This time they are constructing a rapid transit to Luton Parkway train station (I suppose it does need it). This means the drop off zone, even for disabled passengers, is about half a mile back up the road. Luckily we are travelling light with only carry on bags - it would have been a nightmare with big heavy cases.
    However, once inside and through security, there is an Enrique Tomas shop selling wonderful Spanish jamon and we just had to have a jamon and manchego baguette for breakfast. Yum.    Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 2

    Warsaw by night

    May 31, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    Despite having had platefuls of pierogis, polish sausage and beer for lunch in the sun, we still went out for dinner and managed to put away most of two courses each. Delicious cured herring and rye and sausage soup for starters, followed by roast half a duck and wild boar. The duck with roast potatoes and apples and a blackcurrant sauce was one of the best duck dishes we've had anywhere. Feeling bloated we went for a walk round the walls of the old city (reconstructed) before retiring.Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 2

    First day of sightseeing

    May 31, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ⛅ 22 °C

    After a good night's sleep and leisurely breakfast, we wandered round the old town and out of the gate into the new town which despite its name dates from the 15C. It too has been reconstructed in parts but one building is the home of Marie Curie who then went by her Polish name of Maria Sklodowska. It is now a museum to her and is a fascinating place containing some of the lab equipment and lots of photos and possessions. They were a remarkable family of teachers, doctors, physicists, chemists, bioengineers with several Nobel prizes between them. Some lovely photos of Marie attending science symposiums with a roll call of the greats of science in the early 20C.
    Then on to another museum - a new one celebrating the contribution of Jews to Poland from the 13C onwards to their extermination. The section on the Warsaw ghetto was particularly sobering, it's incredible that one section of humankind can do that to another section, but of course things continue to the present day. A very impressive museum which makes us realise how little we know about eastern Europe.
    It's been another beautiful warm and sunny day much better weather than we expected.    Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 3

    Saturday - cathedral and museum

    June 1, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ⛅ 20 °C

    Warsaw was where Chopin was born and brought up so the city has Chopin stuff everywhere (even the airport is called Warsaw Chopin) so last night we went to a small Chopin concert just round the corner from the apartment. Today was cloudy and overcast at first then very humid and at 24 degrees very hot and then sunny so a cool visit to the cathedral, which is pleasantly light and airy, was very welcome. It was destroyed of course and rebuilt. It is full of wonderful stained glass windows - nearly full height, roof to floor, - and really well done. Next door is the Jesuit church - also very plain and tasteful. Then on to the national museum - a 20 minute walk in the sun before we found that the antiques section - Egyptian, Roman etc - was closed for renovation. However they have a very fine section from an excavation in Nubia of a cathedral stuffed full of frescos dating to the 8th to 12th centuries, and that was wonderful, and lots of Coptic and meroitic material.

    Saturday seems to be family fun day in Warsaw and all the squares and streets are packed with people. The square outside the apartment has buskers and jugglers and balloon sellers and dancing groups ..... Now .. Where can we find somewhere quiet to eat??    Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 4

    On to Krakov

    June 2, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ☀️ 25 °C

    Last night in the main square in Warsaw there was a young lady with a beautiful voice playing a big strange looking instrument. Anyone know what it is? Could it be a zither played vertically?

    Today we got the train from Warsaw to Krakov. The high speed train running from Gdansk to Krakov, so all the way across Poland from north to south. Very comfortable, on time, and very popular. It's even hotter in Krakov than Warsaw, 25degrees today. The apartment is lovely, on the sixth floor of a modern block, overlooking a park and with a sun terrace with deck chairs.Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 5

    Krakow old town

    June 3, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ☀️ 26 °C

    We didn't take to Krakow as quickly as we did to Warsaw which surprised us as it's original medieval buildings rather than reconstructed and undoubtedly attractive. We think the main reason is the large number of tourists, mostly foreign, whereas the people in Warsaw seemed mainly Polish families and schoolkids. There are lots of touts for tours and restaurants and it generally feels over touristy.
    Still breakfast in the sun on our balcony was lovely. Several places today were closed or only open restricted hours despite the times they publish. One museum was a big disappointment- the excavations under the main square have been preserved in situ and an underground museum created. The ruins were interesting and some artefacts looked nice but the only explanations were on touch screens that gave generic screeds rather than telling you what each piece was. We got frustrated and gave up. There are some nice churches, old city walls and gate, a Barbican fort but what we enjoyed most was shopping in the market and bringing it home for lunch.    Read more

  • TravelerPoland
    Day 6

    Long day sightseeing - 1

    June 4, 2019 in Poland ⋅ ⛅ 25 °C

    Starting with the castle and cathedral, which was where Poland's kings and queens were crowned and buried, and as such seems be one of the places they take huge groups of schoolchildren to appreciate their heritage. So the queues to get in were huge and, as it's quite a small cathedral , inside it was completely rammed. You really couldn't see much through the crowds. You could also go down underneath the castle where excavations have revealed lower layers of buildings, including the base of an earlier church dating from 10th century, and as the school groups don't go down there it was quiet and peaceful, but sadly again even though there were cases of some of the artefacts found there showing life in medieval Kraków, there very few information points to tell you what you were seeing. From there to a nearby church in which is a 17th century painting by a krakowian monk that we had seen a copy of in Warsaw. Called the Dance of Death, it shows a ring of women from royalty to serfs dancing each with a skeleton, and round the outside panels of men from many professions, each also with a skeleton.

    Then a little walk into the old Jewish quarter, which became the Kraków ghetto, and a visit to a couple of the remaining synagogues, an older and plainer one, with an old Jewish cemetery attached, and one dating from the late 1800s, much more fancy with lovely stained glass windows. Hard to tell though how much is original and how much reconstructed after the war, because the Germans demolished everything they could.    Read more

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