What I saw in Warsaw and Krakow

Nice train trip down to Warsaw with two changes to get there. Planned to see the countryside but as it gets dark at 4:00pm, there is not much daylight in the day.

Stayed at the Premiere Classe in the heart of Warsaw. The city is now very modern with lots of public infrastructure construction on train and tram networks in the city area. The trams were very good to get around with as they have dedicated roads and run very frequently.

Visited the old city, which ironically, is really only 60 years old as it was literally flattened by the Germans in WW2.  After the war a decision was made by the Warsaw people to rebuild all the old city buildings in the original format including the royal castle. All of these buildings have been wonderfully rebuilt to their former glory and after seeing the pictures before the war then the pictures after the Polish uprising to what is there today they have done an amazing job.

We have started to hit Christmas market territory wit  a nice one opening up that weekend in the old quarter and we popped down a few times (not allowed to buy anything though).

 

 

Stalin was kind enough to give the people of Warsaw one of his buildings, which looks better than the one in Riga, but still very Soviet in design.  It actually looks like it belongs in a Batman movie film set.

 

Michael’s view is that Warsaw and Poland are like a great football team. Firstly their colours are red and white and secondly, they have a water symbol as a mascot (mermaid) and despite set backs they keep coming back.

Visited the ghetto areas and cemeteries. I am not sure how this would affect the city’s psyche as there are so many memorials to the Jewish Ghettos, the Uprising and the later Soviet occupation.  You feel the city is looking back at a scarred past, but whether the children of today suffer from children of holocaust survivors syndrome or are just ignoring it will be interesting to see, as there are reported cases of anti semetic activity in the country. Visited Mila Street and saw number 18 and the monument to the fighters

Interesting seeing a city with a population 1.7m with such good infrastructure that is able to move such a large number of people. Cars seem in gridlock compared to the public transport.

Now in Krakow (Kracow) after a 3 hour train trip on Sunday where we had to stand all the way as everyone was going home from Warsaw on the weekend. Funny everyone just accepted it and sat wherever in the corridors and vestibules and a compartment was set aside for the blind and women with babies.

Staying at the Matejko Hotel, which is on the edge of the old town, 5 minute walk to the town square. The hotel is named after a famous artist Jan Matejko. We saw one of his works, Rejtan, in the Royal Castle exhibition, which showed the stopping of the senators from voting on the partition of Poland. This is one of the best hotels we have stayed at for a while.

We visited Auschwitz-Birkenau for one day. Firstly I was surprised by the sheer size of the complexes that were put in place and in particular the number of brick buildings that are still standing, as every movie I have seen depicts wooden buildings. We took a guided tour, which had about 20 people in our group and there were another dozen tours going on. I would hate to visit in peak season, as you would not be able to move. The guide was Polish and very good in explaining the camps starting with the Auschwitz one that was originally Polish Barracks and its growth from there. He clearly stressed that the camps started off as concentration camps for Soviet POW and Polish dissidents and did not become the Jewish extermination facilities until later. He spoke well and gave accounts of survivors he had met in the tours and how terrible the place was.

Birkenau (Auschwitz 2) was huge and was the main place of the extermination with up to 6 gas/furnace chambers going all day killing up to 10,000 people per day. Even the press gangs that worked there were murdered every 3 months. As one camp commander told them the only way you are leaving is through the chimney. All in all, it was a harrowing experience and it is just so hard to fathom the despair, misery and cruelty of such a place.

Thought Chris H was in town as there was 3 carriage tram that had come off the rails, creating complete gridlock in the area.

Went to the Matejko Museum that was in the house he was born and died in (different rooms).  There was a good collection of props he used to paint his historic paintings and history of the famous Polish Artist.

Decided to send Michael to the Salt Mines and let me have a day free to explore Krakow, plus the idea of being 300 m underground did not appeal to me. The town has retained a lot of the old city including the Castle and huge square. Michael enjoyed the salt mines and brought back some salt rock for me. How thoughtful.

On Thursday, our last day, decided to see Nowa Huta by tram. This was the communist utopian village and was used as the showcase of true soviet worker living. Not much to see other than drab buildings and even the statue of Lenin has been sold off to Sweden. Well Christine, when you come here you will have to book the crazy communist tours that will greet you at the airport with a soviet polish welcome, take you in their Trabant car. By the way the Trabant has been reviewed as mediocre performance, outdated and inefficient two-stroke engine (which returned poor fuel economy for the car's size and produced heavy exhaust), and production shortages.  The Trabant is often cited as an example of the disadvantages of centralized planning.  At the arrival of the hotel they have a hero’s welcome band for you or they can take you to Nowa Huta apartment, traditional Polish dinner and then an 80’s disco.

