Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Warsaw

  • Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 2

    Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 2

    And, following on from my earlier GeoGuessr in the day, I did recognise this one from the photo. The second and third locations that GeoGuessr had selected were well outside my travel pass zone, so I missed those ones out.

    I didn’t bother to guess correctly (in case someone, likely Nathan, questions why if I knew where it was why I am so far out), but it’s the Palace of Science and Culture. I’ve posted some photos from the top of this building before…..

    After I had popped to the Bianco e Verde restaurant, I meandered to the nearest tram stop to get back to the city centre. Fortunately, for the sake of this exercise, the tram I got on went near to the Palace of Science and Culture, so this is one of the easier locations to get to. As an aside, the one thing that I’m not keen on in Poland is that you can’t cross the road as a pedestrian when the lights are read. I know that’s the case in other countries, but it still feels odd to stand there with ten other people unable to cross, even though there’s not a tram, car, bus or anything else vehicular in sight.

    This is one of the older style trams, which have no accessibility for wheelchairs and the like, which was relatively empty. They’re pleasant to watch the world go by, frequent, never usually too busy and efficient. The newer trams are more pleasant to be on and there seem to be ever more of them, so I assume that there’s a schedule to phase the older ones out.

    And there’s the tram after I had got off.

    The tram stop was Warszawa Centralna, where I’ve taken several trains from to go to other cities in Poland. I haven’t written the visit up yet, but I went to Warsaw’s railway museum last week and found out that this railway station opened in 1975 and it replaced the hopelessly inadequate former Warszawa Główna railway station. This former railway station, once the most important in Warsaw, is now the home of the railway museum, but more on that in another post.

    I’ve never noticed this before, but I think it’s a memorial to railwaymen who died during the Second World War. There are no shortage of plaques like this around the city, with many being relating to the Second World War and the Warsaw Uprising.

    Turning the corner, there’s the Palace. This remains a very controversial building and I’ve written before about how it was unpopular with many when the Soviets plonked it down in Warsaw. There is an ongoing debate today about whether it should be taken down and replaced by a park, but I’m not sure that’s entirely useful. It’s now part of the city’s history and has a place in Warsaw’s cultural life, and taking down buildings just because they’re Soviet perhaps isn’t enough of a reason. But, it’s not my country and it’s up to the people of Poland.

    And that was near enough for me to the original GeoGuessr location. I did see what the fifth location was, but it transpired that it was also outside of the city’s boundaries and my travel pass, and I thought that two visits was sufficient for today anyway. I’ll return to this little project when I next return to Warsaw, which I’m hoping will be in early 2022. Hopefully that’ll be the catalyst to get me to see different parts of Warsaw, as I’m becoming ever more familiar with this rather lovely city and need to find some more of its hidden secrets.

    I’ve never seen a broken tram screen before like this, but, fortunately, it didn’t last very long. And with that, I left the centre of Warsaw to get to the airport hotel, with my flight being tomorrow.

  • Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Bronze of Józef Piłsudski)

    Warsaw – Museum of Warsaw (Bronze of Józef Piłsudski)

    I admit to being off on one of my slight flights of fancy with this one, but this bronze sufficiently intrigued me.

    This cast bronze of Józef Piłsudski (1867-1935) is in the collections of the Museum of Warsaw and was designed in 1929. He was a hugely important figure in the creation of the Second Polish Republic and was a military man who became the Prime Minister of Poland. I was intrigued to know where this bronze, which was designed by Jan Małeta, was during the Second World War, as the Germans would have destroyed this on sight given its importance. Unfortunately, the museum’s collection database is quite poor on provenance, so I have no idea where this has been.

    This is in St. John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw (I only noticed it this week), although he’s buried in Krakow (other than his heart and brain which are elsewhere).

    There are no shortage of statues and street names in Warsaw of one of their national heroes….. During the late 1930s, it was illegal to criticise him in public with a punishment of up to five years imprisonment. Although Piłsudski had died in 1935, he proved to be an inspirational figure to the Home Army in Warsaw during the Second World War when they were trying to reclaim the city.

