Ciechanów

Let's go back to communist Poland in the mid-1970s. Local voivodes (provincial governors) were getting too big for their boots. The party's central committee, led by Edward Gierek, wanted to cut them down to size. So out of 17 voivodships (plus four cities with voivodship status), 49 new ones were created, the size of small English counties. Some of these new voivodships were based in towns that historically had served as administrative centres (a gród, surrounded by its ziemie) in mediaeval Poland.

Such a town was Ciechanów, with its 14th century castle (below), once home to the Dukes of Mazovia, but by 1975 a bit of a backwater with a population of just 25,000. As such, it was one of the smallest voivodship towns between 1975 and 2000, when the territorial administration of Poland was again reformed, returning (more or less) to historical voivodship boundaries.

The territory that constitues today's Mazowieckie voivodship (Mazowsze/ Mazovia/ Masovia) was carved up into five smaller units – the Warsaw voivodship surrounded by the voivodships of Radom to the south, Siedlce to the east, Płock to the north-west and Ciechanów to the north. 

Discovering by chance that there's one train a day linking Chynów and Ciechanów, I decided to go. My intention was to see the castle of the Dukes of Mazovia and then to look around at a small town that between 1975 and 1999 had been elevated to the seat of a first-order administrative division. Before setting off, I consult Filip Springer's Miasto Archipelag, a collection of reportages from those 30 towns that after 2000 lost their status as voivodship capitals (thanks again, Ula – a book that's come in very handy!). Written in 2016, Miasto Archipelag also serves to show just how strongly some of these towns have bounced back in the few short years since it was written.

And so, I wake at 04:30, catch the 05:37 Kamienna Koleje Mazowieckie limited-stop service that goes straight through to Ciechanów via Warsaw. The journey is perfect (only imperfections: train announcements were one station-stop out of synch with reality, and the clock at Pomiechówek station was broken). I arrive to the minute at Ciechanów (07:39), having travelled 138km in just over two hours, for a little over 20zł (£4) with my senior's discount.

Below: today, this office building is the vastly oversized for what it is seat of a second-order administrative division (poviat, or district). But when built in the mid-1970s in its copy-paste style, the Ciechanów voivodship office brought a touch of big-city glamour to a somewhat sleepy town. Several times smaller than Siedlce or Płock, let alone Radom, Ciechanów was the outlier among the voivodship capitals. The communist authorities said that Ciechanów's population would soon double – it did not, rising only to around 41,000.

Below: Ciechanów's historic town hall still functions as such. Built in 1844, designed by Enrico Marconi, it stands in the corner of the old market square, which today is little more than a concreted-over car park.

Today was the last chance to catch winter opening times (08:00-16:00). From tomorrow, it doesn't open until 10:00 (to 18:00, Jun-Sep). From the moment I arrived in Ciechanów, my eyes were subconsciously drawn to the horizon; seeking a hilltop upon which a castle would naturally stand. But this one could not be seen. Having walked down from the market square, I find it (below), located not atop a hill but on a water-meadow, by the river Łydynia, which arcs around the castle to the south and east.

My dictum – get your sightseeing in early – pays off. It's not yet nine, so the castle has been open for less than an hour, and I'm the first visitor. As such, I get VIP treatment; I am shown how to download the audio tour-guide app (in excellent English!) and get to enjoy the entire tour without bumping into a soul. Below: the castle's two towers face out towards the river; the main building (destroyed during the Swedish invasion of Poland in 1655) was to the right (you can see the square holes in the wall where the rafters were inserted. Incidentally, the redness of the brick is not a tweak in Photoshop, rather it's the morning sun.

The mediaeval history of Poland is essentially about the folly of Bolesław III Wrymouth (Krzywousty) who divided the Polish kingdom among his sons. This led to the fragmentation after his death in 1138 of the Polish state into dukedoms, of which the Duchy of Mazovia was one. The Dukes of Mazovia died off (or were murdered) and by 1526, the duchy was incorporated into the Polish kingdom. (Having visited Ciechanów, I am minded that a visit to nearby Czersk and its castle is very much in order).

