Late July photo round-up

Gone are the greens, blue skies and dry days of mid-June; summer is hotter, the grass is yellowing, though downpours and humid air deliver moisture that refuses to make the landscape verdant.

Below: one for the record - the village of Dąbrowa Duża saw new asphalt laid; I can only hope that this stretch will continue as there's still no access over a proper road to the village from Machcin to the north. I might be generally anti-car, but mud is no friend of the pedestrian or cyclist either. It looks like another new house is about to be built to the right of the road; lots of house-building going on. As in Jeziorki, while the new houses are individual ones, it's not a problem; it's when developers buy up large plots and lay down dozens of terraced houses that things get bad. It will take decades for Warsaw's exurbs to stretch out to here.

Below: eternal Polish summer with rail infrastructure, between Janów and Michalczew. Ripening wheat under mature oaks and distant thunderclouds.

Left: Marian shrine, Janów, still beribboned at the end of July. This tiny village is blessed with two small grocery stores, and a third around the corner in Michalczew. I hope local folk are grateful for such a rich diversity of retail opportunity - Jakubowizna sorely lacks even one such shop!

Below: the moon - nearly full - rising over Chynów station. August will see two full moons at the beginning and end of the month, the latter being the 'harvest moon', big and bright enough to continue gathering crops long after the sun has set (assuming a clear sky of course).

To town. Until the beginning of September, the transversal line remains closed, so W-wa Ochota, W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Powiśle cannot be reached by train. Below: massive works ongoing outside W-wa Zachodnia still disrupting rail services into town. My train from Chynów is diverted over the newly built viaduct, to the left of the photo, towards W-wa Gdańska.

As I wrote earlier, the disruptions are forcing me to discover parts of Warsaw I never knew too well before, such as Wola. Below: the modernisation of the tramline along ulica Kasprzaka is proceeding slowly.

Another alternative station, handy for tram services in and out of Śródmieście, Warsaw's downtown, is W-wa Rakowiecka. From here, regular trams whiz along ul. Grójecka into the city centre. 

Just off Grójecka my map app shows me an interesting feature - Skwer Dobrego Maharadży (lit. 'Good Maharaja Square). As squares go, it has a non-square ratio of approximately 20:1, being three-quarters of a kilometre in length and a mere 35m in width at most points. Still, as a green space separating the two sides of ul. Opaczewska, it is a beneficial feature for local people - I observed joggers, dog-walkers, parents with prams, elderly folk and cyclists making use of it. 

Who's the Good Marahaja then? It is Sir Digvijaysinhji Ranjitsinhji Jadeja (1895 –1966), Maharaja of Nawanagar.  Why was a (very long) square named after him in Poland in 2012? In 1942, he established the Polish Children's Camp in Jamnagar for refugee Polish children who were brought out of the USSR during World War II. Many ended up after the war in the UK, several of my Polish friends in Ealing's parents went through this camp.

Below: one thing I'm noticing more and more of is electric buses. Battery powered. At the end of the line, the bus terminal on ul. Karola Dickensa at Szczęśliwice is equipped with overhead chargers that transfer current to the batteries via a pantograph raised from the bus. A better solution than the trolleybus with all the clutter of cables stretched above city streets! 

Incidentally, a propos of Warsaw street names - those around before the war would Polonise the name (so Karola, not Charlesa, Dickensa and Ludwika, not Louisa, Pasteura); but more recent ones would leave the first name as is (so ul. Johna Lennona, aleja George'a Harrisona etc.)

"Sometimes you find a yearning for the quiet life/The country air and all of its joys" Yup, I sure as hell do! Below: sun-dappled forest, between Dąbrowa Duża and Machcin.

Below: Orchard Moonrise, Jakubowizna.

Town and country - yes; suburbia, however, has become a paradise lost to sprawl.

This time two years ago:
Stewardship of the Land, Jakubowizna

This time three years ago:
The cost of Covid complacency

This time four years ago:

Uprising commemoration - Day Three

This time five years ago:
Ahead of the Big Day

This time seven years ago:
Once in a blue moon

This time nine years ago:
A return to Snowdon - Wales' highest peak

This time ten years ago:
On the eve of Warsaw's Veturillo revolution

This time 12 years ago:
Getting ready for the 'W'-hour flypast

This time 13 years ago:
A century of Polish scouting

An Eternity in Heaven?