  • Warsaw – Bianco e Verde Restaurant

    Warsaw – Bianco e Verde Restaurant

    I was in the Sielce area of Warsaw for reasons relating to my little GeoGuessr meanderings. I wanted to find a restaurant that was within a few minutes walk of the random GeoGuessr location, otherwise I would have ended up back in KFC or something. There was actually a very highly rated chicken place nearby since I mentioned KFC, but it was takeaway only with no seats and it was quite cold today….. I went for an Italian restaurant, with Poland certainly not being short of places to get pizza, which is really quite handy as far as I’m concerned.

    It didn’t appear to be a popular choice when I entered, but it was nearly full by the time I left an hour or so later. The service was excellent, with the staff speaking perfect English and they were attentive and helpful. It was all clean and organised, with an English menu available as well (although I had already read the Polish one on-line and chosen, I thought I wouldn’t mention that).

    The beer options didn’t seem too exciting, so I went for a fresh lemonade and it was suitably lemony. The staff member apologised that she had thought that the straw was longer…..

    That wide angle mood my phone is in has made the pizza look smaller than it was. I’m not keen on overly cheesy pizzas, but this transpired to be fine and had a pleasant taste. The dough wasn’t quite as decadent in terms of richness as I’ve had, but it was still delicious and I’m always delighted to see capers in any meal as I think they’re one of God’s favourite foods.

    By Polish standard, the meal was just very slightly decadent in terms of the pricing, coming to just over £7 for the pizza and drink, which I think was absolutely fine given that this was a comfortable and decent restaurant. Pizzas are a major part of the menu (including seemingly a pizza for children in the shape of Mickey Mouse), but they’re by no means all of it, with a range of other pasta dishes available. All nicely done, with the surroundings being laid-back, although (and I don’t think I’ve ever said this) it might have benefited from just a little background music. For what was ultimately a random choice, I left perfectly happy.

  • Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 1

    Warsaw – Warsaw GeoGuessr 1

    This is another one of my irrelevant series of posts, but I didn’t have anywhere specific to go in Warsaw today so I thought that I’d make it random by using GeoGuessr to come up with some locations. The process also gives me an opportunity to ramble on about Warsaw life in a way that doesn’t fit in anywhere else on the blog, so that seems like another bonus.

    There we go, the first location randomly served up by GeoGuessr. It’s fair to say that I didn’t recognise it or have a clue where it was.

    It transpired that it was located in a part of the city that I haven’t been to before, which is frankly why I quite like this process, as it does bring about new experiences. I’m not claiming that this is a big and exciting adventure akin to climbing Mount Everest or Beeston Bump, but it brings a little entertainment to my day.

    The location could only be reached by bus, or a long walk, which meant finding the nearest bus stop which was near to the Poniatowski Bridge.

    There wasn’t a wide range of buses to choose from, so the 185 it was.

    Standing at the bus stop, looking back at the start of the Poniatowski Bridge which goes over the River Vistula. This bridge hasn’t had the happiest of times, with working starting in 1904 and being completed in 1914. The Russians then blew it up in 1915, the Germans rebuilt it and then it got destroyed by fire. The Poles repaired it after the end of the First World War and the bridge did fine for quite a while, until the Germans destroyed it in 1944. Trying to make a quick fix after the end of the Second World War, a temporary structure was put up which promptly then fell down. The bridge was then restored in 1946 and it has remained standing, and been beautified a bit, since then.

    After a ten-minute wait at the bus stop, here we are (well, here I am, along with a small number of other passengers and the driver) on the bus. I like the USB connectors incidentally (the orange thing) which is handy if very low on power. Buses here are like the rest of the public transport system in Warsaw, it’s possible to buy a ticket at machines all around the city and then just get on and validate the ticket once. It’s useful that a 24-hour ticket actually lasts for 24 hours, and not until the day as it does in places such as London. Mask wearing at the moment in Warsaw is high, although a fair number of people don’t cover their nose. A 24-hour ticket costs around £2.80 and can be used on trams, trains, buses and the underground (with a few limitations).

