Do widzenia, Polska

Back in Warszawa I was drained of energy; it had been two weeks of unforgettable vacation and now that it was time to leave all my body wanted to do was sleep. I trudged from the train station to the hostel, had a shower, and fell directly into bed.

Of course, having gone to bed in the early evening, the next morning I woke at about 5:30 with my bags already packed and ready to catch my plane, which wasn't until the afternoon. I decided to venture out and take my last look and walk around Warszawa, and, with some luck, I would find an open café somewhere where I could exchange my last złotys for much-needed caffeine. Needless to say, hardworking as the Polish are, not even they are going to open a café at 6 AM, so I wandered the streets until, just after 7 AM, I finally found my Holy Grail - an open coffee shop. Elated to finally have a place to sit and read, I walked in to find two men, one youngish and one middle aged, talking to the baristas. What a complicated coffee order, I thought, as the conversation went back and forth. Suddenly, the two men turned around and walked towards the door. I must have looked clueless, because the young one turned to me and said, in English, "Don't bother. The coffee machine's broken". To say I was dismayed would be an enormous understatement. My legs were weary, my eyes were drooping, and the smell of roasted coffee beans was making me drool. But instead of settling into a poufy couch with a poufier cappuccino, I had to head out for some more aimless wandering. Or I would have, were it not for the eternal kindess and friendlyness of the Poles.

"Come with us," said the young man. "We'll drive you to another coffee shop. With a working machine".

I wasn't sure if I should get in a car with two men I had met twenty seconds ago, and my hesitation was clear on my face.

"Don't worry miss, we're taxi drivers."

By way of proof, he motioned to the two taxis parked outside. I got into one and the middle aged man drove while we chatted. Not surprisingly, he spoke perfect English. Sure enough, five minutes later, we were outside another café of the same chain, and went inside to make our orders. My companion insisted on paying for my coffee and pastry, and we sat down together to exchange life stories. We chatted amiably for about half an hour, until coffee break was over and my knight in shining coffee beans had to get to work driving people around Warszawa. I couldn't believe that even in such a busy urban centre, perfect gentlemen (and women) abound who don't think twice to help poor caffeine-deprived tourists. They give their time and money without wanting anything in return other than to spend a special moment with a total stranger. It is really magical, and more than anything I saw or did while I visited Poland, the kind, warm, open, endlessly generous spirit of the Polish people is what I will always remember.

Gdańsk

I wasn't sure what to expect of Malbork - after all, you've seen one castle, you've seen them all, right? But its history is so rich (thanks to the many invaders of different nationalities over the centuries) and the castle itself is so beautiful that it really is worth seeing. All credit to the tour guide, who was extremely informative (if I remember correctly he even had a degree in Polish history) and not only did he tell the story of the lives of the Teutonic warriors that built and lived in the castle, but also pointed out some hilarious Teutonic signage. He indicated a small demon carved into the stone, just next to a hallway entrance. The little devil was squatting and had a pained expression on his face. The meaning? This is the way to the toilet! Now, if you ever visit a Teutonic castle, you need never ask the way to the loo. Just look out for the squatting demon.

After the castle we headed on into Gdańsk, where first priority was a couple of Tyskies by the river:

In the fading light, we took a walk around the city, and in the course of our wanderings stumbled upon a gem of a statue. It was already dusk and my eyesight is not the best, but I saw it out of the corner of my eye, and my brain registered something odd. "Hey John," I said, as casually as I could manage, "Is it just me or does that statue have a massive erection?". "Jaysus, Mary an' Joseph" replied John, in his thick Belfastian.

Apparently the statue is about freedom - clearly the concept excites Poles, and not without reason.

The next day was gorgeous and sunshiny, so John suggested we go to a small island off the Polish coast, funnily named Hel. After the requisite fifteen thousand "We're going to Hel" jokes, off we set to catch the ferry. We didn't really have any plans other than to explore the island (which is very small and only takes about 20 minutes) lounge on the beach a while and read.