Main Square

 

 Streets were renamed in Nowa Huta and Ronny was seen as their saviour

After the visit went to Castle Wawel, but could not get in as they had sold all their tickets for the day, so went to the old Jewish Quarter and visited the Schindler Factory. It has a good exhibition on how Krakow was affected by the Nazi Invasion (never German) the creation of the Jewish Ghettos, labour camps for the Poles and history behind Schindler and the factory.  Undecided as to whether he was good or not as he was a German agent, adulterer and black marketer, on the other hand for some reason he risked a lot to save the Jewish people and is buried in the Catholic cemetery in Jerusalem. 

Well off to Prague on the overnight train to explore a new city and country.

Lithuania are the lights on?

Nice bus trip down from Riga to Vilnius and stayed at the Alexa Hotel, just on the edge of the wall of the old city. Lovely old city part that merges into the main business area and across the river is the new CBD with glass towers. The town does not show the affluence of Riga or Tallinn and there are less furs seen here and a lot more empty buildings.

Lithuania was the first of the Baltic States to gets its freedom from the CCCP with a small but fatal protest getting the ball rolling. The country has a history of occupation with the Russians (good old Peter the Great), the Poles in the 19^th century, Russia 1920 to 1939, then Germany and then back to Russia. It is surprising that they have been able to keep any of their language and cultural ways that, if anything, appear stronger now, particularly as parts of the population were deported to gulags in Russia or workshops in Germany or just shot by Nazis and KGB. The once strong Jewish population is less than 5% of what it was prior to WWII.

Lithuania is now part of the EU, but has not adopted the Euro and uses Lits as its currency. They don’t like turning on lights  - not sure if they have an electricity problem or are still stuck in the old ways. Most shops are only half lit, even the hotel had two lights above the bed with bulbs but they are only there for decoration purposes.

 

We are starting to get into Catholic territory here so the churches are changing from Russian Orthodox to Roman Catholic and Lutheran. Visited the church museum at St Michael’s the Archangel church that had a vast collection of monstrance’s, bishops’ robes, chalices and other altar ware. The place was a church, but ended up being a collection point for all the surrounding churches that did not survive the Soviet period.  The altar ware dates from the 13^th century, containing lots of gold and intricate work. There was also a large collection of bishop and priest vestments that could be seen in great detail as they were not under glass but displayed in huge drawers that laid them out.

It must get cold here even the trees have woolen coats on them.

 

Visited the KGB museum, with a good exhibition on the history of Lithuanian freedom fighters from 1946 to 1954 against the Soviets. The basement was used both by the KGB and Nazi’s as a prison, confessional and execution site for thousands of Lithuanians. Like Phnom Penh it is hard to fathom the sheer numbers of people processed and life extinguished in these places. The KGB had so many bodies that they ran out of places to hide them. This does not include the thousands that were deported as whole families.

 

Just to cheer me up they also showed equipment used by the KGB on how they monitored foreigners and suspects including cameras installed in all hotel rooms occupied by foreigners and assigning agents to follow them.  Christine, we may have made the Soviet pin up league for the year we visited.  Not a nice thought!

We now head off to Warsaw Poland by train for a few days to have a look around there.

Where is the liverwurst in Latvia?

We have made it to Riga the capital of Lativa and staying at the Old Riga Palace Hotel in the old part of the city. They even put on a parade for us - not really, we arrived on Independence Day and it is a public holiday with the celebration of the separation from USSR.  They had a military parade in the main street, which was good, but at 3 degrees hanging around for an hour was freezing.

 

 

The old city is lovely and is famous for being the best example of Art Nouveau architecture. The buildings are magnificent and have been well restored and we enjoyed walking around the ancient buildings and the Art Nouveau precinct.

 

 

 

 

Latvia has its own currency, the lat, even though they are members of the EU and may move to the Euro in 2014. The lat is even more expensive to the Euro and prices seem slightly higher.

 

Managed to find an Irish pub to watch the England v Australia rugby and there would have been about 10 lost expat souls watching the game. Soccer is the sport of choice here and the remaining 10 TVs were showing different soccer games. After the game wandered the old city as it was lit up with light art works on the buildings and a general happy feeling about the place, with the families all out and about.

Breakfast at the hotel was buffet style and Michael was beside himself when he saw that they served champagne and vodka shots.  He keeps telling me that when in a country we must adopt their customs so it was with great reluctance that I had a glass of champagne with breakfast.  I guess tomorrow it will have to be a vodka shot.  The things I do.

