W-wa Jeziorki: 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.