Imagine heaven. We (of metaphysical nature) all have our own personal ideal of an end-state, of a final spiritual closure, but there are certain features that most people would buy into. The notion of unity, of becoming one with everything; the notion of being at one with God - and, being in that state, having total understanding of all things - past and present. 

But once there - then what?

Staying in that state for one eternity? Eternity, as Woody Allen famously quipped, is very long, especially the last part. Our subjective impression of time is that it compresses over time. At 66, my current experience of one year, as a sixty-sixth part of my life, is that it is half the length it was when I was 33, and six times shorter than the year I experienced aged 11. (At 11 years old, a year is 9% of one's hitherto experienced life, at 33 it is 3%, at 66 it is 1.5%, at 100 it is 1%). Subjectively at least then, the conscious experience of time in the lead-up to the singularity at the end of Eternity would accelerate, though at a ever decelerating pace to the point where it would slow down to nothingness. 

Then what?

The Singularity having been reached, the Unfolding Universe has finally unfolded. The Cosmic Purpose has been fulfilled. We have become a part of the Deity. We have achieved ultimate unity. We spiritual beings who have quested (presumably over countless lifetimes) have reached our goal, our ideal. We are in heaven, we are finally with God, and in God. 

Then what?

Do we remain in that state of supreme bliss, totally united with everything, all-wise, all-seeing, all-knowing for ever more? If we look at the physical cosmos, it has a lot of life left in it. Science (as of July 2023) considers that the Big Bang occurred a mere 13.8 billion years ago; meanwhile a heat-death of the Universe (Big Freeze), or a Universe that finally collapses in on itself as one black hole swallows another until the last one's gone (Big Crunch) - two putative end-of-time scenarios - are both thought to be trillions of years into the future. 

So, the physical Universe has a long run ahead - and in any case, there is the likelihood that a Big Freeze and a Big Crunch would both lead to another Big Bang, and so a cyclical Cosmos would - physically - be as eternal as a spiritual realm. And why ever not?

But what about your soul, after having reached Heaven? It's there for, like, literally, all time? Wouldn't it become a teeny-weeny bit boring after a while?

It occurred to me while on a twilight walk a few evenings ago that our experience of Heaven might only last an instant - just long enough to realise that you've finally made it, before snapping back to the lowest form of consciousness. This can take the form of either the discrete awareness of being a sub-atomic particle, or being a part of the background conscious substrate that fundamentally underlies the Universe. Two versions of panpsychism there - consciousness as granular in nature - or - the vast cosmic conscious sea in which all matter exists and evolves. I'm still torn as to which I would tend to believe in or consider to be more likely. 

And having tasted Heaven for an instant, one is back at a beginning, armed perhaps with the vaguest qualia memory of having been in heaven; the next round of spiritual evolution begins. From quark to atom, to molecule, to simple life form, to complex life form, to intelligent, technologically enabled life form. Onwards and upwards, once again. On the journey towards God-hood, God-ness another time.

Suddenly, I understand the Christian notion of Lucifer being banished from Heaven by God for being too proud. Although the Bible does not explicitly mention this episode, the idea of fallen angels is rooted in Christian tradition and theology. A turnstile Heaven then? A quick peak of Paradise at the end of an eternity's questing, then out again - Paradise Lost - to work one's way up, evolving spiritually once more - presumably endless times? 

Or an instant that lasts eternity - but an eternity that lasts only an instant?

Something to ponder upon, between now and Lent 2024.

This time last year:
Habit or obsession?

This time two years ago:

Dust to dusk

This time four years ago:

My father's last arrival in Warsaw

This time five years ago:
What makes scenery scenic?

This time six years ago:
Theresa May flies into Warsaw

This time seven years ago:
Announcing the start of the Radom railway line modernisation

This eight years ago:
In praise of the (Polish-built) Fiat 500 

This time ten years ago:
Llanbedrog Beach and a farewell to North Wales

This time 11 years ago:
To the Polish seaside, by night train

This time 12 years ago: 
Accounting for the past - 20 years on from PRL's fall

This time 13 years ago:
An introduction to fine British cheefef

This time 15 years ago:
Over the Peaks by bus 

Farewell to the old, comfortable certainties

We are moving faster and faster towards disclosure. We are not alone. Either there's some monumental four-dimensional chess-style psyop going on, or a crazy idea's gone viral because of social contagion at the highest level, or we are indeed being visited (and has been for some long while) by beings that are not of our world.

