Drinking on the move

So here's the plan. I walk 15km from the działka to Warka station, catch an InterCity train with a bar wagon, buy myself a beer - and alight at Piaseczno just 22 minutes (32km) up the line. 

With the modernisation of the Warsaw-Radom line complete, there are now four pairs of PKP InterCity trains linking Kraków and Olsztyn calling at Radom and Warsaw on the way, along with other stations. Among the 23 stops along the route, conveniently, are Warka and Piaseczno. 

The four Kraków-Olsztyn trains are all named (Żeromski, Sienkiewicz, Kolberg and Orłowicz - the first two being famous Polish authors - the second two? Who knows?) and are operated by modern Dart rolling stock - which means there's always a bar. Other InterCity trains formed from conventional carriages pulled along by locomotives may or (more usually) may not have restaurant wagons. 

Below: the bar car of the Żeromski passing the end of my road on its way to Olsztyn, having left Kraków just before 7am. That's where I intend to be... in the bar car of the Kolberg, passing the end of my road.

... And indeed - here I am. Skipping forward four hours, this is the reverse shot - my road flashing by, snapped from the Kolberg's bar car (below). The red dot on the roadway is where I was standing when I took the above shot.

But that's jumping the narrative a bit - back to the walk to Warka. 

I set off from Jakubowizna as the Kolberg departs from Kraków Główny station. This will give me just under four hours; a comfortable stroll without having to hoof it, with time for a sandwich lunch along the way. I check the weather - I should be able to dodge the showers...

Below: leaving Jakubowizna, under a cloud. My journey will be parallel to the railway line for most of the way, preferable to busy roadsides.

Below: new asphalt along ulica Kolejowa, heading away from Chynów towards Krężel, the next station along the line.

Below: fields, orchards and forests, gently undulating landscape all the way to Warka and the river Pilica. Ancestral lands. My roots, man.

Below: a southbound Koleje Mazowieckie train departs from Krężel. Saturday traffic; a handful of people get on, three passengers get off. Bicycles, shopping bags, what have you. 

The trail continues unbroken with the exception of a short stretch that required walking along the tracks to avoid going through someone's backyard before reaching a local level crossing. From then, onward along more new asphalt towards Michalczew (below).

Below: eternal rural Poland, that has for centuries shrugged off invaders, occupants and oppressors. It abides. Michalczew.

Below: Michalczew station. The heavy clouds dropped rain ahead of me, and behind me, but I stayed warm and dry all the way. New asphalt where once was an unpaved farm track, new platforms where once stood little more than a pile of bricks

Below: south of Michalczew, the asphalt runs out, and a reminder of what it was like before the modernisation of the line; mud, puddles and ruts. A new Koleje Mazowieckie Impuls train runs northwards up towards Warsaw.

Below: the main Chynów-Warka road crosses the line at a recently modernised level crossing between Michalczew and Gośniewice stations. The remaining third of my walk will be along the main road between Chynów and Warka.

Below: quiet at the moment, but drivers, they do rush, and there's no pavement. This stretch was, until recently, paved with hexagonal concrete slabs - really unpleasant to ride a motorbike over.

Below: one station north of Warka - Gośniewice. Two staggered platforms set among orchards and fields, a station serving a village of 219 souls. I take a short diversion here from the main road, and have a short break to eat and check Google Maps. From here, it's just 47 minutes' walk from Warka station. No need to hurry. And look! Here comes the Sienkiewicz, right on time, on its way to Olsztyn.

Below: Is this Kansas? Are we in Ohio? No, this is the road into Warka. A town famous for brewing, a tradition that goes back to the 15th century. The modern brewery (right) is part of the Żywiec Group, which is turn belongs to Heineken. A little further along the road and I turn off into ulica Piwna (lit. 'beery street') and the station's just around the corner. But as I wrote recently, Warka station is a long way from the centre of Warka. Visible (just about) on the horizon, the statue commemorating Polish airmen who fought on all fronts during World War Two.

After three hours and a quarter hours of walking including a 10-minute break, I reach Warka station.  Waiting on the platform, I watch the progress of the Kolberg in real time on the Portal Pasażera app.

Punctually, it pulls in to the platform. 

I make for the door of the bar car, hop on, head straight for the counter and order a beer - (Śmietanka - a wheat beer from Browar Jan Olbracht Rzemieślniczy craft brewery in Piotrków Trybunalski). Cheers! Note the small glass - the big ones have all been used between Kraków and Radom and are sitting in the dishwasher. And the brewery's beer-bottle labels are all drawn by Polish cartoonist Andrzej Mleczko. Incidentally, śmietanka means cream, whilst śmietana means sour cream. The landscape comes out better with a glass of cold beer. Cheers.

It slips down a treat - the 22-minute journey is too short for a second, too short for any metaphysical contemplations of passing scenery, but the effect is there. Drinking in trains is a pleasure I first experienced when making my way to university interviews while still at school - to Lancaster, Canterbury, Norwich, Colchester and Warwick. A beer in the buffet car would transport me to ethereal realms of imagination and artistic insights... Alcohol (in moderation of course) and rail journeys go hand in hand.

As I sup up, the guard announces that the next station stop will be Piaseczno; the train starts to slow down. The pleasure is not cheap; the beer cost 15.90 złotys (£2.80), whilst the InterCity ticket cost 10.50 złotys (£1.85) and the train back to Chynów from Piaseczno (19km on Koleje Mazowieckie) 6.76 złotys (£1.20). A grand day out!

While crossing the footbridge to the get to the southbound platform at Piaseczno for the train home, I catch the following snippet of conversation between Pan Heniek and Pan Ziutek, both extremely refreshed:

"Znasz się na malarstwie?" [Do you know about painting?]

"Muszę kurwa coś zjeść." [I have to fucking eat something.]

"ALE ZNASZ SIĘ NA MALARSTWIE?" [repeated in an insistent, aggressive tone]

Just as in English, 'malarstwo' (painting) can mean decorating or art history. I never did find out whether Heniek wanted to know whether Ziutek could help out with painting an old lady's kitchen, or whether he needed a critical eye evaluating a still-life rescued from a skip, or to see whether Ziutek could engage in a meaningful discussion about Cubism with someone whose first reaction won't be "Fidel Castro".

POSTSCRIPT: It has occurred to me that I've walked all the way from my office in central Warsaw to Warka this year - from Świętokrzyska to Wilanowska, from Wilanowska to Jeziorki, Jeziorki to Jakubowizna, Jakubowizna to Warka, from Warka to the far bank of the Pilica river before Warka Miasto was built.

This time four years ago:
Grodzisk Mazowiecki revisited

This time five years ago:
S7 extension - last summer of quiet (not true, as it happened!)

This time six years ago:
Getting out of Mordor

This time 12 years ago:
Ćwilin, conquered

This time 13 years ago:
Sunset across the tracks, Nowa Iwiczna

This time 14 years ago:
The storm the forecasters missed

This time 15 years ago:
Peacocks in the Park