    And after a journey of around ten minutes, safely off the bus…..

    I wasn’t too bothered about finding the exact spot that the GeoGuessr photo was taken as it was in the middle of a road which was as wide as a motorway. I did though instead walk over the nearby pedestrian bridge to get a photo of the general area from both sides. It’s very clear that these are some Soviet style housing blocks, and there are no shortage of them. There’s an interesting statistic in the Museum of Warsaw which notes that the city’s population was 1,335,000 in 1941 (and had been around 1.2 million at the outbreak of the war) and it took until 1970 for the Warsaw’s population to return to that number. Even today, the city’s population is only 1.75 million.

    Anyway, that had brought me to the location of the GeoGuessr photo, so I thought I’d have a look to see what else was nearby.

    A Mini on top of the car dealership.

    Located very near to the GeoGuessr location, I found this strangely fascinating, it’s the oldest surviving shopping mall in Warsaw, the Centrum Handlowe Panorama or the Panorama Shopping Centre. This was once the height of decadence in post-communist Poland, with a Pizza Hut moving in and numerous on-trend shops from around the world. It’s fair to say that the glory days are well behind it.

    Opened in the early 1990s, the shopping mall still looks quite glamorous internally, although it needs some repair and some of the escalators don’t work.

    Perhaps the biggest issue here is that the shops were either closed or not particularly notable brands to drag customers in. There were very few customers about and this appears to be something of a niche operation. It seems that it has been featured in the local press over the last few years, as the building is owned by the retailers and they seemingly can’t agree on anything important. Some wanted it turned into offices, some want modernisation and some don’t want to do much at all. I can’t imagine that this shopping centre has got a long life ahead of it in its current form, but I rather liked seeing a building that was part of the transition to a western culture.

    With that excitement, I thought I’d go and find a local restaurant and I went to the Bianco e Verde which was nearby, but more about that in another post. And then I did one more GeoGuessr location…..

  • Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express The Hub

    Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express The Hub

    This is the joint Holiday Inn Express and Crowne Plaza at the HUB in Warsaw, a hotel which opened last year which is entirely operated by IHG. Roughly, the top half is Crowne Plaza and the bottom half is the Holiday Inn Express. Crowne Plaza get a nice reception at the front of the building and they’ve shoved the Holiday Inn Express reception to the back, although it’s not very well signed.

    The member of staff at check-in was engaging and personable, offering a really positive first impression to the hotel. All well managed and he gave me all of the information that I needed.

    I’ve never seen a hotel lift like this, where guests press the floor number on the screen and it immediately tells them which lift to go to. The lifts worked quickly and this was the most elegant lift arrangement that I’ve seen in a hotel. There are some hotels in Warsaw, such as the wonderful Novotel, where the lift arrangement is actually a bit annoying in terms of the wait.

    Not a very good photo, but there is a visualisation of the hotel’s floor plan and the lift going up. All really quite lovely.

    The room, which is relatively small, but well designed. There was an inter-connecting door, which I hate, but there were no noise or light impact from that.

    And the bathroom, all well presented and everything was spotlessly clean.

    The welcome gift is similar to those offered by some Accor hotels in the city, but I very much like these chocolate covered snacks, so that was lovely.

    There was a courtesy call from reception a few minutes after I got to the room, which I ignore as I always do. They followed it up later with a card, which is a very nice gesture.

    The view from the hotel window during the day and night.

    As for the room, I didn’t like it. I really can’t stand hotel rooms which are sterile and the windows don’t open, so I was never going to like this hotel. The air conditioning worked, but only to a point, and I couldn’t get the temperature that I wanted. The excitement of the street noise of Warsaw and the trams going by was lost as they’ve hermetically sealed the room.