Today's hearing of the US House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, Unidentified Anomalous Phenomena: Implications on National Security, Public Safety and Government Transparency, will go down in history as a significant milestone along the road towards accepting that a technological non-human intelligence is here on Earth.

Those who have been paying attention to the UFO (or UAP to use modern parlance) story will already be familiar with the testimonies of the witnesses, David Grusch, David Fravor and Ryan Graves. All three military men with unimpeachable credentials. To hear them being cross-examined under oath by representatives, giving as authoritative answers as their security clearances allow, shows that this is as serious as it gets. The representatives posing the questions were well briefed on the subject, knowing what to ask. And it is clearly a bipartisan issue.

Today's hearing was entirely different to the May 2022 hearing of the House Intelligence Subcommittee on Counterterrorism and Counterintelligence. The subcommittee heard from Scott Bray, Deputy Director of Naval Intelligence, and Ronald S. Moultrie, Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and Security, who continued the old story that UFO sightings are usually results no more than airborne clutter or natural atmospheric phenomena, but that the Pentagon does investigate reports with possible national security implications. In other words - a 'nothingburger'.

But today's hearing was vastly different. The witnesses were not career bureaucrats trying to calm choppy waters. From the government-transparency point of view, the issue that irked representatives most was the one about secret projects to reverse-engineering downed non-human craft - the black budgets, the unaccounted spending going (presumably) to private-sector aerospace companies, for many decades.

David Grusch confirmed what he had already said to the media - that this has been going on since the 1940s, and that the US military not only recovered multiple craft, but also 'biologics' - the bodies of non-human entities found with the craft. And the craft have been placed in the hands of defence contractors, to avoid government oversight. The fact that he, a respected figure from the US military intelligence community, said this under oath to a Congressional hearing is huge. Of course, he was pressed for more details - he repeatedly answered that he could give representatives with the right access full details in SCIFs (sensitive compartmentalized information facilities). 

While disappointing those who naively expected everything to come out about where the craft are, which corporations are holding them and what the non-human 'biologics' look like, Grusch's responses were guarded. "I can't discuss that publicly, but I did provide information to the intel committees and to the Inspector-General."

As a whistle-blower, Grusch said that he had felt threatened by certain elements that presumably want the story kept secret, while former Navy pilots Fravor and Graves denied that they had ever felt any pressure not to go public with their testimonies, nor had they faced any sort of retribution for doing so.

There are many UFO enthusiasts who expect nothing more than President Biden addressing the peoples of the world alongside an alien against a backdrop of a giant flying saucer; this is not how it will happen. Today's Congressional hearing is part of a long and slow process; I don't want to sound conspiratorial, but I do believe that change must be transitioned gently. The Copernican revolution, which ended the geocentric paradigm, took over a century to gain general acceptance among astronomers. 

"If this has been going on for seventy-plus years, how come it hasn't leaked?"

It has leaked - many times - and the stories tend to corroborate. The strategy of ridicule - devised in the early 1950s - has been the best form of maintaining secrecy. Discrediting whistleblowers has also worked in the past, but David Grusch's impeccable credentials and flawless professional behaviour have made him a hard target for the secrecy group and debunkers alike.

"There are billions of camera-equipped smartphones around today - where are the photos?"

Someone uploads blurry, grainy, footage of a point of light moving about in the sky. It proves nothing. Besides, NHIs (non-human intelligences) that have the technology to accelerate from 0 to 10,000 mph and execute 90-degree turns at that speed, leaving no exhaust plume, and needing no wings or rotors presumably also have the technology to cloak. The eyewitness evidence of military pilots, backed up by multiple sensor platforms on jet fighters, early-warning planes, aircraft carriers and guided missile cruisers is hard to undermine.

So - here it is - the full hearing. Over two and half hours. Watched by half a million people within five hours.

This time last year:
Gloucestershire, 1830 and Ohio, 1946: automatic writing

This time two years ago:
New phone, new laptop, Part II

This time three years ago:
Two images from my early childhood

This time four years ago:
How PKP PLK's planners should treat pedestrian station users.

