Walking. Gossip. Travel.

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  • Warsaw – Ibis Styles Warszawa West

    Warsaw – Ibis Styles Warszawa West

    As I carry on working my way around the Accor hotels in Warsaw, this one is located a little outside of the centre and I took a train to reach it. Although I’m walking back as it’ll let me meander through some parts of the city that I haven’t seen before.

    The hotel reception and layout feels quite old-fashioned and I’m unsure why it’s an Ibis Styles. There’s no design-led element to the hotel, it’s all quite bland. Actually, it feels like a prison where they’ve put some jazzy lines on the walls to cheer it up a bit.

    This is the most, well, unimpressive room that Accor have given me in Poland. It’s functional, although the lights didn’t work but the hotel fixed that when I went to query it. Every Ibis Styles has a theme and I’ve liked the previous Roman, space, canoeing and so on themes. I’m not sure what the theme here is, perhaps it’s communist Poland. The room was sort of clean, but it wasn’t to the standard of the other Accor hotels I’ve visited over the last week.

    The desk size wasn’t ideal at all. There are meant to be tea and coffee making facilities in the room, but they didn’t provide any coffee, just tea.

    This is the first Accor hotel I can recall staying in where they use coins instead of vouchers for their welcome drink. I wonder whether it’s to avoid the rather generous terms of the voucher…..

    There are a diminishing number of Accor hotels that decide that anyone who wants beer must want lager, but this is one of them. I really don’t particularly want generic cheap lager, but that was the sole beer option with the welcome drink voucher. On reflection, I probably should have kept the coin as a souvenir of the hotel.

    The breakfast, which was mostly set out in little boxes for hygiene reasons, was fine and I also managed to get more Greek salad as well as fruit salad and apple crumble. Staff served some of the breakfast items, the rest were self-service where they could be covered. All fairly standard Ibis fayre, but since it was included in the room rate, I thought it was entirely reasonable.

    The staff in the hotel were helpful, but the state of this hotel is a country mile behind the Mercure Ursus which is only a short distance away. Slightly dishearteningly, given that I’m an Accor fan, this hotel is also way behind the cheap and cheerful Holiday Inn Express I visited yesterday, which sets itself at a lower price point. I suspect this hotel is doing a sustained trade from conferences and group bookings, but their reviews on TripAdvisor aren’t great. I wonder whether Accor would be better off just rebranding this hotel into an Ibis Budget and being done with it.

  • Warsaw – Taped Over Pedestrian Crossing Things

    Warsaw – Taped Over Pedestrian Crossing Things

    One thing I’ve never quite understood in Warsaw, and indeed all of Poland, is that these buttons rarely seem to do much as pedestrian crossings go green soon enough without pressing anything. I’m sure they likely do and I’m an idiot, but anyway. Poland has had them taped up in Warsaw for months, thousands of them across the city, and everything still seems to work just fine. So, my theory persists about their usefulness, although I assume that they have some functionality that is useful to those with limited vision.

  • Warsaw – Graffiti Art

    Warsaw – Graffiti Art

    I don’t understand a lot of the background of this graffiti, but some of it looks of a really high quality. The artworks are on ul. Puławska and I have no idea whether they’re supposed to be there or who has done them….

  • Accor Hotels – Book Your Half Term Happy Place Campaign

    Accor Hotels – Book Your Half Term Happy Place Campaign

    The latest Accor promotion is something I’m surprised they haven’t tried a little earlier, which is using their hotels as day rooms. Similar to the whole Deskdog theory from Brewdog.

    Their e-mail reads:

    “The hotel office is your home office. But better.

    It turns out if you mix children and your home office, things can become… challenging. And with that lesson learnt, here comes half term.

    So we’ve got the perfect solution: the hotel office.

    It’s all the home comforts of the work-from-home era, but with none of the housework. Or children. Think spotless welcome and check in, clear desk, comfy chair, great coffee, intelligent lighting, room service. The hotel office is your home office. But better.

    PJs, slouchies, suit? Make your own rules. Escape to your new office.”

    It’s a great idea, although after trying numerous searches, but the prices are quite spiky, a day room costs £66 in Cambridge and around £50 to £100 in most London hotels. And just to show there’s a potential problem with the pricing, that same room in Cambridge on the same day in late October to stay overnight costs £61.75. I’m not sure the take-up is going to be huge here….

