Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Warsaw

  • PKP Intercity : Warsaw to Częstochowa

    PKP Intercity : Warsaw to Częstochowa

    Today’s little adventure began at Warszawa Centralna, the city’s main railway station. The station was built in the 1970s and is an impressive and open structure, replacing the remains of the Warszawa Główna railway station which was nearly entirely lost during the Second World War.

    There are plenty of screens indicating the platform numbers and there are escalators down to the tracks.

    I like these screens, they make it relatively easy to know where to stand on the platform to board the train. I fail to understand why the British railway network has never managed to implement this, I don’t really understand why this is so complex. I know that it has been done in a few railway stations, but generally it’s a stand and hope you’re in the right place policy for those catching a train.

    That meant I was departing from Platform 3, Track 4 and Sector 2. I had a reserved seat which was carriage 12 and seat number 36, so I felt that I had all the information that I needed.

    The platforms are long, this is only about half its length.

    I’m always pleased to see confirmation on the signage that I’m at the right platform and at the right railway station. My service was the train departing at 10:10 and arriving into Częstochowa at 12:55, a journey time of two hours and 45 minutes.

    The train isn’t one of the more modern set-ups, here it is arriving into the railway station. They’re also not the easiest to get on and off, there’s quite a step to get into it and so it isn’t ideal for those with limited mobility to access without assistance.

    This meant that it was a carriage train, something I’m not hugely keen on. There has been a move towards open carriages and I prefer that to these eight person compartments.

    There were three of us in this compartment for most of the journey, so plenty of space as it can seat up to eight people. There were eight or so stops along the route, with everything running to clockwork in terms of the timing. I’d add that I took this photo when one of the passengers left the compartment, we weren’t all sitting on the same side. I didn’t need power for electrical devices, but another one of the passengers did and was unable to find it in this area, although she disappeared with her phone charger for some time and so I imagine there’s a power point somewhere.

    Also, it looks from the photo that it’s possible to see across the tops of the compartment, but that’s just the mirror and it is sealed quite tightly other than for the door. There’s a handy metal bar running along the base of the seats which is useful for putting feet on, saving passengers doing that annoying thing of putting their feet on the seats. The seats were adequate and were cushioned, but I didn’t think that they were as comfortable as those on most modern British trains.

    The corridor down the side of the train and a refreshments trolley did work its way up and down. The conductor was friendly when checking my ticket, although I proffered my passport and he said that he didn’t need it, although I thought they were checking them. He didn’t speak any English, but my very limited Polish is enough to understand “ticket please” and “can you make the screen larger?”, but that was the limit of the verbal interchange.

    And safely into Częstochowa railway station, which isn’t entirely obvious as I think that it looks like a shopping centre, but the service was on time and everything was smooth and efficient. The journey cost £9.80 (and I booked that at https://mt.rozklad-pkp.pl/en which is the official web-site of the rail company), which I thought was entirely reasonable given the distance travelled.

  • Warsaw – Baszta Home Army Regiment Memorial

    Warsaw – Baszta Home Army Regiment Memorial

    Apologies to anyone reading that my understanding of this memorial is limited, but I think it represents where 150 Poles died on 1 August 1944 as part of the Warsaw Uprising, in this case fighting against the German Luftwaffe. The panel on the left notes that this is a place sanctified with the blood of Poles who died for the freedom of their homeland, with the panel on the right referring to the Home Army Regiment known as Baszta, fighting near to Fort Mokotów. This memorial was placed here in 1997, replacing a previous temporary plaque.

    There’s more information at http://www.sppw1944.org/index.html?/mapapowstania3/m_34.html.

    I posted this as every time I visit Warsaw I am reminded of the great bravery of the Polish troops and residents who defended themselves with such courage against a German onslaught.

  • Warsaw – Robert Schuman Roundabout

    Warsaw – Robert Schuman Roundabout

    I’m easily confused at the best of times, but I was a bit puzzled as to why there’s a stone commemorating the life of Robert Schuman at what seemed like a random place in Warsaw. There’s no doubting the great ability of Schuman, he’s one of the best known of the post-war political European leaders and also a founding father of the European Union.