This time five years ago:
Foreign exchange: don't get diddled!
[for the saps who pay £250 for €200 at the airport]

This time seven years ago:
Defining my Sublime Aesthetic

This time nine years ago:
Porth Ceiriad on the Llyn Peninsula

This time 11 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, late July

This time 12 years ago:
Jeziorki sunset, after the storm

This time 15 years ago:
Rural suburbias - the ideal place to live?

Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

A film I just had to see: about  flying saucers; set in mid-1950s America, and Wes Anderson's visually stunning aesthetic - so close to my own tastes. My experience of Asteroid City was very similar to that of watching Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel - a delightful confection, very funny - but ultimately, it could have been deeper in meaning. The Coen brothers would have done a better job. 

Nevertheless, I found myself thoroughly entertained, laughing out loud many times (good that the cinema was nearly empty). I loved the comic touches, the homages to the era, the cultural references and the  overall klimat. And a soundtrack that contains Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Slim Whitman and other C&W acts from the early- and mid-1950s. And that train at the beginning...

The UFO conspiracy/cover-up theme is right on time - just as whistleblowers are about to be grilled by the House Oversight Committee in real life, the presidentially imposed quarantine on the Asteroid City mirrors the paranoia around the subject. The Military-Industrial Complex, supported by private  foundations, run the show. Who will own the intellectual property of alien-derived tech - free enterprise or the government?

I have a habit of watching a film's credits to the end; there were are large number of Spanish surnames involved in making the set and props (such as the railway - see below) - I naturally assumed that the film was shot in Mexico - but no - it was shot in Spain in a specially made set near the town of Chinchón, some 30 miles south-east of Madrid.

This is, I feel, a film made by a savant about savants for savants - quotable quotes aplenty, details to spot and laugh at (vending machines that served Martini cocktails and sold title deeds to tiny parcels of arid desert land), obsessively symmetrical shots. A sure-fire cult film that will be loved for many years to come by a small die-hard group of devotees, able to single out arcane references to this or that (alien symbols or cattle-ranch brands?). And indifference from the mainstream.

Below: example. Augie Steenbeck*, war photographer, in Asteroid City with his son, nicknamed 'Brainiac'. Note the camera. A Müller-Schmid Swiss Mountain Camera. Well, no. It's a prewar German Contax III or its postwar Soviet copy, the Kiev 4A. My guess is it's the latter, Contax cameras were used by American war photographers, Kievs weren't, so Wes Anderson had the front plate mocked up. Nice touch.

If you enjoy Wes Anderson's movies, you'll know what to expect; it's certainly one I'd want to see again. And then dive into a subReddit (r/AsteroidCity) with hundreds of nerds seeking Significance. You'll find more in The Big Lebowski or A Serious Man. Don't let that put you off - Asteroid City is still a highly likeable movie.

And if you like trains, have a look at this... (and then scroll down this post from 2017.)

* Steenbeck - manufacturer of flatbed film editing machines, used to edit 16 mm and 35 mm optical sound and magnetic sound film.

This time last year: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time four years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time four year:
A tale of two orchards

This time six years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time seven years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time ten years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 11 years ago:
Beach day, Llyn Peninsula

This time 12 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 13 years ago:
8am and 26C already

Faith, construction and history in Wrocław

Humanity's innate draw towards the numinous, the supernatural and metaphysical - the spiritual aspects of life - has long been exploited by organised religion. The bigger, the more splendid your place of worship, the better.

Wrocław is a city of a great many cathedrals, abbeys, basilicas and churches, reflecting diverse faiths. It is also a city that has changed hands over the centuries and witnessed the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Holocaust. All this becomes clear when visiting the city's many holy places.

Below: the Cathedral of St Mary Magdalene, and its famous Penitents' Bridge linking the two towers at a height of 45m above the ground. Photo taken from the viewing galery around the tower of St Elizabeth's church, the highest such point of any Wrocław church.

Below: looking down and across from the Penitents' Bridge. Now here's the thing about this cathedral - it is not Roman Catholic - it is linked to the Polish National Catholic Church (and so unaffiliated with the Vatican)! Despite the name, its beliefs (as set out on a placard in the nave) seem more liberal than the Radio Maria end of Polish Roman Catholicism. The PNCC was set up in the US in the late 19th century in response to Polish Catholics unhappy with German and Irish bishops. I had no idea!