Left: Ciechanów's other famous sight, the toroidal water tower, perched on top of a hyperboloid tower. Built in the early 1970s, this amazing structure fell into disuse and disrepair by the 1980s, and remained in a lamentable state until a thorough remont in 2017 and incorporation into the Ciechanów Torus Science Park. By late morning, the car park and the museum part of the complex were both full. To the right of the tower is the local firefighters' training wall.

Below: ulica Warszawska, a main shopping thoroughfare, beautifully restored and pedestrianised. The town has good cycle infrastructure and local bus provision.

Below: at the western end of ul. Warszawska. Kamienica Brudnickich, nicely restored. EU parliamentary elections (Brexiteers – you know, those elections for 'unelected Eurocrats') take place in two weeks' time. Many posters all over town. Slight numerical advantage for PiS over KO and 3D.

Below: bit by bit, the town of Ciechanów is restoring old buildings. Here, just off the road from the main railway station to the old town centre is an early-20th century tenement that's approaching the end of its remont; note the period lettering on the brickwork.

To the south and east of the railway station is a district of Ciechanów called Bloki ('the blocks').  It doesn't sound appealing (across the tracks lies another district of Ciechanów called Śmiecin ('Trashville' or 'Rubbishton'), yet Bloki is architecturally and historically interesting. This section of town was built during WW2 by the Germans; it reminded me of the low-rise modernist functionalism of Zbąszynek (Neu-Bentschen). As Gartenforstadt Zichenau, it was meant as a model garden suburb for Nazi administrators of their newly occupied lands. They were, however, not destined to live here long. [See this excellent two-part blog about Bloki by Jerzy S. Majewski starting here.] Below: ulica Henryka Sienkiewicza retains original German cobblestone, you can see the typical building style and the tree-lined avenues of Bloki on the corner of ul. Spółdzielcza ('Cooperative Street'). Ironically, there's a Lidl just down there.

Below: Ciechanów has some church architecture worthy of note too. The gate/belltower of the late-Gothic (16th century) Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Below: just across the road from the late-Gothic (16th century) Church of the Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary is the late-Gothic (16th century) Church of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary. Next to it sands a neo-Gothic (19th century) bell tower. Despite similar names, the two churches are entirely different structures; the one below serves as the parish church for Ciechanów's St Joseph's parish, whilst the one above used to be the church of the Augustinian convent; today it serves as the parish church for Ciechanów's St Thecla's parish.

And now let me turn my attention to railway matters. On my way from the station, I passed this beautifully restored steam engine, a reminder of the times when a narrow-gauge railway ran through Ciechanów. This was part of a network of lines running out of Mława (Mławska Kolej Dojazdowa) that was axed in the mid-1980s. A mere rump of it remains (around Mława to the north). The monument stands close to the site of Łydynia station (more accurately a halt); looking along ul. Sienkiewicza towards Ciechanów's main railway station, you can see that today's cycle path follows the old narrow-gauge line's track alignment.

The main line from Warsaw to Gdańsk runs through Ciechanów, so the town is well-served by InterCity trains. Modernised in recent years, the line is adapted to running Pendolino trains at high speed, so almost all level crossings between Warsaw and Ciechanów have been replaced by tunnels or viaduct (even unimportant local roads). I recommend Ciechanów as a worthy day trip out of Warsaw; you will not be disappointed.

This time five years ago:
It's the 31st of May and where's the viaduct?
(six months from its eventual opening)

This time seven years ago:
My mother's school - subject of exhibition at national army museum

This time eight years ago:
Stormy end to May

This time nine years ago:
Where's it better to live: London or Warsaw?

