Day Fri in Warsaw
We woke up early enough to get a good portion of sunlight and headed off to the old town.
Taking double amount of warm clothing wouldn't have been a bad idea after all as the -12°C temperature was freezing me up to my bones. Not forgetting the wind that probably made it -20°C. I'm not used to wearing layers under my jeans in London but it doesn't mean I should have forgotten that layers exist..
Anyway!
By accident we found the Tomb of the Unkown Soldier. It happened to be on our walking route from the hotel to the old town.
As you can see, it was very much not tourist season so we could pretty much walk the streets alone.
Was it the weather, or where were the locals? The streets of Warsaw were empty - no matter if it were day or night. It felt as socially dead as mid Sahara.
The cold kept us walking. Inkku wasn't really happy with me snapping photos all the time.
'Come on, I'm freezing!'
...sorryy
Our next view was Warsaw's luxury hotel Bristol, followed by the Presidential Palace and walking the Krakowskie Przedmieście -street to the North reaching the old town.
At this point we got soo cold that we had to find a cafe and get warm.
Proved to be tougher than thought. The buildings all looked the same with just different colors, the language of the signs was not understandable and at times it was hard to tell whether the building had a restaurant, cafe, shoe shop, tourist information or hairdresser's inside.
We found ourselves from the Rynek Starego Miasta -square which had a couple cafés to choose from.
With a blind pick we chose a cafe with amazing apple pie, cheesecake and hot chocolate out of real chocolate. Good, but a bit too much of sweet so we couldn't finish our greedy 'meals'.
After a warm up we continued our walk towards the Warsaw Barbican wall. Already after taking two steps outside we could feel the cold in our bones again. It didn't help to see a girl shiver in skin colored tights. Nor did it help to see a man look oh so warm in his body long fur coat and hat.
Via the football stadion Polonii and its' street art we continued to the Umschlagplatz, the Jewish Ghetto, from where numerous Jews were deported to concentration camps. There was some sort of memorial event going on with journalists, police and a line of fine cars waiting.
I really wanted to go check out the Warsaw Uprising Museum. Started off with a lot of energy, reading all the interesting stories and looking at all the crazy pictures of the history.
There were pictures that children had drawn of the views they had seen during the chaotic times. Feels wrong to see a picture with shotguns and blood, especially when it has been drawn by a 10-year old.
The museum was really big so my concentration and focus kind of struggled after an hour and the upstairs of the museum went pretty much as a one-off walk.
Many similar stories to what I had read at Breendonk in Belgium, which I visited last year with my father. Read about that experience here.
The museum is good and only costs around 3€ to get in. Doesn't hurt to visit, though some stories might hurt listening to!
As if all the walking wasn't enough, we decided to hit off to the gym&spa after my sushi and Inkku's pizza takeaways from our residence restaurants.
Felt like we 'weren't up to that much on Friday' but looking back - we were. Gosh!
And yet still we found the energy to head out for a few drinks and check out the nightlife which I can say was poor. A few funny Polish friends and a gang of Englishmen searching for Polish babes. Btw I've always thought the English, Finnish and Swedish are hard drinkers but forget about it. Go to Poland and you will understand what alcoholism and drunkism means.
The folks kick off their Friday evening with a tartar burger, clean their mouth with a shot of vodka and continue to clean their tartar mouth with vodka shots till walking is more impossible than missions in any crime movie you've ever seen.
Yes, I am generalizing but the Polish do seem to be very friendy friendy with their vodka.
<3
Linda
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