Below: side chapel, St Elizabeth's Church. Culture clash. To the left and right, baroque altars erected in honour of patrons from the 17th and 18th century Prussian aristocracy; in between modern stained glass remembering the formerly Polish cities of the Kresy - eastern borderlands that Poland lost after the war in exchange for Lower Silesia and West Pomerania.

Below: the interior  of Wrocław's White Stork synagogue, the only one that survived the Holocaust. On the first floor, an exhibition outlining the history of Wrocław's (and before that Breslau's) Jewish community - centuries of persecution, right up to  the expulsion of Jews from communist Poland in 1968. I was particularly fascinated by the story of Jewish rationalism during the Enlightenment; balancing tradition and belief with the scientific method.

In contrast with Protestant and Jewish places of worship, the Orthodox Church assails the senses. Here we have St Cyril & Methodius in Wrocław. Below: looking at the iconostasis.

Below: looking up at the ceiling. All that's missing are heavenly multipart harmonies and incense.

Left: totally Tridentine - the Cathedral of John the Baptist on Ostrów Tumski. Latin Masses! No screaming kids! No taking Holy Communion in the hand while standing! Like the Second Vatican Council had never happened! Nowhere else in Wrocław!

Below: elevated corridor bridging two parts of the Sisters of St. Elizabeth convent, Ostrów Tumski.

This time last year:
A better tomorrow - geodiversity

This time two years ago:
Warka - small-town Poland's moving up

This time three years ago:

Summer działka joys

This time four years ago:

Local round-up

This time five years ago:
New Nikons on the way!

This time 11 years ago:
Work continues on S2, going under the railway lines

This time 12 years ago:
Stand Easy! - a short story

This time 15 years ago:
God Save The Queen - I mean it, Ma'am

This time 16 years ago:
Legoland, just outside Warsaw's borders

Wrocław's Hala Stulecia (Centennial Hall)

I was eight when I first saw this building; it made an impression upon me as did the steel spire towering outside. However, back then I didn't grasp its historical significance. Back then in communist times, it was called Hala Ludowa - the People's Hall ('Volkshalle' in German) - and the original name, Jahrhunderthalle somehow morphed in my mind as the Jahrtausendhalle - 'Thousand-Year Hall', as in 'Thousand-Year Reich'; in other words - the negative ideological connotations of communism and Nazism. A place associated both with Sieg-heiling Nazis and ranting communists.

Only later did I come to realise that the Jahrhunderthalle predated National Socialism rule by two decades, and was actually built before the First World War. Commemorating the hundredth anniversary of the defeat of Napoleon by the Prussians at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, the building was a striking example of Germany's industrial prowess. Built out of reinforced concrete, its structure encompassed what was at the time the largest space under a roof without supports. Today, a UNESCO-listed building.

View from the inside of a scale model of the building, itself situated inside the building. With its purity (no screens, speakers, cabling or spotlights), this view reflects the genius design of the place better than the real thing. 

Below: looking messier in real life, but still very impressive. Refurbished in 2011, the hall now seats 10,000, with extra seating below the false floor (designed by British architects Chapman Taylor).

Below: the hall as seen from the giant pergola that extends in a semi-ellipse, taking in Poland's largest fountain, built in 2009. To the right, the spire ('Iglica'). It's mid-July, but the ground is already looking parched.

Left: this space-age structure actually predates the space age by nine years; built in 1948 for the opening of an exhibition celebrating Poland's postwar westward expansion into its regained territories. It's unsupported by guy lines or anchors, standing only on its three legs. For its periodic refurbishments, it is gently laid down on its side. Today, it's just 90m tall; originally, it was 106m, but twice it needed shortening.

It's worth putting the hall into historical context - 35 years after the original opening that celebrated Prussia's defeat of Napoleonic France, the same building hosted an exhibition celebrating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany and Poland's new western borders. Below: if you have a spare half-hour, this communist-era documentary is fascinating. Disinformation, half-truths, omissions, distortions and outright lies - same playbook as Russia uses today.

Below: laid out at the same time as the hall was built, the Japanese Garden was designed according to the precepts of traditional Japanese aesthetics and philosophy. It was renovated in 1995, then badly damaged during the Wrocław flood of 1997 and reopened again two years later. I must say, after visiting it, I felt in great need of a sushi supper - sadly the nearest Japanese restaurant was nowhere near.

