Eastern Europe - Warsaw. Poland

Barrack in Birkenbau

Email 28. Warsaw. Poland 16 May 2010

Note: The email date very seldom matches the writing with the physical location (for a variety of reasons)

Warsaw was a pleasant surprise and is only surpassed by Krakow’s proximity to other interesting sites. Having said that, what I think about a city is largely influenced by the total experience in that city. This may include: the interesting sights, the accommodation, the people I meet, the eating-out experience, and some other hard to define factors.

One pleasant surprise in Warsaw was that the visit of the impressive castle revealed that it contains 23 Canaletto paintings. Canaletto was commissioned to do 25 paintings of various part of Warsaw. Today, the city has made copies of some of those paintings and displays them (under glass) at the place where Canaletto set out to paint the scene. This allows comparison between parts of Warsaw today compared to the Warsaw at the time of Canaletto. Most of the areas show little changes. How clever and fascinating!

Another unusual attraction is a series of benches spread out along the Royal Walk. These benches are made out of some plastic material and are fitted with speakers. When you press a button, the bench plays one of the Chopin piano composition. How cool is that? Somebody in charge has a very good imagination!

The Royal Walk follows the way that the king followed when returning from a trip. The walk ends at the Castle on the main square in the Old Town. The Castel has impressive wooden floors that reminded me of the floors in the Hermitage Museum.

The walk is lined up with restaurants, cafes, including (of course!) a Starbuck. The unusual chocking feature about it is that one of its letter missing. I hope I can download that picture so that you can play a little game called (Replace-the -letter-with-your-favorite-choice) my only favorite that I dare to tell you is “S”. The sign reads as follows: STAR UCKS

Use your imagination!

There is a huge building built during the Communist time. It is so typical of the classic Soviet style that for a minute I thought I was back in Moscow! One good thing about it is that you can get a great view of the city from the 31^st floor.

I have had some problem loading picture because the blog does not recognize the Nikon NEF format.

So here are two more pictures of Krakow. One is the inside of a barrack at Birkenbau and the other is the beautiful sculptured wood triptych inside the Cathedral.

LUBLIN - Poland

A nice city without a lot of sights. The Old Town Square has some nice medieval building and there is also a Castle. Most impressive was the extremely helpful Tourist Office. They even found out how to get from Lublin to Bardejov in Slovekia. It was incredibly complicated and I gave up the idea to go there.

I book many of my Hostel on Hostelworld. They list all the infos required for a booking but they leave the hostel describe how to get to the facility from the airport, the train station, and the bus station. They also provide a (totally useless) map. About 80% of the descriptions are very poor and need lots of additional info. The description by this last hostel was particularly poor. I mentioned this to the woman that was there when I finally arrived. She admitted that she wrote the description (as requested by the boss who owns the place??!!). You would think that this is would be important enough to at least double-check the description written by an employee. So, guess what happened, she brought the site up and asked me to rewrite it!!

So I did and I assure you that it isn't easy to write any idiot-proof (foolproof) set of instructions.

Not only did I rewrote it, but when I went back to the train station I try to follow my own instructions to the letter and I ended up making a couple more changes. Sounds a bit like teaching doesn't it?

Eastern Europe - Krakow. Poland

No 27 Email. Krakow – Poland

To go to my hostel reception from the train station, I had to go thru Krakow’s Main Square.

Not a bad introduction to a new city. I liked it immediately!. From the part of this hostel, where the reception is located they put me on a taxi to the other part of the hostel just north of the square.

Krakow’s Square, 200 meters by 200 meters is, apparently, the largest medieval square in Europe. In the center is the large Clothing Hall which today is full of souvenir shops. Unfortunately the outside of the Hall is being refurbished and is full of scaffoldings.

The Old town’s main entrance is thru a fort sitting outside the Old Town’s main walls, then over a bridged moat and finally thru the Florian Gate. A long street (Ulica Florianska) leads directly into the main square. The first thing you see is a McDonald on the left side! The street is full of tourist’s attractions; restaurants, nite clubs, souvenirs shops etc…

The Square, full of outdoor restaurants, colorful flower stands, street musicians, and other activities is where Krakow lives!

To the left of the square sits the last edition of St Mary’s Church, that was (rebuilt) 800 years ago. 239 steps up the church’s tallest tower gives you a wonderful overview of the square.

The inside of the church, with its starry blue ceiling, is very beautiful and the three-part Gothic altarpiece,by German Veit Stross, is supposed to be one of the best medieval woodcarving in existence.