We got on the ferry, arrived without incident, and set off for a bit of a walk around. There was a seal park, a main street selling tacky souvenirs (mandatory) and a tower which we climbed which offered some great views. But it was on the way from the tower back to the beach when I spotted the highlight of our trip to the island. Just walking along, I suddenly burst into uncontrollable laughter. John asked me what on earth I was laughing at, but it was a minute before I could compose myself enough to point at the nearby bus, parked by the side of the road. Looks like the Poles do have a sense of humour:

Classic.

After that we just beached it until it was time to catch the ferry home. At the last minute, I bought a Captain's hat as a souvenir gift for Erik from my trip.

The next day John set off for Warszawa but I still wanted to spend another day in Gdańsk, so I set off to the main street to find the buzz, and some lovely amber jewellery which is typical of the city. The main attraction of the main street is the Neptune Fountain:

After eating breakfast (pierogi! yum!) and wandering up and down a while I was a little at a loss, so I decided to visit the Solidarność museum. This is an absolute Gdańsk highlight and I think the best museum I visited in Poland. To add to the fact that I found the subject matter fascinating (the Polish struggle to throw off the shackles of the communism and the USSR to finally assert its independence) the museum exhibits were extremely thought-provoking, interactive, and impactful. Walking through the museum tells the story of the movement from its beginnings in the Gdańsk shipyards to Polish freedom. As well as this, it puts the Polish movement into perspective with a video showing how it fits in with the freedom movements from the ex-USSR states. My favourite exhibit was a large whiteboard, inviting guests to write what the concepts "Freedom" and "Solidarity" mean to them. 

Unfortunately, my time in Gdańsk had run out and it was time to head back to Warsawa so I could catch my plane home the next. It was with a heavy heart that I headed to the train station, bought my ticket, and boarded my last Polish train back to the capital.

Toruń

I took my last Interrail ticket from Poznań to Toruń, which was stupid, considering it's such a short and cheap journey, and now I would have to buy my Gdańsk-Warszawa ticket. But to be honest once I arrived in Toruń I didn't mind at all. It's so small, and quaint, and mediaeval, that you start thinking you're in the Renaissance and that you're likely to run into Nicolaus Copernicus at the hot bread shop. Copernicus was born in Toruń and by goodness they don't let you forget it. There's a statue, a museum, observatory (the reason I was so excited about Toruń in the first place), all manner of streets, stores and monuments dedicated to the famous astronomer. So first port of call was what is taken to be Mr. Copernicus's house, which has been turned into a museum. Unfortunately nobody is actually sure if this was his house or not, but the Poles don't let the truth get in the way of a good story, or a hefty entrance fee. No pictures were allowed inside, but the house was rustic and sparse in the way of furniture. The rest of the space was taken up with all manner of measuring tools, old astronomy gadgets and other scientific objects.

The other Toruńian obsession, aside from ole Nicolaus, is piernicki, a Toruń style gingerbread spice cookie. Not only can you buy it in all the stores but there is a piernicki museum where you can learn all about the elaboration of this delightful sweet and even make some yourself. Of course, I was all over that! The tour was supposedly in English, but as the only non-Polish in the tour group, in the end it was about 90% in Polish. Who cares, I still got to smell all the spices, grind up the flour (in a stone mill!) mix up the dough, and bake it into a rock hard, completely inedible print of guess who's face? If you thought of a famous scientist, you wouldn't be far wrong.

Next stop after the piernicki was the observatory. I love observatories, I really wish they were as common as cinemas as they are just as entertaining and a million times more informative. I sat in on the English show (was in English this time, thankfully) and enjoyed every second.

Off to my hotel to rest then, I had chosen a not extremely cheap but very comfortable hotel, trying to make up for my lack of sleep the previous nights! I went out with my book after dinner for some mulled wine, and then tucked up into bed.