This time ten years ago:
Jeziorki, magic hour, late-May

This time 12 years ago:
Świdnica, one of Poland's lesser-known pearls

This time 15 years ago:
Spirit of place

Immersed in Klimt

I have had my mind blown – the best art exhibition I have ever visited, yet one without a single original painting by the artist! Klimt The Immersive Exhibition is on at Warsaw's Soho Arts Center (ulica Mińska 63) until 7 July.

THIS is the way to experiencing art. The exhibition is divided into three parts; the first is a historical guide to the painter and his most significant works, presented as 1:1 reproductions (not optimal, I must say, but reasonable representations. This is the part that requires focus; the text is in Polish and needs careful reading (although an audio version in English is available). It gives you the necessary historical, social and artistic context (assuming you haven't read up about Gustav Klimt at home online) to engage with the rest of the exhibition.

Left: photograph of Austrian symbolist painter Gustav Klimt (1862-1918), when he was in his mid-20s. Photographer unknown. 

Symbolism was a late-19th century European art movement in poetry and other arts, seeking to represent absolute truths symbolically through metaphor images, a reaction against naturalism and realism.

And then onto the amazing second part...

You enter a giant space, the size of an aircraft hangar. On all the walls and hanging from the ceilings are massive screens, the largest being some eight metres by four. Some are landscape format, some are portrait format. On each, sections of a painting are displayed, moving. Some zoom in, some pan across; some zoom out, some pan up or down. You take a large bean-bag seat and drag it to a position of your choice. Strategically placed, you can have up to six screens within your field of vision, from edge to edge. Lying face-up on the bean-bag, the images wash over you. The music you hear is from the European canon; Mozart, Chopin, Wagner, Mahler. You see the works as the painter would have seen them; close-up and big-picture at the same time; in continuous motion. This experience takes in dozens of well-known Klimt works. The tape is looped; there's nothing stopping you from spending several hours immersed in this world.

This, however, is not the end – the final part involves donning a headset and virtual-reality goggles, and entering a virtual art gallery with numerous easels displaying more of Klimt's paintings, themselves arranged as though the gallery itself is a Klimt painting. You move through the gallery, up to the paintings. You can look left or right, up or down as the image tracks in, bringing you closer and closer to each painting. This offers an entirely new way at looking at art; I guess that once Apple Vision Pro, Meta Quest and Microsoft Hololens have overcome their teething troubles and broken through into the mass market the way smartphones have, we'll all have the opportunity to experience the world's great art as never before.

I have seen the future of art exhibitions – and it works. Purists may scoff (indeed, Google Reviews is full of Varsovian scoffers with the one-star reviews and five-star reviewers balancing out over three). For me, however, this way of showing great art to a large audience and seeing it viscerally and close up worked perfectly – thanks Beata for the suggestion!

Technology is allowing mankind to access art with a new intimacy that offers vastly more insight into the artist's mind and creativity. This is the second such immersive exhibition, the first one shown in Warsaw focused on Vincent Van Gogh (an excellent choice, given the commercial and critical success of Oscar-winning Polish-British co-production, Loving Vincent). 

Experiencing the exhibition left me with a strong feeling of Klimt's influence on 20th century art and indeed graphic art. Here's a good overview of his most notable works. Gustav Klimt died at the age of 55 in 1918 during the influenza pandemic.

This time last year:
No longer the place to live

This time two years ago:
Textures of Childhood

This time three years ago:
Stupendous sunset, Sułkowice

This time eight years ago:
Politics - the importance of fact.

This time nine years ago:
Rural Mazovian toponyms

This time ten years ago:
Carrying the weight on both shoulders

This time 11 years ago:
Railway history - the big picture

This time 13 years ago:
A new lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle

This time 14 years ago:
The ingredients of success

"Fill the edges of your bed with pebbles"

Blessed with good sleep, I have learned within the last few years to tell when I am just about to nod off. As neural oscillations slow down, my thoughts become hazy and confused; I feel the urge to cough, or to swallow, or scratch myself, this snaps me briefly back to waking state, but then, very soon after that – I'm asleep. I'll typically wake once or twice a night, and usually (if I don't drink a late coffee) I'd fall asleep in much the same manner.