    The staff member at reception had mentioned that to avoid breakfast becoming too busy, they’d split it into two sittings, one before 09:30 and one after 09:30. I went for the former and I had expected it to be very busy, but there were around ten guests in a room which could seat probably 100. Everything was well laid out, the staff were friendly and there was a decent range of food and drink. I wouldn’t say that breakfast was exceptional as the quality of some ingredients was a bit bland, but it was included in the room rate and I don’t think that there was anything to complain about.

    In terms of the management of this hotel, it’s clearly brilliant. Everything ran like clockwork, the staff were friendly, the hotel room and public areas were spotlessly clean, the interiors were well designed and it felt welcoming. However, I didn’t like the sterile nature of the room and in these Covid-19 times, it’s not something that I’m content with in terms of the lack of fresh air. Given that, I’ll be sticking to my favourite Accor hotels which don’t have such sterile rooms. As for the cost, I think it’s around £60 – £80 per night, but I paid £25 plus a relatively small amount of IHG points, so I felt that the value was reasonable.

    For more information and to book….

  • Warsaw – Mercure Warszawa Centrum

    Warsaw – Mercure Warszawa Centrum

    I’m still working around the last few Accor hotels in Warsaw that I haven’t been to, although this is the last new one of this trip. There’s some odd naming of Accor locations in Warsaw, this one is central, but nowhere near the Ibis Styles Warsaw Centrum or the Ibis Budget Warsaw Centrum, but it is vaguely near (but not close) to Ibis Warsaw Centrum. Anyway, now that’s clear.

    Copyright: Accor Hotels

    For reasons unknown, I forgot for the first time in a long time to take a photo of the room. So, here’s the Accor photo of a similar room…… They didn’t tell me that they’d upgraded me at reception, but they had, this is called an Executive Room I think.

    I did remember to take a photo of this impressive picture above the bed though.

    The view from the hotel room of the neighbouring offices and the Złote Tarasy shopping centre.

    The welcome gift of a large chocolate and fruit, all nicely wrapped up.

    I always like a nice selection of Nespresso coffees, adds a touch of decadence to arrangements.

    And some complimentary drinks in the fridge, and I liked that there was a sign pointing out that they were free, otherwise I’d just worry.

    This signage is a sensible idea as I assume plenty of people have complained about the air conditioning, but essentially, it stops working when the hotel key card is removed and the window is opened.

    My go-to welcome drink of Żywiec Porter in the hotel’s restaurant. I liked that the staff pointed out at check-in that I could have 10% off in the restaurant and put a menu in the room, which was all quite tempting.

    The hotel is well-reviewed on-line and I can find nearly no negative reviews that seem reasonable or are even about the right hotel. And if I sometimes think I’m picky, there are reviews such as this:

    “I am again and each time it gets worse and worse, no disposable slippers, where they were always in the wardrobe before, no cold drinks in the glaciers, before that there was always apple and orange juice in a glass bottle, only one water was left in the room where two people were checked in still for two people, for two people there are two tiny shower gels, so one person can take only one shower in the evening and no gel in the morning. The wardrobe also lacks a set of needle and thread where it has always been.”

    I’m not sure I’d leave 1/5 on a web-site review after a series of positive experiences because of things such as not enough shower gels/shampoos (there would have been four) and no needle and thread, all of which reception could have fixed. Or the very angry guest who arrived at 13:30 and was furious they couldn’t access their room before the quoted time of 15:00, apparently that deserved 1/5 too. I have no idea how hotel managers cope with this nonsense. Anyway, I digress.

    This was another excellent Accor hotel and up there amongst my favourites in the city, although I like nearly all of them to be fair. Friendly staff, clean rooms, well designed building and all really rather lovely. The hotel room was also nearly free as I used up some more of my reward points from the recent Accor offer.

    And more about the hotel and to book it…..