Well you know that a place is medieval when the people turn up to the fireworks display and they are carrying torches i.e. the type you would have at a BBQ on a pole that are oil based, not a flashlight. Michael felt that if any pitchforks appear it may be best to head for the train.

The fireworks display was excellent along the river and it appeared the whole population was out to watch them. After they finished, we continued our walk around the city to enjoy the atmosphere.

Leaving for Vilnius at midday, as today is a public holiday in Riga so not much is open. We got to see the markets, which were upgraded by the purchase of old German Blimp sheds from WW1. These were converted to huge market buildings. Visited the Academy of Science that had an observation deck at level 17. A Stalinist style building, which was a gift from the CCCP to Riga.

What am i Tallinn you?

Well, finally left St Petersburg which was a wonderful city and even got to have Chicken Kiev, which I could not get last time even in Kiev.

The bus trip was fine in an ultra modern coach and got us to Tallinn the capital of Estonia in 8 hours. We are staying at the Hotel Old Town Maestro, which is a pure delight after the hostel in St Petersburg. The hotel was built in the 1500’s and thankfully there have been some plumbing upgrades. Our room is so large you need binoculars to see the TV from the bed. 

The town is a fairyland and can trace its existence since 1154.  We are staying within the walled city which has been retained in the original style as much as possible and is a UNESCO World Heritage site. Walking around the city you can appreciate how tough it must have been to construct but also how awesome it must have been to those that visited it in the middle ages. Being so close to the Nordic areas with Vikings knocking on your door each year would have encouraged you to build such sound fortifications.

The place has proven to be delightful as the country obtained independence from Russia in 1990 and has gone out of it way to be non-Russian. They are part of the EU and use Euro as the currency, speaking Estonian as the local language. However being 80km south of Helsinki they also speak Finnish and the language of choice is English and all menus appear in four languages including Russian. Whilst most of the population can speak Russian and over 40% of the population have Russian ancestry it is clearly frowned upon.

 

The food has been excellent and there are lots of new restaurants with local and internationals dishes. Michael keeps drooling at the wild boar. Tim H put this on your list of places to visit.

The service has been amazing compared to Russia and Michael feels that they have done advanced smiling courses to prove they are not Russian. 

The place gets that cold even the bikes need bike warmers and we have seen mothers with hand warmers attached to their prams walking around.

Outside the walled city is a very modern city with high rises and new infrastructure. James you can tell Borgy that your name carries weight here as the Hamburger chain is called Hesburger.

 

The only downside I have seen it that it has become the place for the Hooray Henrys from England to have their stag parties so there is an over abundance of night clubs and Irish pubs. This does not worry us even if the bar across from the hotel is called the Mental Hospital with wheel chairs and a mannequin in a straight jacket.  We would have liked to stay one more night to watch the Australian v England rugby, but being Saturday night they are booked out to so off to Riga.

PS Christine I am planning your world trip and this is one city you need to visit.

Anne H the local craft here is amazing and people even knit while waiting to serve customers in the stores.

St Petersburg or Leningrad as it will always be to me

 

This is a long blog item. The short version is we have stayed in St Petersburg for 11 days and loved it.

Peter the Great

Well we have reached St Petersburg and staying at the Babushka House Hostel in downtown St Petersburg. The Sampan trip was great with the train reaching 200km per hour and only 3.5 hours to get here.

Last time I was here we were restricted in what we could do and see. However, this time we have been walking everywhere. My first visit to the Hermitage was 2 hours running through the halls with the guide pointing out art works and facts in broken English.  This time we started with 2 days at the Hermitage.   

The place is fantastically restored so the interior is lavish and well decorated with majestic room sizes and tapestries and paintings of a scale that could be the wall of the average home. 

The Winter Palace and Hermitage have been combined to create a wonderful museum not only of the Tsars and how they lived, but more importantly the art collection that have had obtained over the years, plus a bit of Soviet pilfering from WWII to bolster up the collection. 

Not many places you can stand 2 feet from a Leonardo Da Vinci Madonna with Child and Madonna with Child and Flower. They had whole rooms full of Matisses, Rubens, Monets and others that added to the richness of the place.

Have done a number of planned walks that have gone to other areas of interest. We viewed a number of churches on the way that don’t get a mention in the guide-books, but have beautiful icons and art in them. Visited Saint Isaac’s, which is a museum now, but was the number one church of the day and was amazed that the Soviets took 40 kg of Gold and 2000 kg of silver from the place. It has been restored and looks wonderful, but must have looked even more spectacular when it was pre soviet. Also visited Church of Our Savior on Spilled Blood at the site of where Emperor Alexander II was assassinated and Kazan Cathedral in Nevsky Prospekt, which was the main church used for the armed sevices.

