Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Warsaw

Wednesday : London to Warsaw via Helsinki

Today’s adventure wasn’t an ideal situation, but British Airways needed to change my flight from London Heathrow to Warsaw and the only way that they could get me there was via Helsinki. These are challenging times for airlines at the moment, but I hope that these schedules start to settle down over the next few months, it’s not really a routing that I would have thought the most cost effective to arrange.

I was starting at the Ibis Styles at Heathrow, not my first time in the hotel, but my first time in the separate accommodation bloc. It’s really not apparent, but there’s a floor above what is visible here which is reset a little, which is where my room was.

Not that it’s particularly interesting, but that additional floor is visible behind Esso, with the main part of the hotel on the right.

A bus journey to Heathrow T3 central bus station and my complaint, yet again, that Heathrow have blocked off the pedestrian and cyclist entrance to the airport and so people are forced to use cars or go on public transport. In the past, the airport themselves paid for that public transport, but they don’t now. There’s an element of greed here and I find it a little sinister who is benefiting from these changes, but I had better not meander down that path for too long. So a little ride on the Travelator from the central bus station to get me to Heathrow T3.

And here it is again in all its glory, my favourite of the terminals at Heathrow. This is solely because of the lounges where I can get the most free food, T5 is a much better designed and interesting terminal architecturally (including the bits that my friend Liam built).

I can use the premium security line at Heathrow T3 because of my silver card (I have to mention every time that I got this through judicious use of Flyertalk tips, my spend on flights is very low and wouldn’t normally get me such decadence). A member of staff came over and said that the premium security line was longer than the standard line if anyone wanted to move over. I was by that point near the front and didn’t take the risk, but I was amused when someone just behind me said “you’re the one who just sent me over here”. I laughed just a little inside because the man seemed to want an argue but the staff member walked off. Security at T3 always seems quite quick and I got fortunate with my choice of queue, I think I was through within five minutes including the waiting time in the queue.

Lounge hopping at T3, I decided to start with Qantas to get a Salmon Eggs Benedict and delicious it was too. The service in the lounge was as impeccable as ever, efficient, informal and professional.

Part of the cold food selection, but I’ve written about this Qantas lounge before and won’t bore readers unnecessarily. It was though quiet, comfortable and as lovely as ever. I can’t decide which lounge I prefer, Qantas or Cathay Pacific, so I just visit them both.

I thought some exercise would be in order and so I walked to the Cathay Pacific Lounge to get food there, with this being the menu of the day.

Delicious, that Dim Sum selection is always quite beautiful. There was some spicy kick to that Thai coconut and vegetable soup, which complemented the Asahi beer nicely. I didn’t bother visiting the British Airways lounge, it’s just not as decadent and they don’t have any beer there. Well, they have Heineken, but I mean proper beer. The barman mentioned that I had the last bottle of beer he had left, so I hope he had access to some more stock from somewhere. Service here, just as in the Qantas lounge, is professional and although more formal, it always feels welcoming. It’s a comfortable space as well, there are plenty of different seating types as well as lots of power points to charge devices. I mention that frequently as it is quite important to me, just imagine having a phone without any charge. It’s too much to even contemplate, I shall move on and away from that horrible thought.

My flights to Warsaw were with Finn Air, although it was a little difficult to work out when to board as the neighbouring gate spilled over and they had the wrong passengers in each queue for a short whilst. I think the other flight was going to Africa, so it would have been quite some distance if someone landed in Helsinki by mistake. I had a little problem when boarding as the staff member said “since you’re going to Warsaw as your final destination, I need to see your Covid pass”. I’m not actually sure that was right, as Poland doesn’t need the pass any more, so I spent about three minutes (that feels a long time when you know you’re holding up the queue) trying to find my older one, which he said would be sufficient. He was very helpful and after a few seconds of panic that I had forgotten to do something I should have done, I was ready to board.