This transition state between wakefulness and sleep is fascinating, as reality distorts during the process. I try to monitor it, knowing that I give it too much thought, it will stop me from drifting off. I have to let the distinction between thought and consciousness blur, naturally, observing it in stealthy manner.

As I close my eyes, the backs of my eyelids become like a giant, full-width cinema screen upon which I can imagine pictures. While in the wakeful state, I am thinking those images onto the screen. But as I start drifting off into the sleep state, the images begin to generate themselves. 

Lying in bed last night, I was pondering over what Moni and I had discussed on Skype, namely the Buddhist koan – a question asked by the Zen master of the student, designed to provoke an insight. I feel myself starting to fall asleep... 

With my eyelids shut, I could make out on that inner cinema screen the image of a Native American face, perhaps Inuit (certainly Arctic and not Plains Indian). Spontaneously generated.

And so I fell asleep, and I heard the word Ch'qarpa. What does this mean? And later, as my dream developed, I also heard the word Ch'waukwe. Meanwhile I am dreaming of myself, asleep. My bed is outdoors, in a field; and around the mattress are pebbles, dozens of them, river-washed, smooth, shiny, and multicoloured. Flecked or striped, in many different natural colours – ochres, aquamarines, terracottas and burnt umbers. 

"Fill the edges of your bed with pebbles of many colours," thought unto me the Native American (there was no spoken word this time, this was a telepathic message). 

This was so fascinating I decided to hold on tight to my dream. Despite its onset being as my sleep began, I would wake, think about it, drift back to sleep thinking about it, then dreaming the dream on, for much of the night.

My bed indeed with its deep wooden frame that surrounds the mattress can thus be decorated. But the dream suggested that the pebbles were more than mere decorations; for placed in such a manner, they had supernatural properties. I learned no more; the dream moved on. 

Is there anything in this? Parsing it with Occam's Razor, it's either a fantasy that's been literally dreamed up, or its a message from the metaphysical realm. Or perhaps – maybe a bit of both... Is it a sign from Hashem, that I, Dembinski, should fill the edges of my bed with pebbles? 

Couldn't hurt.

[Follow-up from later the same day: I walk to Sułkowice, turn into ulica Dolna and head down to the Czarna river with the intention of finding pebbles. The Czarna was as opaque as its name suggests, a slow-moving dark ribbon with a muddy bottom. Seeking pebbles, I find none.]

This time last year:
De-growth: A personal manifesto, Pt II

This time last year:
Old signs in Wrocław and Gliwice

This time two years ago:
Are aliens good or bad?

This time three years ago:
Thoughts - trains set in motion

This time five years ago:
Great crested grebes and swans hatch

This time seven years ago:
Jeziorki birds in the late May sunshine

This time eight years ago:
Making sense of Andrzej Duda's win

This time 12 years ago:
A walk down ul. Gogolińska

This time 16 years ago:
Twilight in the garden

This time 17 years ago:
Late-May reflections

Coffee time

I can go for weeks without alcohol, years without sugar, but my morning coffee is essential to my well-being. For years, it has been delivered from an espresso machine using ground Lavazza Qualita d'Oro. However, since December 2022 and a trip to Szczecin, where I received a packet of locally roasted artisan coffee beans, I have changed my coffee routine. Those beans meant I needed to buy myself a grinder, which I use in conjunction with a Bialetti pot. This is fine in everyday use, although it is limited by its size; its basket holds around 18g of ground coffee. Yes, I'll add hot water to the mug to make an Americano, but it's not strong enough. There are mornings when a double-double espresso coffee is needed, especially weekend mornings.

