In any case, after driving for
what seems like forever, we finally arrived. Luckily for us, the hotel owners
waited for us to arrive. The first thing we felt about Warsaw was that it was
very different from Krakow, it felt a lot younger, hipper and way cooler. Of
course, that could also be because our hotel was located in a more central location
than the one in Krakow. This was one of the more interesting rooms we had so
far, with a big manga painting which was a bit weird to stare at with the blood
splatters artistically strewn across the room.
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| Cool and weird |
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| Waking up to the smell of fresh pastries |
After a good night’s rest, we were
eager to explore the city. Unfortunately, there were no walking tours available
from any source so we explored the city ourselves instead. We were greeted with
chilly winds which put a damper on our spirits. It was super cold, and totally
not what we expected weather to be like in May. On top of that, it also started
to rain and got rather depressing quickly. We stumbled onto a quirky quaint teahouse
and just sat there watching the rain fall and people go by.
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| Fancy a spot of tea? |
We walked around the Old Town but
nothing really appealed to us. We popped into the grounds of the Royal Castle
but decided we had enough of palaces and castles and gave it a miss. While
walking around, we saw 2 girls who were posing for photographs and acting like
models. It was quite funny actually, especially since the boy who was taking
photographs seemed like he was the boyfriend of one of them and is only doing
it to humour his girlfriend.
We did think of going to the
Palace of Culture and Science, however it was a bit too far and we were too
lazy to make our way there. It was an ex-communist structure erected by Stalin
as a "gift from the Soviet Union to Polish nation". You kinda have to
see it for yourself to appreciate how massive it is. It actually looks pretty
alright and imposing from the outside but we’re not too sure how it looks on
the inside since we didn't enter the building. From what we were told, it’s a
symbol Stalin putting his finger down on Poland to claim it for communism but
unfortunately has no real functional value with badly built interior and
design.
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| Sore thumb of Stalin |
We had an early night in as it
was the General Election and I was eager to catch the live update on the
results. As we all know by now, Chiam See Tong didn’t retain Potong Pasir
(which was a major bummer) and Workers Party took Aljunied, (yeah!), anyway it
was all very exciting though I was thousand of miles away and didn’t vote.
The next day, we visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum which was extremely educational, but took us forever to get there. We got a bit
lost and ended up walking quite a fair bit before we finally reached the museum,
it was totally worth it though. As the name states, the museum is about the
Polish movement to liberate Warsaw from Nazi Germany. The operation was planned
to coincide with the arrival of the Soviet Union’s Red Army who will provide
the Polish with support, however the Soviets never arrived and the Polish were
left to fight the German Nazis alone. The museum has a rather good collection
of artifacts ranging from weapons used by the insurgents to love letters, which
presented a full picture of the people involved. It was quite amazing that even
children were involved and you really have to admire their courage in doing so.
The museum was rather moving, and definitely a must see if you are in Warsaw.
With that, we left Warsaw and
headed towards Gdansk where we would take a ferry to Stockholm for our Scandinavian
experience. We spent a night in Olsztyn, whose claim to fame is that it is
located near the Wolf’s Lair, Hitler’s eastern command post. It’s best known as
the site of a 1944 assassination attempt on Hitler (one of many in fact, but
all unsuccessful) and also the basis for the movie Valkyrie (a really horrible
movie, by the way).
We arrived at Gdansk the next day with not much time to
spare before our ferry ride, thus we only managed to wander down a street that
sold loads of amber jewelry and do lunch. The jewelry was quite pretty but since
I’m no gem expert, I thought it was better to stick to buying postcards. We
also managed to stumble onto a famous restaurant, Pod Lososiem,
though we only knew it was famous after entering the restaurant. Apparently
Pope John Paul II hired them to cater his events! It was kind of after lunch
hours when we were there so it was rather empty. The food was really good and
it was a yummy way to end our trip in Poland.
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| Wanton soup, anyone? |
Beautiful Streets of Gdansk