There is another church on the square, the tiny Church of St. Adalbert where a string quartet from the Royal Chamber Orchestra is playing wonderful pieces of classical and other music.

I am not terribly found of ‘chamber’ music but when I saw the program listing pieces such as J.Pachelbel’ Canon, The Godfather, the Theme from Schindler’s List, Summertime, Hungarian Dances, I decided to give it a try. It was wonderful ! I could not believe that a string quartet could produce such incredible sounds. I think that the small church acoustical qualities also contributed to the effect. I enjoyed it so much that I went back the next day for another wonderful experience.

The Square is part of the Royal Way, so called because the king used to follow the same path when returning to Krakow after a journey. The walk goes by several churches and eventually climbs up to Wawel Hill (the most visited sight in the country) the Wawel Cathedral.

Architecturally, the far side of the cathedral presents an eclectic ensemble of centuries of seemingly haphazard additions. From left to right, 14^th century gothic, 12^th century Romanesque, 16^th and 17^th century Renaissance, and 18^th and 19^th century Neoclassical.

Somehow it works (you be the juges. Near the top of the hill is an equestrian statue of Tadenz Kosciuszko. A name that should be familiar to American history buffs, as he was a hero of the American Revolution and he also helped in the design of West Point.

From Krakow I joined an organized tour to a Salt Mine and another to Auschwitz and Birkenau.

Or sometimes referred to as Auschwitz I and Auschwitz II. Some of the rooms of Auschwitz I have been turned into a museum.

Some rooms display material evidence of the crimes that took place here, such as pile of shoes, eyeglasses, crutches and prosthetics limbs, suitcases, etc….

We could go on forever but what really got to me to the point of making me sick was viewing one of the gas chamber and the adjoining crematorium.

Even after visiting the complexes I am still depressed and unable to understand how this could have taken place.

I also walked to Schindler’s factory located in a run-down industrial area close to Krakow.

Next Warsaw.

Eastern Europe - Lviv. Ukraine

Email No 26 – Lviv – Ukraine

The pictures:

A Saturday wedding.

Statue of famous painter. (A finger painter?)

After an overnite trip I arrived in Lviv’ Main train Station early in the morning. A street car ride took me to the City Hall and Lviv Main Square where I attempted to find the location of the hostel. The door to the building, with the apparent right address, was shut and there was no outside evidence that this was the right place.

There seem to be a trend in Ukraine to located the hostels on one floor of large apartment/office buildings (this will be the third one out of three).

A came back a little late to find the outside door open and I found the hostel’s floor.

Nobody answered the door’s bell nor my persistent knocking. I want to an office on the next floor to confirm I was in he right place. They confirmed and even called the owner. She told me that she could not give me the room as it had already been booked by someone else !!?

I told her that I received a no. that confirmed my booking. She blamed the booking site (Hostelworld) for not updating the info. I know this is a lie because the web site gets a confirmation directly from the owner before giving confirmation. At this point I could only think of finding another place and sending a strong message to the web site.

Referring to my guide, I walked to the nearby George Hotel, where I was told they could book me for only one night? I decided to take that and they sent me to Hotel Kiev (the largest in Lviv).

This place is a definitely left-over from the communist time. An ugly concrete building with an interior to match. There are several receptionists hidden behind a glass wall, and you deal with them thru a tiny window. I walked out and went back to the George Hotel where the (obviously) efficient receptionist had succeeded in giving me three nites by doing a bunch of rooms rearranging.

The George Hotel used to be a “Grand Hotel” years ago, and is today one of the best value for the price. I have a large room with TV but no private toilet or bathroom. (I do not care).

A very abundant and nice breakfast is included, and they have a restaurant that serves good food at a reasonable price. The hotel is being updated completely and I suspect they will get back to being a truly “Grand Hotel” with price to match.

This is one of the worst time to find accommodations in Ukraine as this is “vacation time” and many people are travelling.

Lviv is a pleasant city with wide boulevard with many outdoor cafes, some worthwhile sights and ,of course, many churches.

I am sure that the churches here are spiritually equal to the ones in Kiev but they are definitely not as good from a photographic point of view.

I went to the train station to by a ticket to Lublin in Poland. After trying several window I was directed to window no 2, where I was told to go to another part of the station to window 20.

At window 20 the woman told me that they could not sell me a ticket because they did not have information on seat availability. To make a long story short, I went back to the station the day before my planned departure, went to window 20, was told I should go to window 2.