Mulling over how nice it would be to have a larger Bialetti, I somehow never got round to it, despite there being an excellent kitchen-equipment shop round the corner from my office (Voltimex, ulica Świętokrzyska 30). And then one day while doing my weekly shop at Lidl in Warka, I chanced upon a cheap (49zł/£10) Bialetti knock-off, under Lidl's Ernesto own brand. This was advertised as a nine-cup pot (my own Bialetti being a three-cup pot). Nonsense! A single portion is 18g, not 6g! Anyway, with this, I can grind a full 36 grams of coffee bean and fill the basket and water container and make a strong coffee that fits perfectly into a small mug.

Not for everyday consumption, though. During the working week, the small Bialetti is fine; it makes about a third of a small mug of intensely strong coffee, the product of 115 krenches of the handle on my manual coffee grinder. To get through the entire contents of the grinder is in excess of 230 krenches – a lot of work. The big coffee pot is for weekends. I grind the beans and boil the kettle. Boiled water goes into the water container at the bottom of the pot (cuts the amount of gas used to get the steam to express through the grinds, and cuts the time too). I also warm my coffee mug with boiled water to keep the coffee hot for longer.

One gram of arabica bean ground and expressed into coffee yields six milligrams of caffeine, so 36 grams gives 216 milligrams of caffeine; the recommended daily limit for adults is 400 milligrams, so spoko.

Comparing the Bialetti and Lidl's Ernesto-brand pot, it's easy to see the difference. The Lidl pot is manufactured with inferior tolerance, leading to leaks; the spout doesn't pour straight, leading to coffee puddles on the worktop. The material is thinner, evidently specified down to a price-point by a factory in the Far East. Italian quality wins out; however, at 160zł a genuine Bialetti nine-cup pot is more than three times dearer.

Lidl also does good deals on coffee. I recently bought two kilos of Lidl's own-brand Bellarom Gold Crema arabica beans for 72.26zł (buy two, get one half price). This works out at £7.75 a kilo. 

Now, here's an interesting thing. One kilo of beans fills over two-and-half one-kilo containers with coffee grounds. This is excellent fertiliser, so it returns to the soil. The image demonstrates just how hygroscopic ground coffee is (on account of its large surface-area-to-volume ratio). When stored this way, it soon starts growing a greenish mould, which I read is beneficial to most plants, inhibiting fungal growth (although it is toxic to mushroom, onion and pine-tree cultivation).

I mentioned Szczecin, and once again on my visit last week I was rewarded with two (this time!) bags of artisan-roasted coffee beans, from the aptly named Qualia Coffee.

Left: right now, I am enjoying Stoczniowa Robota ('shipyard work') by Qualia Coffee Roasters (qualiacaffe.com). Like all good coffees, it has a roast-date on the packaging as well as a best-by date (Feb 2025). It grinds with a satisfying crunchiness lacking in Lidl's beans. And it is clearly superior in terms of aroma, colour, flavour and mouth-feel. 

When I've worked my way through Stoczniowa Robota, I shall move on to the next pack, a coffee entitled Pokusa Krokusa ('the temptation of Crocus'); will be interesting to sample two artisan coffees back to back.

Once again, many thanks to my hosts at Agencja Rozwoju Metropolii Szczecińskiej for the kind gift.

This time ten years ago:
Call it what it is: Okęcie

This time 11 years ago:
Three stations in need of repair

This time 12 years ago
Late evening, Śródmieście

This time 13 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 15 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 16 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

Racing the rainclouds

Big long walk today – beyond Edwardów (hitherto my furthest expedition west from Jakubowizna) – through Milanów to the edge of Drwalewice. By the early evening, massive storm clouds were building up in the east. Thunder rumbled almost continually; the interval between lightning flashes and the thunder claps was getting shorter and shorter, while the downdraft from the deluge pouring from the dark clouds was strengthening. I suddenly remembered the SMS alerts from the government security centre (RCB) warning of the possibility of intensive rain storms with hail; "If you can, remain indoors. Avoid open spaces." And here I am, with six kilometres between me and home.

Below: looking west at the sun as it sinks, nothing much to worry about. Sunset's not for another two and half hours.