I don’t know why they were using such a large aircraft, the Airbus A350-900, as the flight wasn’t that busy and it isn’t the usual aircraft that I’ve been on when shunted onto this service before. I was very pleased with it though, as it’s also a long-haul aircraft and I haven’t been on such a large aircraft since 2019.

I rarely get to see these sort of images, as British Airways opted out of the camera installation which isn’t relatively that expensive, they just claimed their passengers wouldn’t want it. I do, I like watching the plane from above and below, it’s quite surreal as it’s not the sort of image I’m used to seeing.

I had the entire row of three seats to myself, so I could lounge out and enjoy my free blueberry juice.

There was in-flight entertainment, so I watched an episode of Bear Grylls doing something adventurous with Alex Honnold, who I watched on board a BA flight a few years ago climbing with ropes in the film Free Solo (I mean I watched him on the BA in-flight entertainment, he wasn’t on the aircraft climbing things, although that would have been exciting). The series is Running Wild with Bear Grylls, it’s the sort of thing that my friend Liam would be excited to be on, it’s full of adventure and danger. I’d rather be in the pub than jumping out of aircraft or eating rattlesnakes.

We landed and I was transfixed watching the servicing of the aircraft underneath me. I hope British Airways change their minds and install these in the future, they’re very informative about how aircraft are serviced after landing, it’s all precisely timed.

I wasn’t in business class as I’m not that decadent, that’s the sort of thing my friend Richard does as he spends a lot of money on things he doesn’t need, but it looked really rather comfortable.

And there’s the aircraft.

I very much enjoyed visiting the non-Schengen Finn Air airport lounge a few weeks ago, but the Schengen one was much smaller and it was at near capacity when I went to it. The staff were friendly, although it’s the first time I’ve gone into a lounge and the check-in process has been via a scanner checking my boarding pass rather than a human inspecting it. The food wasn’t very exciting, a tray of pasta and a tray of cooked vegetables. It’s not exactly Michelin cuisine, nor actually is it even Greggs cuisine.

They had some feta salad with cooked vegetables, but I’d rather have had something cold and crisp with it, it was all very bland. I greedily got two slices of cheesecake as they looked delicious, but they weren’t very nice either. I can’t complain as this was all free, but I just got my hopes up from how good my experience had been before.

I had a couple of hours in the lounge and it got much quieter during the second half of my visit.

Wine and biscuits. I don’t know anything about wine to comment on the quality of that, but they needed some custard creams I thought. Or Jaffa Cakes, that would have been very good.

My laptop and I moved to the window to watch the aircraft. There were lots of power points in the lounge which was handy, so that I could get everything charged ready for the second flight.

All much more sedate when most people had left.

The self-pour selection.

I left the Finn Air lounge a little disappointed it wasn’t as good as their other one in the same airport, but I enjoyed the friendly service, the clean environment and indeed the entire airport felt relaxed and comfortable.

The flight to Warsaw was on a smaller aircraft.

The aircraft was at near capacity, so no empty row for me this time. The curtain between business class and economy is right at the front on this flight, there were just two people in business class. One of the debates on FlyerTalk is whether customers in economy should be able to use the washrooms in business class. usually it’s preferred not to, but on this flight, I saw the crew turning back three customers and sending them to the back of the aircraft to wait. I thought that was petty and it caused them service problems as then customers were trapped behind trolleys in the aisles and the crew had to reverse back up to let them pass. I don’t know how many washrooms they had on this aircraft, probably two at the rear and one at the front. Having one washroom for two customers and the other two for eighty customers doesn’t really make sense, however much you want to offer a differentiated service for business customers.

The crew member made an announcement at the end saying “please let business class passengers off first” which caused amusement as there were only two of them, and she looked annoyed people had laughed. I just thought it was all a bit odd, although it didn’t impact me.

Finn Air offer free blueberry juice and water, with other items being chargeable. I was quite happy with my blueberry juice.