  • Warsaw – Soviet Military Cemetery

    Warsaw – Soviet Military Cemetery

    In the post-war period, the Soviets liked to create an impression that they saved the city, which wasn’t entirely in line with the reality of the Warsaw Uprising, something which they tried to erase from the collective memory. This grand cemetery relatively near to the centre of the city was constructed between 1949 and 1950 and it contains the remains of over 21,000 Soviet soldiers.

    The remains of the deceased Soviet soldiers were collected from various cemeteries around the city and transferred here in 1951 in collective plots.

    The Soviets put up a plaque stating:

    “To the eternal glory of heroic soldiers of the invincible Soviet Army, fallen in battles with the Hitlerite invader for the liberation of Poland and our capital Warsaw.”

    It’s fair to say that this doesn’t really entirely reflect the situation with the Warsaw Uprising, and the Polish Government agreed, and it was changed in 2015 to state:

    “To the memory of Soviet Army soldiers fallen in liberating Poland from German occupation in the years 1944-1945.”

    It’s probably worth adding that the Soviets invaded Poland on 17 September 1939, as part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact with Germany.

    One of the numerous sculptures which were supervised by Jerzy Jarnuszkiewicz and Stanisław Lisowski.

    The ornamental plots, which look empty at first, but there is an identifying number in each corner.

    There are some plaques in the plots, a few with photos of the deceased soldier. I’m not sure when these were placed here, but there are relatively few of them.

    The whole arrangement is inevitably controversial given the relationship between Poland and the Soviet Union and then Poland and Russia. That has led to a series of vandalism incidents where graffiti has been placed on the main memorial, with cameras now protecting the site and for some time there was a permanent police presence at the site. It is though otherwise a peaceful site and is still well cared for.

  • Warsaw – Night Photos

    Warsaw – Night Photos

    Just a random collection of photos of Warsaw at night from my meanderings yesterday evening. The Christmas market is picking up now as well, perhaps slightly to the annoyance of Richard who left a few days ago and had wanted to see it in action……

  • Warsaw – Novotel Warszawa Airport

    Warsaw – Novotel Warszawa Airport

    I’ve never stayed in this Accor hotel which is, as the name suggests, near to the city’s airport. It’s also about a one hour walk from the city centre, or it’s easy to get a train, bus or tram into Warsaw as well. The welcome was efficient and polite, although they seemed a little under-staffed on the reception desk.

    I didn’t get an upgrade for the first time in a while for a Polish Accor hotel, but that was likely my fault for choosing a themed room and the hotel probably thought that was the one I wanted. This is the surfer room, which I thought might make for slightly different photos to my normal quite dull photos of the room interior. Incidentally, I got lost going to my room which wasn’t entirely ideal, and I’m blaming the poor signage.

    Certainly quite different, with that board thing on the wall. The white cupboard arrangement on the left appears to have survived from a previous room layout, that did feel quite dated and I’m not sure was part of the renovation.

    Oh, and deckchairs. Probably not really entirely functional, but it added some character to the room.

    This looked quite odd though, I’m not sure I liked that nailed to the wall.

    My welcome gift, similar to that I’ve had recently, some very delicious chocolate coated things.

    The view from my window, made the hotel feel like it had extensive grounds, although it didn’t.

    The free welcome drink, once again I went for Żywiec Porter. As an irrelevant aside, the table was very shaky, but fortunately there were no drinks spills.

    I had forgotten that my room rate included breakfast, so that was a pleasant surprise at reception when I checked-in. It’s quite impressive that I managed to forget this since I only booked it three days ago, but there we go…… Plenty of choice and it wasn’t particularly busy. I mostly went for the cold cuts and bread, all of which was of a suitably decent quality.

    The hot food section, which was effectively a create your own hot dog arrangement. There was an egg section where I think staff make omelettes, although I don’t much like them and I didn’t see anyone try and get anything cooked when I was there. There was also a waffle making machine for those who wanted it, although again, I didn’t see anyone use it.

    Desserts, which are an important part of the breakfast arrangement as far as I’m concerned. There were also cereals as well and milk was available (I mention that as my friend Nathan has announced that cereals shouldn’t have milk on them, although he’s obviously wrong).