This time last year:
A Better Tomorrow - the lie of the land

This time two years ago:
New phone, new laptop

This time three years ago:
Longevity and Purpose

This time five years ago:
New bus stop for Karczunkowska

This time 11 years ago:
Who should pay for railways?
[How America built an electric railway line over the Rockies - over 100 years ago!]

This time 13 years ago:
Grunwald - the big picture

This time 15 years ago:
"Take me right back to the track, Jack"

This time 16 years ago:
The summer sublime

Wałbrzych, Książ and Riese

Europe's night trains are a great institution. Go to sleep in your home city and wake up in an entirely different landscape. Warsaw Gdańska depart 22:06; arrive Wałbrzych Główny at 06:36; in good time to explore one of the most fascinating places in Poland - Książ castle (09:00 opening).

Below: waking up to this! Next stop, Wałbrzych Główny. Passing Kilometre 75.4 - some 10km beyond the legendary Kilometre 65, where the Nazi Gold Train turned out not to be. They scanned, they planned, they held press conferences, the world came - they cleared the ground and dug - nothing.

Below: approaching Wałbrzyska Fabryczna station, one of Wałbrzych's five stations, strung out along 13km of serpentine track that winds between the hills. Summer lightens the atmosphere somewhat; but abandoned factories and mines still haunt - the past abides.

Wałbrzych was an important railway hub with several lines branching off the main line, serving local communities, coal mines and factories. Some lines have been closed, others are being refurbished.

Książ castle is a phenomenal slice of European aristocratic history - from feudalism to the Third Reich - and it's also an integral part of the great unsolved historical mystery that continues to be Projekt Riese.

A castle that morphed, like many did, from a fortification against armed attack (a castle) to the projection of status hierarchy (a palace). Built in the 13th century on a hard-to-assault hilltop by Bolko I Surowy ('the Strict' or 'the Raw'), a Silesian duke. Książ castle - by then Schloss Fürstenstein - came into the hands of the Hochberg family after 1509. It flourished until the family tipped into bankruptcy, dragged down by the wild spending of Daisy, Princess of Pless (née Mary Cornwallis-West), the British-born wife of Prince Hans Heinrich XV von Hochberg. The castle was seized by the Nazis during WW2, where it was to become a part of the mysterious complex known as Riese ('giant'). The oldest part of the castle is the left; the newer palace building stuck onto it on the right.

To this day, no one knows for sure why the Third Reich invested so heavily - and so desperately - until the very end - in the project. Too large to be just a bunker for Hitler and his accomplices, out of range of Allied bombers; to late in the war to be a megafactory for wonder-weapons - there has never been any documentation discovered pertaining to what Riese was for. A project that soaked up vast amounts of cement and steel at a time when it was desperately needed on the western and eastern fronts.  [Whistleblower David Grusch's mention of a UFO crash retrieval in Mussolini's Italy revives a rumour that Riese may have been intended to be a Nazi Area 51.]

Below: an extensive tunnel network extends in all directions under the castle. In the distance, the old lift shaft that would have connected the castle. After the war, the local authorities wanted to seal it off, and used it as a dump for rubble from the heavily damaged town. No one today knows the full extent of the tunnels. The Polish Academy of Science has a chamber down here used for seismographic equipment, deep in the rock, sensitive enough to detect small earthquake on the other side of the planet. To conduct any serious exploration of the the tunnel network would mean having to switch off the seismometers and stop all experiments. Also, exploration would mean no conducted tours of the network - and tourists are money. But questions remain. Is there a tunnel from here to the main railway line? Was Książ meant to have been connected to other parts of the Riese complex?

Below: roof detail. Blasted out of solid gneiss by slave labourers, the walls and ceiling were to be reinforced with concrete. In the foreground, rock. Deeper in - concrete. Note the mounting for electrical cables and ventilation pipes. Now here's part of the mystery. In February 1945, with the Red Army drawing near, the prisoners were evacuated from the site and force-marched westward. But in April, with Berlin surrounded and Lower Silesia within range of Soviet artillery, part of the construction team was herded back to Riese installations and made to install the concrete reinforcements. Why? The war was almost over, the work was not even one-eighth complete. What could have drove the Nazis to desperately continue tunnelling?

Left: one of the narrower corridors. There is a feeling of security down below - nothing is likely to cave in - the solid gneiss, the concrete reinforcements, the quality of the civil engineering. Much safer, I felt, than old coal mines now opened up to tourists.