The flight landed on time and I was through Warsaw airport security quickly enough, even though I (and others from the UK, it’s not just me) now have to wait in a queue separate to everyone else as I was from the UK and not in Schengen. I love being back here, it’s the railway station underneath Warsaw airport, which means I’m back in what is now my favourite city.

Warsaw landmarks on the seats, the train spotlessly clean and it cost me 74p for my ticket to the hotel. Bargain.

I was staying at the Warsaw Airport Mercure hotel again, one of my favourites and I’ve stayed there ten or so times I think now. It’s the smallest room I’ve been given in this particular hotel, but they said I might enjoy the tea theme of the room, so I thought that sounded interesting.

I wasn’t going to run out of tea.

My welcome gift and I always appreciate the gesture, even if it is mostly fruit. Indeed, as fruit goes, it was rather nice.

Pictures, all part of the tea theming of the room.

I liked it, there’s something quite fun about hotels having these individually designed rooms, it seems to be something that a few Accor hotels in the city are doing. Having quirky little elements like this makes things just a little more interesting, especially when it’s a room that I haven’t had before.

That’s the end of today’s little instalment. It was good to be back in Warsaw, I very much like it here.

June 25, 2022
Warsaw – National Museum in Warsaw (Bed from Saint John of God Hospital)

Fortunately, this isn’t the start of one of my little hotel reviews (I would be annoyed if that was the bed), but from when Richard and I meandered along to the National Museum in Warsaw a few weeks ago. I admit that a photo of a bed might not appear to be riveting blog content, but this oak and birch construction has some charm to it I think. It’s from the Saint John of God Hospital in Warsaw and it dates to between 1757 and 1760. It was donated to the museum in 1931 by the hospital itself, when I assume that it ceased to be needed.

How on earth this bed survived is a mystery to me, given that nearly everything else in Warsaw was destroyed during the Second World War. And there were likely many more items in the collection that the museum would have focused on saving rather than traipsing a bed around the place during the traumatic war years. I’m going with the answer, as I feel I need a supposition here, that they moved it to the cellars of the museum where it avoided damage and didn’t attract the interest of any Nazi plunderers.

Back to the hospital itself though, which was first built in 1728 next to the church of Saint John on Bonifraterska Street (which is still named after the Brothers Hospitallers of St. John of God) in Warsaw. It had eight beds, but it was clear that the church could help more patients, so they constructed a new building in 1760 which would support 34 patients. And that’s why they know when this bed was made, as it was made specifically for the new hospital building, all funded by the wealthy August Aleksander Czartoryski.

The church today, courtesy of Google Street View.

Like most places in Warsaw, the hospital and church buildings were badly damaged during the Second World War, not least because they were used by the Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 when they were fighting back against the German occupiers. It was decided that the hospital wouldn’t be reconstructed following the end of the conflict, although the church was rebuilt.

And I think there’s some magic here, that a bed constructed for patients in 1760 has managed to survive and is now tucked away in a corner of the country’s national museum. Although, and not wanting to be negative about the arrangements, it does look like quite a small bed which might not have entirely suited any tall patients. It is though perhaps one of the very few objects that remain of a hospital that helped so many people given that even the building itself has now gone.

December 28, 2021
Warsaw – Royal Castle (Canaletto Hall)

I’ve just realised that another thing I never got around to doing was writing about the Royal Castle in Warsaw (on the left in the above photo), which I’ve visited a few times before on free admission days. Very thrifty…. I visited with Richard when we were in the city a few weeks ago and we had a meander around, although the downside of visiting on free admission days is that it’s very busy. But more on the building in another post.

This post is mostly just photos from one particular room that I’ve managed to misunderstand the importance of before. The paintings are all by Bernardo Bellotto (1721-1780) who was the nephew of Canaletto and he also used his name which confuses things a little. These artworks have had a busy time of it since they were painted between the late 1760s and the early 1780s. They were placed in the castle following their commission by King Stanislaus Augustus, a collection of 22 different street scenes of Warsaw and a canvas showing the King’s election.