    It took me a little while to work out that the stone is here because in 2017 the Polish authorities named a roundabout after him. I’m not entirely sure why this roundabout was selected and indeed why a roundabout was thought to be a fitting honour. Anyway, it’s here for anyone who wants to visit it, just a little south of the centre of Warsaw.

  • Warsaw – PINTA Warszawa Craft Beer

    Warsaw – PINTA Warszawa Craft Beer

    It’s becoming more challenging for me to find a craft beer bar in Warsaw that I haven’t been to, but I persist in my efforts. Since it’s my first day back in Warsaw I visited my favourite bar in the city first, Hoppiness, and was delighted as ever. After that, I made the short walk to PINTA which I understand opened earlier this year. They’re a brewery who have been trading for some years and were apparently the first Polish brewers to have an international collaboration, with O’Hara’s from Ireland. Things seem to be going well for this bar judging by the reviews, they’re nearly all positive at the moment.

    The beer options are chalked up on the board, although they’re also listed at https://pinta-warszawa.ontap.pl/. The server was helpful and I’ve realised how much of my already very limited Polish that I’ve managed to forget. Not that it mattered much in this instance, the server spoke fluent English. In terms of the beer selection, it was excellent with a range of beer styles and the like, all neatly presented.

    This is the upstairs area of the bar, it’s all quite spacious.

    I went for the Kwas Xy sour from Browar PINTA, the brewery who operate this bar. A decent sour, taste of stone fruit and suitably, well, sour.

    I also went for cod bites and these have to be collected from a little hatch upstairs. A little greasy, but they tasted fine, although I tend to like most things in batter (preferably not vegetables, although they taste better in batter).

    This is a decent enough bar, although it was a little sterile since I visited on a Tuesday early afternoon when I was the only customer. Service wasn’t quite as engaging as Hoppiness, but it was polite and friendly, so that was more than good enough for me (and Hoppiness set very high standards). The bar was spotlessly clean, the environment was comfortable and so all really rather lovely. They also opened a bar in Wrocław in 2018, which reminded me that I haven’t been to that city for a few years. All very on-trend though, I’d like to think that there might be a little chain of these throughout Poland in a few years.

  • Warsaw – Fort Mokotów

    Warsaw – Fort Mokotów

    Mostly photos in this post, but I was intrigued by Fort Mokotów as I’ve had a little look at these forts across the city in the past, including Fort V Włochy. There’s not much at this fort, which was originally constructed in the 1880s and then extended within a few years. These structures were built as part of the Warsaw Fortress to defend the city from attack. This one was used to house Polish radio in the inter-war period, which meant that the Germans sought to destroy it early on during the war (before they sought to destroy everything else in this great city).

    Today, there are a number of restaurants and bars located here alongside numerous offices, but there’s not much else. Interesting though.

  • British Airways (London Heathrow T5 to Warsaw)

    British Airways (London Heathrow T5 to Warsaw)

    For the first time in just over a year, I’ve been able to get the chance to return to Poland, something which I’m more than pleased with. That meant a journey from London’s Heathrow T5 into Warsaw Chopin airport with the hope that I had collected together the correct documents.

    I’ve written about the BA T5 Galleries South Lounge before and so won’t repeat that, as not much has changed recently in terms of its operation. Drinks are still self-service, but food needs to be ordered via a QR code and is brought over by staff. The food delights in the morning included the breakfast option of a bacon roll with hash brown, alongside a fruit salad. The lunch-time options included Vietnamese vegetable curry, chicken jalfrezi with lime & coriander rice, beef keema with rice, mixed leaf salad, five bean salad with feta and a black rice, Quinoa & Edamame salad. I went for the jalfrezi and five bean salad, with the former being excellent and the latter being OK but a little short on feta. I’m always content with the quality of the food, but some people inevitably moan about BA’s offering.

    The lounge was though the busiest that I’ve seen it and that perhaps suggests some sort of normality is definitely returning. A couple of customers were completely rude in their dealing with the staff and although I wanted to say something, I thought that no good could possibly come from that. I was able to get one of the high seats by the power points and remained in the lounge for three hours or so, all very relaxing.