The thing with Książ is that there's much to see above ground too. Below: the front elevation of Książ castle - the palace side. Above the entrance, two stories high, is the ballroom, magnificently decorated. In the room above, under the floor, is the winding mechanism for the ballroom candelabra, allowing them to be lowered and lit up before they ascend to operational altitude. The castle had a staff of three hundred, and in winter was kept warm by two wagon-loads of coal a day.

Below: the reverse angle, looking down from the third floor toward the gate house. Note the parched lawn - meadow would be better for the environment, if not keeping with the aesthetic of the period.

Książ castle is one of those places that strikes me as quintessential Europe; a long and rich history. Today a complex of hotels, restaurants and cafes ring the main building. I am reminded of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis's whimsical Portmeirion, but Książ has history. All that's missing is the sea.

The sides and rear of the castle are surrounded by ornamental terraced gardens. Above the terraces, a café serving craft ale on tap (just the thing of a hot lunchtime).

Left: portrait of Frederick the Great. Supervised the first partition of Poland, so not many fans of him around here today. His head is directed at the viewer, but his gaze is detached; those characteristic large eyes looking down. His right hand appears to be pointing at the viewer, but is actually grasping the chair. Unsettling. Painted by Oskar Begas, around 80 years after Frederick the Great's death. Painting on loan from Germany, which I think is telling about cultural and historical ties within the EU. A shared history, not altogether comfortable, but one that we're now open to.

Below: exceptionally beautiful location gives rise to magnificent views from all four sides of the castle. 

Below: the Palm House, quite a way from the castle, but on the same ticket, so worth dropping in. Part of Princess Daisy's expensive investments.

Wałbrzych has really come on as a town since I first visited 16 years ago. It has reinvented itself as a centre for advanced manufacturing... and history.

This time eight years ago:
Something new in the skies over Okęcie

This time nine years ago:
How the other half lives - a Radomite's tale

This time ten years ago:
On guard against complacency

This time 11 years ago:
Ready but not open - footbridge over Puławska

This time 12 years ago:
Dusk along the Vistula

This time 13 years ago:
Mediterranean Kraków

This time 14 years ago:
Around Wisełka, Most Łazienkowski, Wilanowska by night

This time 15 years ago:
Summer storms

This time 16 years ago:
Golden time of day

A year with panels

On the morning of 13 July 2022, an electrician from PGE Obrót turned up at my działka to connect the solar panels, installed in June, to the grid. Since then, I have been benefiting from electricity from a renewable source. This post is about the practicalities of panels.

At the end of 12 months' operations, my eight panels covered just 72% of my electricity usage. This includes bleak mid-winter during which the heating was on 24 hours a day. As an experiment, during those 12 months, I have made no effort to conserve electricity. I was interested to see how the numbers would look on maximum load. In midwinter, I had heat inside turned up to a constant - and comfortable 21C. Comfortable for year-round living in the countryside.

The investment was 27,500 złotys (£5,300); I received a cash subsidy from the Polish government of 6,000 złotys (£1,150) which reduced the capital expenditure to 21,500 złotys (£4,150). My annual electricity bill for April 2022-April 2023 was 401 złotys (£77). This could be reduced (as I wrote above) by taking greater care to switch off radiators, lights, immersion heater, laptops etc when not in use.

So: over a 12-month period, I have consumed 3,477 kilowatt hours (kWh) while my eight panels have generated 2,496 kWh, which have been exported to the grid. Without the panels, my consumption would have cost me around 2,700 złotys for the year (£515). So - a saving of 2,300 złotys (£443). A payback time of around nine years - at current prices (0.77zł/kWh). Should electricity prices rise (which they will), the payback time will shorten.

By the way UK readers... UK electricity price  costs 52p per kWh, but with the Energy Price Guarantee, it averages 34p per kWh. Polish households pay around 15p/kWh. Less than half. Me? I'm paying (effectively) 4p/kWh.

How will this look next year? I have no control over hours of sunshine, but I could take a lot more care about using less electricity - learning to live with 19C in the house in winter, for example.