The paintings weren’t here for that long, as Napoleon pinched four of them in 1807, made worse by Tsar Nicholas I stealing the whole lot in 1832. They were recovered and put back in the Royal Castle, but then the Germans pinched the whole collection again in 1939. The Nazis then destroyed the entire castle building in 1945, before it was carefully reconstructed between 1971 and 1984. And then the collection of paintings was put back once again in this recreated room in 1984, an amazing tale of survival. And the paintings have also played a crucial part in the rebuilding of Warsaw, as they were used by the post-war architects to restore the Old Town area back to as it looked in the late eighteenth century.

December 23, 2021
Warsaw – Witold Pilecki

I wrote about the Polish hero Witold Pilecki a couple of weeks ago, as he was part of the story of the Municipal Tourist House in Warsaw.

I was pleased and interested to see that the BBC have published this week an episode about his bravery at volunteering to go to Auschwitz and then managing to escape from it.

December 21, 2021
Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Early Map of Warsaw)

I’ve decided that I take too many photos, as is apparent when I’m working through my galleries after a visit anywhere, including Poland where I returned back from two weeks ago. But, I doubt I’ll change that little flaw in my character, so I’ll have to just manage the large amount of data I create…..

Anyway, this is one of the many maps which is available in the Maps Room of the Museum of Warsaw. It’s possible to make the map larger by clicking on the image above, which makes it very evident just how much Warsaw has changed. Although it’s possible to make out the Old Town area and a few of the larger streets, so much of the city has changed that it is quite a challenge to tie everything in (or at least, it was for me). I spent quite a while just gazing at this map, fascinated by just how much Warsaw has evolved over the last two centuries, albeit much of it forced because other countries kept damaging it.

December 17, 2021
Warsaw – Warsaw Ghetto Fighters Memorial

Situated on ul. Prosta is this impactful memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto fights during the uprising in 1943. It marks where a sewer entrance was located that allowed around fifty fighters to escape the ghetto on 10 May 1943, avoiding detection by the German military. Although the Jewish ghetto had been hastily walled up above ground, the sewer network still connected the entire city.

Many of those who escaped through the sewer network also took part in the Warsaw Uprising that took place in 1944, including a local Jewish man Marek Edelman. He was one of the leaders of the Ghetto fighting and and he died in Warsaw in 2009, out-lived only amongst the survivors by Szymon “Kazik” Ratajzer who died in Jerusalem in 2018. Edelman became a doctor after the Second World War and was hated by the Soviets, being interned in 1981 when Poland’s economy was collapsing and martial law was introduced. He is now one of the heroes of the Polish nation and was awarded the Order of the White Eagle, the highest award that the country can bestow on an individual.

Only nine of those who escaped the sewer network survived the Second World War, Roman Bornstein, Tuwia Borzykowski, Marek Edelman, Chaim Frymer, Masza Glajtman-Putermilch, Pnina Grynszpan-Frymer, Chana Kryształ-Frykszdorf, Szymon “Kazik” Ratajzer and Cywia Lubetkin.

December 12, 2021
Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Infant’s Identification)

And another of my posts about things that interested me in the rather lovely Museum of Warsaw.

This is another remarkable survival, it’s a hand-written note on linen which was placed in a pouch that was put around the neck of a child during the Siege of Warsaw in September 1939. Warsaw was initially able to defend itself during the invasion of Poland by the Germans, but despite the bravery of the Polish military, they were simply out-numbered. Over 18,000 people died in the city between 8 and 28 September 1939 and this tag was so that the young child could be identified if he was separated from his mother.