    I did wonder at first if there might be noise problems as they had a drunken group charging around the hotel and there was also some crashing about from the floor above. However, they were both one-off noise issues, so there were no internal or external noise issues, so all was well.

    The hotel is reasonably well reviewed, although there are an odd amount of clearly fake negative reviews all about a staff member not giving a customer a blanket. Anyway, the room rate including breakfast was just under £40, which was funded nearly entirely from the latest Accor offer, which all seemed reasonable for me even if I was paying. I suspect that the room prices are a little muted at the moment because of the lack of passenger traffic from the nearby airport, they are likely usually higher. But, I’d happily recommend this hotel to others, although I prefer the Novotel in the city centre.

    For anyone wanting to book or find out more…..

  • Warsaw – Drugie Dno Ochota

    Warsaw – Drugie Dno Ochota

    This is the sister bar of the Drugie Dno in the city centre, to which I’ve been a few times and always thought was well-run. It’s located in Ochota which is a little out of the centre, but easily accessible via public transport.

    The beer list, which wasn’t quite what they had on Ontap, but it was updated during my visit. That’s a nicely balanced selection of different beers, a decent range of styles.

    For the moment, I want to focus on the staff member serving, who was knowledgeable, engaging, personable and downright helpful. He was pro-active in offering suggestions, samples and also explaining the options that were in the fridges. That engagement is exceptional at the best of times, but particularly so for a visitor to the country speaking the native language so badly. And a bit more focus on this staff member, he was a competent a server as I’ve seen, managing to be engaging and also prepare the food as well. His colleagues were also friendly, so there seemed a great team ethic going on. There is a large hotel around the corner (which I wasn’t staying in) and so the bar might be used to be getting guests from there, but nonetheless, the service was excellent.

    The upstairs area of the bar, very nicely laid out and this is a handy set-up if they want to close some of the location off for a private location or the like. There are a choice of high and low seats in the bar, which I always appreciate, and there are also seats downstairs. I also liked that the staff member explained that seats were available upstairs and he came up with me to turn the lights on. I accept that’s a simple gesture, but it all contributed to me feeling very welcome.

    Also upstairs, looking towards the window.

    I went for two beers, both stouts, the Artezan Piwo z Jeżykiem which I’d had at their sister pub a few days ago, and also the Waszczukowe which I can’t find on Untappd (I’ll ask my friend Nathan later as he’s my Untappd expert and he’s getting better at reviewing beers as well, other than when he’s had a few too many and the descriptions get a bit erratic and focus on Monster Munch, but that’s not relevant here), but the bar is saying is an imperial coconut stout. It was a suitably decadent beer, although I was struggling to get much of the coconut bit, although there were other flavours that came to the fore. But, two nicely served beers, both of a very good quality.

    I wasn’t going to order food, but I wanted to make sure for my peace of mind that the entire operation was efficient and well managed before I enthused too much about the place. I ordered the ‘Nduja pizza, which is always one of my favourite toppings when I see it. I’m a fan of cherry tomatoes on pizza, but I don’t get to see them very often, so this was a delight. The quality was high, the food service was impeccable and the taste was delicious. In terms of the food, the bar again didn’t disappoint, and indeed continued to surprise and delight.

    This rather creepy looking photo was just me quite liking the attention to detail with the plumbing decoration in the toilets. All spotlessly clean again.

    Anyway, this is a brilliant location which is on a par with the on-trend bars in London and the United States, with the customer service of my two ‘Pubs of the Year’, The Hop & Vine in Hull and Goose Island in London, which I’ve been pleased in stay in touch with this year. I paid just over £10 for the pizza and the two beers, which I thought was really good value for money when taking into account the quality.

    I think I’ve visited around 25 bars in Warsaw and this one is stand-out and should absolutely be visited by anyone coming to the city who wants friendly service and decent craft beer. How very lovely indeed and I’d recommend anyone coming to Warsaw to come here first because it’s so delightful.