However, there have been are times when the grid is overloaded; I first noticed this on Monday 15 August - a public holiday in Poland; with factories and offices closed and a sunny summer's day, the grid couldn't swallow the load. Too many panels producing too much energy that users were not taking up. There have been more such days since - days when the Solis app on my phone alerts me the grid isn't taking power from my panels. [Solis is the company that manufacturers the inverter.]

Would I make this investment again? Yes indeed - and remember this is already my second investment in panels, the first being in Jeziorki. 

There is an "if not now, when?" argument. Will the price of panels fall - or rise? Will Poland's inadequate grid mean that new solar panels will be discouraged?

This time last year:
Powered by the Sun

This time three years ago:
Poland's town/country divide explored

This time seven years ago:

A long walk to Czachówek

This time nine years ago:
Half a mile under central Warsaw, on foot

This time ten years ago:
Dzienniki Kołymskie reviewed

This time 11 years ago
Russia-Poland in Warsaw: the worst day of Euro 2012

This time 13 years ago:
Thirty-one and sixty-three - a short story

This time 14 years ago:
Warsaw rail circumnavigation

This time 15 years ago:
Classic Polish vehicles

This time 16 years ago:
South Warsaw sunsets

Michalczew, south of Krężel

Using public transport to increase the range of my walks limits these to a north-south direction, up and down and along the Warsaw-Radom railway line. Much improved in recent years, with roads and path built alongside the rails, where once were just muddy or dusty dirt tracks. This makes walking much more efficient as a way of covering ground. My walk last Sunday took just over an hour and half to cover the eight kilometres from the działka to Michalczew station, passing Krężel station along the way. 

There's something very special about rural railway lines on a weekend in high summer; the quiet of a country station, a handful of people gathering on a platform minutes before a local service is due to arrive, some folk to meet alighting passengers, others to board, heading for town to catch a show or meet friends for dinner, or merely returning to their urban apartments after a weekend on the działka.

And here (below) is Krężel station, a view that brings to mind an Eric Ravilious painting - the white goods wagon repurposed as stationary storeroom; the yellowing grasses; the slight rise leading up to the composition's focal point, the summer sky streaked with thin white cloud.

Below: the village of Janów straddles the line, halfway between Krężel and Michalczew. When I passed here last year, there was no asphalt, no fence to the right - just a barnyard with chickens scratching at a dirt track. In the distance, a Radom-bound Impuls Koleje Mazowieckie train heads south towards Michalczew.

A perfect summer's day - hot and dry - so I'm off in search of those 1940s USA vibes once more. With 21st century EU infrastructure. Trackside between Janów and Michalczew.

Below: Michalczew station in the evening sun. In good time to catch the 18:18 train back to Chynów. The building dates back to 1935. Note the pedestrian-only level crossing, the lighting, the signage. All to the highest EU standards.

Below: from the southern end of Michalczew's 'up' platform, a view towards the level-crossing approach for road traffic. The road has been realigned, with a series of curves intended to slow down drivers as they near the tracks; proper signage, proper speed limits. The number of road-vehicle users killed at level crossings has fallen, as a result of modernisations, from 256 in 2012 to 172 in 2022. Still way too many, but the process of replacing ungated crossings with gated ones or with viaducts (as in Warka) is ongoing. A path following the railway line south of this level crossing (towards Warka) is sorely needed - the only way for pedestrians and cyclists is the main road (fast and dangerous).

Below: here comes my train, from Michalczew to Chynów. Beyond it, the track curves away to the south-west towards Gośniewice. Between that curve and Czachówek Połudnowy, behind me in this picture, the railway line runs 15 kilometres in a dead straight line, rising up and down slightly.

There's something comforting and magical about our railways, especially when they are fully functional and useful to communities. That they are they, that they run (generally!) to time, and that we use them for work and leisure. I express gratitude for them.

Below: back in Jakubowizna - eternal Poland abides, in summer, under a setting sun.

This time two years ago:
High summer in Chynów: storms, fruit and exercise

This time three years ago:
Summer wet and dry

This time five years ago:
Rainy summer Warsaw moods

This time seven years ago:
Marathon stroll along the Vistula

This time nine years ago:
Complaining about the lack of a river crossing between Siekierki and Góra Kalwaria! 

This time ten years ago:
S2 update 

This time 11 years ago:
Progress on S2 bypass - photos from the air

This time 13 years ago:
Up Śnieżnica

This time 16 years ago:
July continues glum (2007 - yet another rainy summer)