John arrived the next day, but before I got a chance to catch up with him I found an absolute hidden treasure. I had heard there were some Teutonic ruins in Toruń so I went to check them out. I hesitated when paying the entrance fee; I like ruins and all, but why was I paying to see a pile of old bricks? Once I got inside though, I couldn't stop laughing. There was a totally cheesy "reconstruction" of life in Teutonic times, within the ruins! First up, the gallows:



The mess:



The bedroom:



And, cheesiest of the cheesy, the dungeon:



The dungeon is really the highlight of the whole ruin. I walked gingerly, alone, into the murky shadows, peering to see in the dark, and when I began to make out the horrendous dummies in the picture, I suddenly heard a long, deafening cackle. "BWA HA HA HA HAAAAAA!". I jumped about a metre in the air and screamed like the defenceless blonde girl in every horror flick. Along with the cackle came fake smoke to complete the experience. After I got over my shock I couldn't stop laughing at the sheer tackyness of it all. When I met up with John later that evening I recommended it to him highly as a Toruń must-see.

That night I met up with John to go out for dinner and take a night boat ride along the Wisła. However, an extraordinarily large pizza derailed our plans:



By the time John got through that monstrosity, we had missed the boat and consoled ourselves taking pictures of the Wisła by night:





before heading back to our hotels for bed.

The next day, we just took in some regular Toruń sights, like the Toruń dragon:



The Toruń equivalent of the pied piper of Hamelin:



Apparently the violinist in the fountain is Janko Muzykant. The story goes that a witch visited Toruń and the villagers did not welcome her, so she cast a spell that Toruń be invaded with frogs (if you squint you can make them out in the picture). The town mayor offered a sack of gold and his daughter to whoever rescued the city from the plague (let's ignore the overt misogyny for a moment). After a little while, a peasant appeared and started to play his violin; the frogs were enchanted and followed him out into the forest and Toruń was saved.

Also we checked out the bird's eye view of Toruń from the top of the cathedral:




We stayed that night in Toruń, had some Okocims and dinner, but early the next morning it was time to head up to north Poland - final destination Gdańsk, but with a very important stopover: Malbork Castle.

Poznań

The train to Poznań was jam-packed - not a seat in the house. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise since Polish trains don't have airconditioning, so I parked myself in the carriage corridor and opened the window wide. I enjoyed the cool, delicious wind whipping back my hair and the lovely rural countryside, and barely even noticed that I had to stand for the whole trip.

It was dusk when I arrived in Poznań, and I was in a little hurry to get to my hostel before dark. Not that I ever felt unsafe in Poland, but just, you know, it's better not to wander around alone in the dark. I tried to ask the train lady how to get into the city centre. No English. OK, time for Polsklish. "Autobusy do Stary Rynek?" I ventured. Train lady got out a bit of paper and wrote "MPK" on it, which is the name of the local bus company. No bus number or anything. Very helpful. Thankfully I found a young English-speaking lass who pointed me in the direction of the Old Town, so I trudged wearily off in that direction, still feeling the effects of the mega-hike to the Jewish Cemetary that morning. I went up to the hostel room and dumped my bag, when I noticed that the guy in the room was kind of familiar. "Did you come up from Wrocław today?" he asked. "Yep." I confirmed, and it turned out we had been in the same Wrocław hostel. He had been volunteering in work camps in Slovakia and the Czech Republic restoring old castles, which sounded amazing, and now was on a tour of Poland before going home to Belfast.

We were both starving so we ventured out to find a place to have dinner. I didn't really mind where, so I let him pick and as luck would have it he stumbled on a little gem of a place. For 50 złotys (about €12) I ate an enormous plate of beef, salad and potatoes plus two Lithuanian wheat beers which were all absolutely delicious. John was on a very restrictive budget though, and couldn't stop complaining about the price of everything. I was too full even for coffee, and with my caffeine addiction, that's saying something. We headed back to the hostel for a well-earned rest.