  • Warsaw – Hoppiness (Visit 2)

    Warsaw – Hoppiness (Visit 2)

    I think that I was quite thorough when visiting craft beer bars earlier in the year as I’ve now had to start going back to some of them, having run out of new locations to visit. But this certainly isn’t a bad thing. Anyway, I won’t add much here, it’s still an excellent bar as I pointed out in my other post about Hoppiness.

    The beer list, all balanced with some interesting options on there, with the current list always available at http://hoppiness.ontap.pl/.

    This time I went for the Volcano Burger, which they did make clear when I ordered was very hot. And it was. But, tolerably so (although only just and I have a relatively high tolerance for these things) and the burger was served medium, which is perfect. All of a very good quality again and nicely presented.

    Onto the beer, I had the Orzechowy Fes from Warkot Brewery, which had a rich and obvious taste of nuts, the strongest I’ve had since a peanut butter nitro stout in the United States I think. Very moreish and drinkable, an excellent choice of the bar to have in stock (and for me to buy).

    The service wasn’t quite as engaging as before, but things are harder with masks and it was still a welcoming and comfortable environment. Everything was clean and organised, with the beer and food being as good as I remember from my last visit. So, at some stage I’d better make a third visit…..

  • Warsaw – Urban Exploration

    Warsaw – Urban Exploration

    I say urban exploration in the title, but there wasn’t much exploration involved here, it’s accessible from the road at al. Jerozolimskie, near to the river. There doesn’t seem to be that much of Warsaw that is derelict, such is the development that seems never-ending here, so this sort of stood out.

    For those who do want to urban explore, and that doesn’t include me as I find these things just too frightening, there’s an extensive web-site at https://urbexy.pl/.

  • Warsaw – Mercure Warszawa Airport

    Warsaw – Mercure Warszawa Airport

    Not through any deliberate plan of action, but more through what’s cheaply available, I’ve been working around Accor hotels in Warsaw that I haven’t visited before. To be fair, there aren’t many left now that I haven’t been to, other than the most expensive ones such as Raffles Warsaw and that’s a bit decadent for me. Anyway, this hotel is relatively near to the airport and also right next to a tram line, which is very handy. When approaching the hotel, I hoped to be in the circular tower bit on the left, as I thought that might give better views.

    My room, which I was delighted to see was in the circular tower, but it took me a moment to spot where the room numbers were. I’m not entirely sure that’s the best place for them, but there we go….

    The room, which the hotel had very kindly upgraded, which I much appreciated. It felt slightly more old-fashioned than some of the other Mercure, and indeed Accor, hotels, but it was clean, comfortable and entirely met my needs.

    The coffee tray selection and it did take me some time to figure out that coffee machine. There’s a switch on the side which is a bit hidden away and it produces more coffee than can fit in the cup, which wasn’t ideal.

    And a free welcome gift, I’m very easily won over by chocolate, so I decided at this point that I liked the hotel.

    The reception area did lack atmosphere, but this was no doubt down to the current health situation. There didn’t seem to be that many guests and it wasn’t really a place that anyone needed to linger for long. Other than me when I wanted my drink that is.

    My welcome drink, which was the Zywiec Porter that I so very much like. I did wonder whether this would be seen as a restricted drink, but the staff member said the voucher included all beers. She’s right, that’s exactly what the voucher says, but the view on this seems to vary in a couple of hotels. But I won’t start on that again….

    The staff member at the bar was friendly and seemed quite pleased she had something to do when I turned up, as I was the only person there and indeed the only person that I saw in the bar area at all at any time. The receptionist was also personable and engaging, but that was my limit to seeing any staff in the hotel.

    This hotel had gone further than the others in presenting documentation in the room as to what was going on. Everything was laminated and this information was actually quite useful, including some new times for the bar and restaurant. I didn’t have breakfast at this hotel, but there were instructions on what to do and how to order it. There were some strange policies like the hotel announcing they’d removed all the “safety procedures in case of fire” from the rooms, which they actually hadn’t and I’m not sure that the current health crisis demands that they should.

    Anyway, the hotel was spotlessly clean and I very much liked it, I think it’s one of my favourites in the city. There’s some road noise, although nothing major, but, internally, I didn’t hear anything. It was easy to control the temperature in the room, it was comfortable and I got a free chocolate bar and Zywiec Porter, so what more could I need?

  • Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 185

    Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue – Day 185

    The Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue was first published at the end of the eighteenth century, and given that the current health crisis is giving too much time to read books, I thought I’d pick a daily word from it until I got bored….

    Lawful Blanket

    Unfortunately, this is another term that I have nothing useful to add to Grose’s definition, which is simply “a wife”. I’m not sure that this is the most suitable term for a man to use to describe his wife, but no doubt it was seen to be more acceptable at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The phrase is listed in numerous locations relating to etymology, but none of them has any clue where it comes from…… I can’t see it coming back into the English language either.

  • Warsaw – Jabeerwocky Craft Beer Pub (Visit 2)

    Warsaw – Jabeerwocky Craft Beer Pub (Visit 2)

    This is my second visit to this craft beer bar on ul. Nowogrodzka and I first visited there in January. I didn’t get chance to have their pizza then, but the bar was a decent one, so a return seemed sensible….

    The pub’s tap-list is available on-line and there’s a camera that takes a photo of this board every ten minutes, a perfectly innovative way of keeping everyone informed of the options.

    This is the back room of the bar, which I didn’t pay much attention to on my last visit. The bar was relatively busy this time, but it’s a large location with plenty of tables, so there was still space.

    I had two drinks, which was firstly the oatmeal stout that I realised I had last time I visited, which is produced by Jabeerwocky themselves. I also had the Almond Coffeecat from Browar Rockmill, a stout which did indeed taste of both coffee and almonds, so the beer name wasn’t misleading. I like almonds and I’ve decided I like almonds in a beer as well, it’s got quite a smooth but long-lasting taste. The drink was suitably rich, but entirely drinkable, and I liked that the brewery ‘toasted’ my check-in on Untappd shortly after I left it. I’m easily pleased, but I’ve mentioned that before…..

    This time I did get to have the pizza, going for the chorizo one. This was rather lovely as it was large, hot and tasted excellent. And they are quite handy things to have in a pizza… It was thin and so wasn’t too stodgy, all rather pleasant.

    I think I preferred this visit to my previous one, as there felt more of an atmosphere this time, although that was probably just because there were more people in and it wasn’t lunch-time. But, it remained friendly and welcoming, with a broad selection of different beer types. So, all rather lovely….

  • Warsaw – Cuda na Kiju

    Warsaw – Cuda na Kiju

    I’m not sure whether I’ve just never noticed this craft beer bar before, or whether it’s new, but, either way, it’s a new one for me to visit. I had hoped that a Sunday evening would be relatively quiet, but it was a busy bar and it had a laidback and welcoming atmosphere. The bar name of Cuda Na Kiju is probably something of a colloquialism, as Google says it means literally “Miracles on the Stick”. Not that this would be a bad name in itself…..

    The full beer list is at http://cuda-na-kiju.ontap.pl/ and it’s a well thought out selection. I asked the friendly staff member what dark beers they had and she suggested the Czarny Minister from Browar Minister. This was fine, at the appropriate temperature and it had some suitable coffee and chocolate flavours to it, although it wasn’t quite as strong in taste as I’d have ideally wanted. I’ve only just noticed on the beer list, and it’s been on for a few days, that they currently have the WRCLW Baltic Porter, with Palo Santo and coconut, and this sounds simply marvellous. I’m not sure I’ll go back just for that, but it is tempting and I’m surprised the locals haven’t snapped that one up a little bit quicker.

    I was a little distracted whilst being served as the bar looked quite full, so I wasn’t quite sure where I was going to go with this drink that I had acquired. Fortunately, I found the last remaining table and all was well, it’s certainly a popular place. They were serving pizzas (which I still insist is the new national dish of Poland) but I managed to resist, primarily as I’d just had a pizza in the previous bar. There are three storeys to the building, with the top one being a mezzanine level and the lower level the toilets, but the ground floor is reasonably large.

    Anyway, this is a nice addition to the Warsaw beer scene and I suspect it’s popular with the local office workers, with a more upmarket feel to the whole arrangement than some bars. In terms of price, my 0.5 litre beer cost around £3, which I think is marvellous for such a drink, but is inevitably towards the higher end of the scale for a beer in Poland.