I had made a decision that I would take book any seat available to a train going either to Lublin, Warsaw, or Krakow. I had all of this carfully stated on a sheet of paper written by the friendly receptionist at the hotel.(I found out later that is the same no 51 train that goes to all three of those cities!).

Back to the train station (departure day minus one). Back to window 2 who sent me to window 20. Who gave a call to window 2 and sent me back there again.

The woman was waiting for me and said she could write only a ticket to Krakow right now. A second class ticket for tonite, or a more expensive first class ticket for the next morning.

I picked the next morning (50 euros). It took the woman 25 minutes to write and print the ticket.

She looked up the computer, several ledgers, she punched numbers in a calculator, she looked-up a book full of timetables, and then she repeated the same process.

I was so impressed with her efforts that I gave her a tip. She was astonished, she kept asking, for me? for me? And said yes, yes! This is probably the first time she has ever got a tip from a customer.

With tickets in hand I was finally believing that I would be able to go to Poland !

I was in a 2-bed compartment that I shared with a woman from Poland on vacation from Toronto where she attends a University.

When I figured that we where about 30 minutes away from Krakow I prepared myself to leave the train, the woman advised me that Poland was one hour later than Ukraine !

Next Krakow.

Eastern Europe - Kiev. Ukraine

StAndrew'sCathedral

Email No 25 – Eastern Europe – Kiev. Ukraine

A 19:40 overnite sleeper train brought me to Kiev at around 7:30 am. From there I had to take two rides on the metro system to get close to my hostel. I eventually found the entrance to the metro system near the station and could follow the fairly good instructions. You really very good instructions as everything is written in the unreadable (for me) Cyrillic. I somehow managed (with help of course !) to emerged at the right metro station. With the help of my wrist compass, a map, and some enquiries I eventually got to the right building and the right floor. This is again, what is becoming a norm, a large apartment that had been modified into an hostel. My (so called) private room is a tiny room with a fold out bed, and it is separated from a dorm by a narrow passage covered by a curtain !? The kitchen the bathroom facilities are nice and well equipped. There is only one hired help that takes care of everything. And, since he needs to go out occasionally, we are on a schedule? Luckily, there was only a couple other guests there and it worked out OK.

One of the reason I choose Kiev, is that it is a jumping-off point to Chornobyl. As it turned out, the agency we contacted did not have a scheduled trip, and, in addition since Chornbyl is a controlled area the travel agencies need a week or more to get permission to bring people in. I did not know this and is not mentioned in my Lonely Planet Guide. A gross oversight!!. Their map of Kiev is also inaccurate. I am less and less inclined to use LP as a guide. I have met some of the people that update their guides and I have come to realized that, given the amount of time and money they get, it is very difficult for them to do an adequate job. Also, they do not provide maps (an absolute must) for some of the smaller town (Kamyanets-Podilsky is an example).

There are enough interesting sights in Kiev to make it a worthwhile visit. It has (in my opinion) the most churches per square mile than any other city (maybe with the exception of Rome). Unfortunately, it also seem to hold the same record for the number of policemen and security people (go figure).

There is a “must see” steep old cobblestoned street lined up with souvenir stands and topped by one of the most beautiful baroque St Andrews Church (see picture).

South of the city there is a complex called the Cave Monastry. A large 28 hectares wooded enclosed area above the Dnipro River contains several churches and two underground caves holding dozens of niches containing glass-topped coffins holding the blanketed bodies of the monks. The believers kneel and pray at the coffins and also kiss the glass tops.

Having been made to believe in taking some precautions against germs transmission, and then observing people kissing glass tops, statues and many other religious icons almost everywhere in Eastern Europe (full lips contact, without any cleaning, wiping whatsoever), I am surprised that the whole of Eastern Europe is not suffering from some “easy to transmit” disease! Any comments, ideas,or explanations would be welcome. I do not get it.

I was somewhat disappointed about the dead monks being totally wrapped up in a blanket. A wrapped piece of wood could be made to look the same. I am trying to remember in what South American city they also have dead monks lying down in a deep cave. But there, their mummified head and hands holding a rosary are exposed. They mummify naturally because of the cave dryness as I remember. Much more impressive!. But then again, most people go there for a different reason (to worship) than I do.

The picture of the sphere made out of painted egg was taken inside of the enclosed Cave Monastery.

The painted eggs represent very old (1000 years +) designs from all over the world.

Next, Lviv (by overnite train).