I slept badly that night, the room was very noisy and there were no curtains so I was up with the sunrise. I messed around on Facebook for a while, not really wanting to make the effort to go anywhere or see anything. I had breakfast, finished my book ("La Catedral del Mar" will be the last historical fiction I read, what a bore!) and finally dragged myself out of the hostel. I went to see the museums in the main square, but they were all closed as it was Monday. The main square itself, however, is lovely:

So I ventured off to the Cytadela park to see the citadel. They can't close the park, right? At least I could enjoy some fresh air, as the park was removed from the hustle and bustle of the city. I sat on a bench to rest for a bit and saw a porcupine!

He even let me touch him, he was very prickly. I saw some squirrels also but squirrels were old news from the old days in Phoenix park. First wild porcupine sighting! After the rest I set off to see the citadel - but it was shut until September! I hated Poznań from that moment. There was nothing else for it but to head back to the main square and drown my sorrows in delicious microbrewed wheat beer. On the way I spotted this innovative bit of public art. Here they are on one side of the street, going down:

 Coming up on the other side:

I stopped to book a room in a halfway decent hotel in Torún to make sure I didn't spend another sleepless night! John wanted to stay in Poznań a little longer but I'd had enough of the place, so we bid goodbye and arranged to meet up in Toruń.

Wrocław

I had enjoyed Kraków immensley, but time was not on my side on this trip so it was time to make a move. Next on the itinerary was Wrocław, a small city on the South Western side of Poland which had spent a lot of time being invaded by the Germans and renamed Breslau. Either name is used now, but since it's currently in Poland I prefer to call it Wrocław (which, totally non-phonetically for English speakers, is pronounced something akin to "ross-wov").

First impressions of Wrocław are of a bright, lively but not crowded city with lovely wide streets, trees, the river Oder and gorgeous mediaeval architecture. I trundled off to the hostel where I dumped my bags and immediately wanted to go to sleep, but convinced myself in time that I was here to enjoy my holiday (TM) TO THE MAX (R) and I was sure as hell not going to sleep it away in bed. So. Walking around Wrocław. I saw a bunch of guys at the hostel front desk and heard them speaking Basque. I thought of heading over to say "Kaixo" but they were all six foot as Basque men usually are and five six foot men in a group is not the world's least intimidating sight, even if they smile. So I slunk off to explore.

Wrocław's main square is pretty impressive, I walked through some gorgeous parkland, past the university and a very very large, black, extremely imposing church.

I was tempted to go look inside but my skirt didn't quite cover my knees I stayed firmly on non-holy ground. Instead, I returned to the hostel to take a longed-for nap. When I woke I found a Californian girl and a male Londoner drinking vodka and lemonade and playing on his Mac. They were old friends travelling together. We chatted for a while about music, but I felt a little like I was intruding on their "vibe" so when they announced they were going clubbing I told them I'd stay at the hotel and rest. I was a bit disappointed, after the amazing connections I had made in Kraków, but it was clear they had a lot of catching up to do, if you understand what I mean...

The next morning I woke up early and took a walk through the quite deserted city. The only people I saw were a lone nun limping along a cobbled street, and a whole load of people crossing a bridge with bunches of flowers. I guess they were going to church but it was Saturday. Other than the church bells, you could practically hear a pin drop in Wrocław that morning. The lack of people and car noise made me feel like I was in a rural town 500 years ago, helped by the churches which dot the landscape.

Auto-portrait of sleepy self:

Polish Love Padlocks:

 A beautiful memorial of the Katyn Massacre. You can't make it out in the photo, but the dying man has a bullet hole right through the head, the execution measure of choice for the Soviet soldiers.

Soviet style building:

I wandered back to the main square where there was some kind of military parade going on. There was a marching band, gun salutes, and lots of officers marching up and down the square, showing off all their testosterone. I later realised this pomp and circumstance was for the Polish Armed Forces Day, to remember the Miracle at the Vistula. Thanks, Wikipedia!