    The gate wasn’t called for ten minutes after it was meant to have been, instead it then switched to ‘please wait’. I guessed that this meant it would be departing from A10, the bus gate.

    And here we are, the bus gates. Boarding was well managed and Group 1 and then Groups 1 to 3 were allowed to board first. I’m in Group 2, as I’m not decadent enough to be in Group 1, but that was enough to get on the bus first.

    The bus was a little over-filled I thought (I didn’t photograph that), not in terms of it being dangerous, it just wasn’t comfortable for those who boarded last.

    And time to board, the aircraft was the A320 G-EUYT, which I’ve never flown on before. And I accept that no-one is really bothered about that, but there we go…. The aircraft was brought into service in February 2014 and it has only been used by British Airways.

    I had a seat in the emergency exit row which I like because of the slight extra space, but dislike that my bag has to be in the overhead lockers. For the first time I’ve seen though, a member of cabin crew was guarding the lockers by the emergency exits so that customers could ensure that their bags were placed there and not half way down the plane. Although I boarded early and this didn’t make any difference to me, it did speed up boarding later on.

    The flight was full and I’m not sure that there were any empty seats. The customer next to me arrived towards the end of boarding and started to put his bag on the floor. I was standing up as I was in the aisle seat and let him in, thoughtfully asking him if he wanted to put that bag in the overhead locker. He replied “no” and in my very British way I added “are you sure, it might be easier?” to which he replied “no” again so I sat back down. The customer at the window seat, who seemed perfectly friendly, was more direct and said only slightly gruffly “that bag needs to go in the overhead locker”, at which point I had to stand up again as that more direct approach worked.

    The aircraft was meant to take off at 15:15 and arrive at 18:50, but we took off late due to a delay in the baggage being loaded. We eventually took off at 15:47, but time was made up en route and we arrived at 18:46 (can I add that I didn’t sit and measure that, I took that information from Flight Radar). As an aside, the crew weren’t handing out wipes for customers to clean their seat area as they’ve done over the last year, I’m not sure whether that’s by omission or whether that has been scrapped.

    The on-board catering and I’m happy with this, it annoyed me when they removed it. There’s the option to buy additional items, but I noticed only a handful of people did so. Crisps and water is sufficient for me though, it wasn’t a long flight.

    The fare cost me £30 each way, which I have to say continues to offer excellent value for money, especially given that BA funded lounge access for me before the flight. The crew were friendly, the aircraft was spotlessly clean and the pilots were professional with timely announcements. I have nothing really to fault BA on, I thought that this was a well managed service.

    For those interested, anyone going to Poland at the moment needs to fill in a locator form and have their Covid pass ready, with both being checked. The Brexit arrangements mean that British travellers are inevitably now sent to a different area which all takes longer and passports are now stamped. Some idiotic British passenger (I admit to be judgemental as she was being rude) was lucky to be allowed in as she was complaining that she was being asked where she was staying and why was only she being asked? The member of the Polish Border Guard was calm and helpful, not mentioning that it was because she hadn’t bothered to fill in a locator form. This whole process only took around five minutes though and with that, I was back in Poland. How very lovely.

  • Warsaw – Caffè Dell’Amore

    Warsaw – Caffè Dell’Amore

    Looking for a little cafe in Warsaw last week, this one was well-reviewed and is located between the central railway station and the Old Town.

    The fridges in the cafe with the cakes looking rather sparse, although they were reasonably priced.

    It’s not perhaps the most sophisticated of interiors, but it’s clean and organised with an Italian feel to the whole arrangement.

    The latte really was rather lovely, a richness of taste and at the appropriate temperature, ie, one which isn’t so hot it burns the mouth. The meringue was light and probably far too sugary for my health, but I enjoyed it nonetheless. The environment was comfortable and relaxed, although not particularly busy. It’s larger than it looks from the front, as there are some seats at the rear, as well as the outside seating.

  • London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Warsaw Uprising Graves)

    London – Lambeth – Imperial War Museum (Warsaw Uprising Graves)

    Returning to my little theme of the wonderful on-line photo collection of the Imperial War Museum….