Below: looking north towards Drwalew, and the Biowet plant. Beyond, the old DK50, Lasopole, and the new DK50 (Drwalew-Chynów bypass). Flashes of lightning attract my attention.

But looking east, the sky looked distinctly threatening. Downdraft can be disconcerting; the wind blows from under the deluge, and should not be confused with the prevailing wind that is actually propelling the clouds, often in another direction. 

Left: cumulonimbus calvus towering over Góra Kalwaria. The volume of water falling from it is pushing the air under it outward in my face – but which way is the cloud-mass actually moving? Those fluffy cloud tops billowing up are heading north, but the cloud base is spreading outwards and towards me. No anvil top yet; that's a real danger sign. I fear that I shall be drenched (despite the Gore-Tex jacket in my rucksack).

Below: looking toward Edwardów. A stand of silver birches tower over neighbouring fruit trees. The rushing air rustles the trees. Birdsong sounds uneasy.

I take a short-cut between the fish-ponds and orchards the lie between ulica Leśna and ul. Warecka. Strawberry pickers along ul. Wolska are working at a frenzied pace; hail could cause serious crop damage.

Below: back in Jakubowizna, I have been fortunate; the rains missed me. In the distance, it seems that Warsaw, some 45 kilometres to the north, is getting wet. 

Below: home and dry. Over 20,000 paces walked today; 16km or ten miles. My garden is dry, too. Rainfall over the past two weeks has been inadequate.

Today's weather is not that which I associate with late-May; the climate is clearly changing. Convection rainfall comes not from clouds borne west by prevailing winds from the Atlantic, but from moisture from the ground that evaporates as a result of direct sunlight. Convection rainfall is associated with late afternoons and evenings in high summer, requiring much heat energy to initiate it. Clouds gather and rise in height, leading to short-lived but heavy downpours accompanied by thunder and lightning due to electrical charges within the clouds. Convection rainfall is harder to forecast than the rain that falls from clouds carried along in weather fronts by prevailing winds. These tend to yield lighter rain over a larger area for a longer period. And here we are, still four weeks before the beginning of astronomical summer.

UPDATE SUNDAY 26 MAY: A lovely cloudless morning. Weather forecast: sunny, cloudless to 17:00. Reality: by 13:00, I can hear thunder approaching as heavy clouds build up. Further update, 14:15. The thunder is non-stop now; rolling thunder as I never heard growing up in the UK. BANG! Lighting, followed by a mighty thunderclap about a second later. And now, at last, rain. Not forecast.

This time last year:

De-growth – a personal manifesto Pt I

This time last year:
Start Late, Finish Late - more on the Speed of Life

This time eight years ago:
Swans' way

This time nine years ago:
Sam Smith, Shepherd Neame and the Routemaster bus

This time 11 years ago:
Rainy night in Jeziorki - no flood this time!

This time 12 years ago:
Wide-angle under Pl. Wilsona

This time 13 years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time 14 years ago:
Questions about our biology and spirituality

This time 15 years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time 16 years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time

Qualia compilation 7: motorways at night, Yorkshire

It's August 1974. I'm on what will be my last summer family vacation together with my parents and my brother. I am 16.

We are on the last leg of a motoring holiday to Scotland having stayed at bed & breakfasts in different locations along the way. Heading north, we passed through Glasgow, drove up to the Isle of Skye, across the Great Glen alongside Loch Ness to Inverness, up into the Highlands, and then we turned south for the long journey back down to London.

My father decides that to save on a night's B&B, he'll drive down from Scotland in one go, stopping for a nap at a motorway service station somewhere along the way. Our car at the time, a metallic brown 1973 Mk III Ford Cortina 1.6 XL*. 