Parade over, I went to see the Panorama of the Battle of Racławice. It's basically just a painting, but instead of painting a big mural and hanging it flat on the walls, they painted a long ribbon of canvas and stuck it on the inside of a circular building, like you would line a flan ring with pastry. So you stand in the middle of this enormous painting, which has some sort of amazing Renaissance 3D special effects, and in front of the painting they've placed some real grass, rocks, farm materials and things to kind of "extend" the painting so you are not quite sure where the objects stop and the painting begins. The effect is pretty awesome. Plus you pick up an audio guide to relate the story of the battle, the details of which I can't remember other than that the Polish won it, and that Kościuszko was in charge of the insurrection (so now I know where the name of Australia's highest mountain comes from). Pity it couldn't save Polish independence from the pesky Russians in the end though.

I whiled the rest of the afternoon away with "La Catedral del Mar" by Ildefonso Falcones (I left my finished Larsson in Kraków to a lovely South American gentleman who hadn't read it yet. Just too heavy to lug around) in the park, then headed home to the hostel.

I had an early night, so the next morning I ended up waking very early. For want of something better to do, I grabbed my book and headed out to sit in the sun in the main square and read. When I arrived, I noticed there were two benches, one occupied with three young lads recovering from the previous night's revels. I wondered if I should sit there, it being too early for me to be in the mood to deal with drunken louts, but in the end I just plonked myself down on the other bench.

Naturally, it only took three or four pages before the drunkest of the three, Serge, came over and started trying to hit on me. Sigh. I ignored him as best I could when another of the three came over. But Arek was thankfully not drunk, he was in fact extremely knowledgeable, trilingual (Polish, English and German) and interested to know what on Earth a girl was doing at 8:00 AM reading in Wrocław's main square. I explained that I just liked to read, but he still seemed amazed and replied that no Polish girl would ever get up early to go to the town square just to read a book on a Sunday morning. He and his friends had been discussing me, intrigued, he told me, and he was going to tell all his friends about the strange Australian girl he met who likes to read in the middle of the city. I asked about his story, so he explained about his Polish mother, German father, how he had lived in Wrocław, Hamburg and now Łódź, and the history of all these places. Łódź, he and his friends assured me, was not worth visiting, but Arek urged me to visit the Jewish cemetary in Wrocław, which was actually what I already had planned for that day. Thanking him, I said goodbye to the sweet Arek, drunken Serge, and their softly-spoken Brazilian friend Alex, with whom I had managed to have a small conversation in Spanish.

I love cemetaries, and the Wrocław Jewish Cemetary was highly rated, so I set off to have a look. I could see from the map it was quite a way away, but I had no tram ticket handy so I decided just to foot it. The sun was blazing, but I kept on as the lure of shady tombstones impelled me forward. Finally, after what seemed like hours, I finally arrived. At a building. With no kind of signage. I looked around for some kind of entrance. Couldn't find any doors, gates, or other such indicators. It must be closed - I couldn't believe it after the long and tiresome walk. I sat down in the shade for a few minutes to catch my breath and assimilate the fact that I had to trek the same route over again. Rested, I made one last check around the building to see if I could find the entrance, and there, like a mirage, was a gate with a path behind it. Why did I not see this before? I was jubilant.

At the door there was an elderly Jewish man with a series of guidebooks for the cemetary. He managed to communicate to me somehow, that I was to take the book into the cemetary and leave it on the way out. If I wanted to keep it, it would be 10 złotys. I took it and went inside. It was absolutely lovely - green, leafy, shady, serene, well-kept. I wandered around and took in the inscriptions, some in Polish, some in German, many in Hebrew. Apparently the cemetary was saved during the war because it was outside Wrocław city centre, and therefore wasn't a bomb target.

After having taken in the cemetary I went straight to the bar for a very sweet Okocim beer, which tasted like a little glass of heaven after my long, hot walk. Added bonus: lovely beer plus an empty stomach led to a very good mood, and I sang all the way to the train station in the afternoon to catch the train to Poznań.