Have been to a number of smaller palaces and castles and any city would be proud to have one of them, but here there seems to be hundreds and most are museums. They have some good ticket deals to see a number of places on the one price so we have been going to a lot of the smaller places. The Museum of Peter the Great was surprised to see us and had to turn the lights on for us (it is in the Hermitage complex, but has its own entrance). The strange thing is that every Museum has mature ladies sitting in the rooms watching you. So it was quite strange seeing them get into position for two people to go through a 10-room museum. Needless to say Michael sticks his head over the rope barrier and sets of the alarms, which attracts a Russian glare.  In fact, he has either set off the alarm or been told off for doing something wrong in every single museum in Russia.  I no longer walk beside him for fear of attracting the wrath of the security guards!

Also went to St Catherine’s Catholic Church that has reopened, but is not as grand as the others and they have left a number of altars damaged to show what happened to the church under Soviet rule.

A puzzling question is why the Soviets did not tear them down, especially the Spilled Blood, but used them as storage centres and let them fall apart. Our night guide indicated that a lot were also used for the Anti Religious museums like St Isaacs.

Church of Spilled Blood

Bumped into our Canadian/Australian couple and had drinks with them. They headed off to Tallinn in Estonia last Friday. They have made it sound interesting so we thought why not be adventurous and head off to somewhere different and we can start our European leg there.

Visited Yusupov Palace, which again was a wonderful laid out interior, with private theatre and art gallery before being taken over by the Soviets and joined to the Hermitage collection. It is also the place of Rasputin’s demise, where he was poisoned, shot and beaten to finally die drowning in the Neva River.  They do a daily tour in Russian only and don’t upset the ticket lady, by asking if there is an English tour.  The people in front of us made that mistake and got shouted at! Did you know the lead singer of Boney M died in St Petersburg on the same day and month as Rasputin and we have heard the song played in many cafes and restaurants.

Also visited St Michael’s Castle where the builder was paranoid of being assassinated and built the place to protect himself. He only lived 40 nights there and indeed was murdered. Saw the Marble Palace which was just a gift from Catherine Great to a relative, which was wonderful and Stroganoff Palace and another 5 palaces along the way.

Spent one day walking and visiting the Dostoyevsky Museum, which is located in the apartment where he lived and wrote his final work, the Brothers Karamazov (which coincidently I am reading at present). We also walked the famous 730 steps Raskolnikov took in Crime and Punishment to the pawnbroker’s apartment and to other places that were in the various books and part of his life. Also went to the cemetery where he was buried (Tchaikovsky is buried there too). Michael has become an expert on Dostoevsky without reading any of his works.

Dostoevsky Memorial

Visited St Peters and Paul fortress and the Aurora ship that signaled the start of the revolution and which was deliberately sunk by the Soviets in WW2  to stop the Germans bombing it during the siege of Leningrad. It was refloated after the war. They say 1 in 3 buildings were destroyed during the siege. Michael also says it explains the lack of squirrels as they were eaten and we had to go out of the city to see some.  I am not sure if he is making that up.

Aurora Ship (Christine notice the Samsung sign)

Visited the Russian Museum, which houses Russian Art from the start of Russian history. There was some lovely folk art there.

Managed to squeeze in a serious and studious trip to the Vodka Museum with samples to try.  It actually was an informative afternoon finding out about the periods of Russian prohibition. 

 

  James Vodka in an AK 47 Bottle and gun case -  try and get this through customs

We then visited a Soviet Doughnut shop (Pyshechnaya) that Putin has ordered not to change. The recipe has been the same since 1958, so has the interior. V. Putin was an ex-St Petersburg boy and this was one of his favorite places. What do you expect from a KGB agent? The service is pure Soviet delight - you receive pre-mixed sweetened coffee and one style of pastry thing that masquerades as a warm gooey doughnut from a waitress that does not acknowledge your existence. No please or thank you is required and the serviettes are cut butchers paper. All this, for less then 100 roubles ($3.00) for 2 coffees and 5 donuts. Have been back a number of times to soak up the ambiance.

 

Food has been fine as Russian cuisine is not known for its style or panache. The influence of Sushi is big, but we have found a local Russian Cafeteria style place that we can point to the food and use single words of chicken, beef or fish. We have been there that often they have even given us a discount loyalty card. They like their salads and soups, but keep sneaking fish into them.

Haylie, with all this culture that you would enjoy, they also have a cat museum  and café with cats wandering around. Unfortunately Paul they still love pigeons and go out of their way to feed them.