Drifting home

I'd just left my office when I realised I'd left my notebook on my desk. The maroon one with the elastic band round it attached to my black ball point pen with 'Mazowsze' logo on it (letter 'M' shaped like a heart). Returning for it, I realised I'd miss the 162 bus to W-wa Powiśle station, thereby missing my train to Jeziorki. Indeed this is just what happened.

OK then, let's be spontaneous. I'll let the wind carry my home; no plan - just drift. And so I walked up ul. Górnośląska, up ul. Profesorska, along Trasa Łazienkowska, over Plac na Rozdrożu, past Plac Zabawiciela, and then on to ul. Marszałkowska where I boarded a number 4 tram that took me to ul. Wałbrzyska, from where I could eventually catch an 809 bus all the way to Trombity. But before I boarded the tram - some snaps.

Above: corner of ul. Hoene-Wrońskiego and Górnośląska. Clear sky, quarter of an hour after sunset. Below: ul. Profesorska, a short but amazing street (looks even better here).

Below: ul. Myśliwiecka as it snakes down the Vistula escarpment. The building in the middle is the Tunisian embassy. Note radio mast on roof.

Below: Looking along Trasa Łazienkowska towards Plac na Rozdrożu, where Al. Ujazdowskie cross over. Crushed velvet dusk in my city of dreams.


Left: Church of the Holiest Saviour on Plac Zbawiciela, architecturally one of my favourite Warsaw churches. This church which reeks of 17th C. baroque is actually the same age as my mother; it was completed in 1927. Another photo of the church included in this post, from last August.

Below: ul. Marszałkowska, Warsaw's main north-south thoroughfare. This part belongs to the socialist-realist MDM housing district, which has its heart in the Plac Konstytucji.

In the six years I've been working on ul. Fabryczna, I've never taken this route home. This way - though longer than Metro or Koleje Mazowieckie - was somehow more relaxed, less crowded, so I could sit and read all the way. (Still reading Bulgakov's The Master and Margarita - in Polish - I'm a slow reader and there's vocabulary that I need help with.) There's something to be said for trying something different for a change.

This time last year:
Winter gorgeousness

This time three years ago:
Intimations of Spring, 2008