The young child was Witold Zenon Gadomski, the son of Tadeusz and Rozalia Czerna of ul. Grochowska 365, who was born on 21 May 1939. He survived the conflict and kept his identification until it was given to the museum in the late 1970s. I can only begin to imagine what his mother must have been thinking when she wrote that during the aerial bombardments of September 1939, no doubt complete terror for the future. Whether or not his parents survived the war, I don’t know….

December 10, 2021
Warsaw – Prudential Building

I haven’t much thought about this building before when walking about Warsaw, but it’s the Prudential building which was the tallest structure in Poland when it was completed in 1933 after two years of work. At the time of completion it was the second tallest building in Europe, a huge statement of faith in the future of Warsaw, which needed 2 million bricks, 2,000 tonnes of concrete and 1,500 tonnes of steel to construct.

And here it is on 28 August 1944 when the Germans used huge amounts of explosives to destroy it as part of their destruction of Warsaw. Their engineers couldn’t get the building to collapse, although they did huge damage and it started to lean a bit. This must have considerably annoyed them, as it was an iconic structure that remained standing. And, it survived the Second World War and was repaired and hence why it is still standing. It has spent most of its post-war life as a hotel and is currently the Hotel Warszawa, a decadent accommodation option in a building which is a great survivor.

December 8, 2021
Warsaw – Coctail Bar Max & Dom Whisky

When we walked by this bar in Warsaw a couple of weeks ago, I specifically said to Richard, “do not look to your left”. He recklessly ignored my advice and then looked hugely excited at what he saw, so I felt it was only fair to let him go in even though I was heading to a decadent craft beer bar. I am a very good friend…..

Just some photos of the whole bar arrangement, which is set across two floors with the whisky bar on the top. There’s a variety of seating around the place, including lower tables and bar seats, with the atmosphere being comfortable and relaxing. The venue is open some ridiculous hours, from 10.00 until 05.00 every day of the week, which hardly makes it worth closing. Incidentally, after going in, I remembered that I’d been in here a few years ago with Hike Norfolk, likely one of the very limited number of venues that wasn’t my choice.

It’s not exactly me is it? Here am I with my decadent and very classy imperial stouts and I’m presented with this shrubbery. OK, it tasted fine, but it’s not the sort of drink I can put on Untappd.

The drink was individually created by the barman, who was engaging, personable and knowledgeable about the cocktail options, so there was quite a bit of theatre to the whole arrangement. I must admit that whilst Richard was enjoying this piece of theatre, I was pre-annoyed at how much it would cost, although fortunately it was actually not unreasonable at something like £6. Although that’s a high price for Warsaw, I feared that it might be much more.

Richard then asked a question about whisky and I have to say that the barman was as knowledgeable about these as he was about the cocktails. I consider whisky to be an excellent drink which should be poured out of the barrels which is then replaced by beer so I can get a whisky flavour to my decadent beer. Whisky isn’t a drink I’ve ever grown to like, but Richard said that the selection of whisky options was excellent and he liked the options presented to him.

Richard suggested that this was one of his favourite bars, not just because of the hundreds of whisky options, but also because of the engagement of the staff member. Service was sometimes a little slow, but I think that was more because the staff member thought that we were trying to have a longer and more relaxed visit. I was obviously focused on going to a bar which served glorious craft beers, but even I had to concede that this was a well-run venue which had a wide appeal. Definitely recommended for those who like whisky, spirits or cocktails.

December 8, 2021
Warsaw – Lemon Bar

This will be a relatively short post as I only popped into Lemon as it was a convenient stop on the way back to the hotel, but there is little else particularly exciting for me to say about it. The venue was clean, the staff were friendly and the environment was relaxed. The beer choices were though limited, hence the Żywiec, and there were very few other customers. It’s particularly handy for drinkers who want a long Friday or Saturday night, as the bar doesn’t close until 7am in the morning. The pricing was reasonable and it’s a handy spot for those wanting a quick drink, but I’m not sure that I’d go again given that the beer selection wasn’t really quite to my taste.

December 7, 2021