    © IWM HU 105736

    This is quite a raw photo, showing a little girl in what was likely late 1944 and she’s passing by a number of graves. There were hundreds of these plots of graves in Warsaw as people didn’t know what to do with the number of dead. It was only after the end of the Second World War that they were mostly exhumed and moved to the Warsaw Insurgents Cemetery.

  • Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express Warsaw Airport

    Warsaw – Holiday Inn Express Warsaw Airport

    I stayed in Poland for ten nights on this trip and this was the only one not in an Accor hotel. This hotel isn’t the easiest to get to from the city centre, but it was cheap, coming in at under £25 for a room and breakfast. I had quite low expectations for the hotel, primarily as I don’t often stay in Holiday Inn Express hotels and I wasn’t quite sure what to expect.

    My first impressions weren’t marvellous as there was no-one on reception, but everything was clean and organised. And when the receptionist came along, she was friendly and helpful, so my general impressions were restored.

    The room was better than I had expected, all clean and sufficiently large. The desk is bigger than it looks in the photo and there were no noise issues either internally or externally.

    The welcome drink voucher.

    Unlike a few Accor hotels, there was no issue here with me having Zywiec Porter. I was now very impressed at this hotel, a reminder of just how easily pleased I am…..

    The breakfast in the morning was still self-service, the first one I’ve had since March, as other hotels have had staff serving customers. I liked the set-up and it was nice and quiet, so I felt it was all still safe.

    They’ve made the process safe by removing the serving spoons, which I’m not entirely sure is the best solution here, but there we go. There was a sufficiently wide selection to chose from, including cold meats, cheeses and best of all, hot dogs. And I’ve missed those, they were a staple of mine when I went to the Ibis Budget in Torun earlier in the year.

    The reviews for the hotel are generally very positive, although someone was livid earlier this year:

    “I chose the HIE since I love the IHG brand. The night prior i stayed at the Intercontinental in Budapest and had an incredible experience. I stay in IHG hotels 60+ nights a year. I rarely if ever complain but in this case, I have no choice and I must alert other business travelers to this hotel. I will also send a certified letter to the CEO of IHG it was so bad. Once I landed at the WAW Airport, I called the hotel to have a pick up at the airport.”

    The problem was that the shuttle wasn’t there and the receptionist insisted it was, so there was a misunderstanding. I’m not sure that the CEO of IHG would be too concerned at the misunderstanding, but there we go…..

    Overall, I was suitably impressed at this hotel and thought it represented excellent value for money given the price being charged. I wasn’t going to or from the airport when I stayed, but it is conveniently located for that and I think that there’s a free shuttle available (although it might be late judging from the above review). I’d certainly stay here again, my initial low expectations were certainly surpassed. Very lovely.

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Zoo (Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska)

    Warsaw – Warsaw Zoo (Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska)

    This house at Warsaw Zoo is where the head-keeper and his family used to live, an otherwise unassuming building. But, during the Second World War, this is where Jan Żabiński and Antonina Żabińska hid Jews to save them from being killed or sent to concentration camps. Jan Żabiński served as the Director of the Zoo between 1929 and 1939, when he was given the role of looking after the city parks. This gave him access to the Warsaw Ghetto and he helped many Jews escape, placing himself in huge danger.

    Some of the Jews were hidden in the cages where the animals were once held, now most of them had been killed by the Nazis for fear that they would escape. A few Jews were also hidden in the cellars of Żabiński’s house and there was a cellar which linked to a tunnel. This tunnel came out in an area of trees, so if the Nazis raided the house then the Jews could escape and hide above aground.

    Both Jan and Antonina were later awarded the huge honour of Righteous Among the Nations, those who had taken a substantial risk to try and save members of the Jewish community. Jan returned to his role as Director of the Zoo in 1945, where he continued until 1951. The regime of Józef Cyrankiewicz saw an end to that, Jan who had fought courageously with the Home Army in the Warsaw Uprising was fired from his role because of that loyalty to his country, which conflicted with the communist influence from the Soviet Union.

    However, the bravery of Jan and Antonina came to the attention of the world primarily after the publication of the Zookeeper’s Wife, which was turned into a film in 2017.