We have just stopped at one service station as night falls; I have bought a tin of sarsaparilla-flavoured soft drink. I've never seen it before, and I would never see it again. I cannot recall the brand; it was not well-known, like Barr's or Corona. The design of the can intrigued me; the brand name was written in a typeface styled to look like neon lighting; it is very American. I had never tasted sarsaparilla before, but it was immediately familiar. Quite unlike Coke or Pepsi. Later on, I'd get to try root beer in McDonalds (1975), and sarsaparilla in the America (1978), but this was a first for me. The nearest taste I could associate with this was dandelion and burdock, but it was clearly different. 

I drifted off to sleep. My brother sitting next to me and my mother in the front passenger seat had also dozed off, my father was driving. The motorway traffic was relatively light 50 years ago; I slept listlessly, woken frequently by the lights at junctions flashing by. Somewhere around Sheffield, or maybe further south, that hypnotic strobing woke me up and PAFF! I found myself experiencing one of those strong exomnesia moments. I looked outside. Slip-roads and bridges, over and under; a well-lit. motorway junction. The lights of a big city not far away. 

I have experienced this before – but not in this lifetime. It felt like America. A brand-new highway interchange at night, mid-1950s. A powerful and profound moment, after which I fall asleep again.

This particular moment comes back to me from time to time; that telescoping of a flashback through a flashback, to one of which I can clearly attribute a time and a place. Through it, and in it, I experience an anomalous qualia moment that I cannot attribute to this lifetime – and yet it felt so utterly real. This compound déjà vu experience is fundamental to my spiritual quest.

Our bodies are but single-use containers for our souls, that evolve along with our unfolding universe, journeying from Zero to One, continually evolving, learning, growing. Intimations from past biological existences seep through into our waking consciousness, forming an ephemeral link between the material and the spiritual, 

[*This is also the car that I associate with the Three-Day Week in the UK (Feb-Mar 1974), when due to power cuts resulting from the miners' strikes, we had to drive out to whichever suburbs still had electricity, so that we could eat takeaway fish and chips in the car. We'd have the radio on, listening to David Bowie and T-Rex.]

Two years ago:
Interstices (junction of S7 and S2 expressways just ahead of its opening to traffic)

This time three years ago:
Joys of Spring

This time four years ago:
Jeziorki in May

This time five years ago:

Spitalfields and Smithfields - more from London

This time seven years ago

That tune going round your head now...

This time eight years ago:
The eyes... the eyes... 

This time nine years ago:
New old terminal open at Okęcie airport

This time 11 years ago:
Arrogance vs. humility 

This time 12 years ago:
Warsaw looking good ahead of the football-fan influx

This time 13 years ago:
Heron over Jeziorki

This time 17 years ago:
Present rising, future loading

Świnoujście – slight return

As I wrote in the previous post, there is no train from Szczecin to Warsaw between 12:29 and 22:54. So rather than hang around in Szczecin from the end of my meeting (around 15:00), I took a train up to Świnoujście. Back again after a mere two and half weeks away!

My train left Szczecin at 15:20, and two and half hours later, having crossed the Świna on the ferry and walked two and half kilometres from the ferry to the beach, I am on a deckchair (in my suit) sipping a locally-brewed Pilsner from Browar Dobosz; warm evening sun on my face, sea breezes, sound of the waves lapping on the shore and seagulls overhead. Bliss. A total connections with summer happiness. 

Below: I must go down to the sea again! Beer consumed, I set off along the path behind the first row of dunes between the beach and the town. A glorious evening. It's getting cooler, so time to put on my Gore-tex jacket.

Below: juvenile herring gull (mewa srebrzysta, Larus argentatus), second-winter bird, head starting to turn white, but body still flecked brown. White with grey wings in adulthood. One of the largest gulls inhabiting the Baltic.

Below: black-headed gull (mewa śmieszka, Chroicocephalus ridibundus), common inland as well as by the sea (Jeziorki's wetlands are home to a noisy colony).

Below: the brisk north-easterly wind tempered the sun's heat and brought out the kitesurfers. Interestingly, whilst I could see dozens of them in the distance looking east, but looking at the German beaches – Ahlbeck and Heringsdorf – I could see just one (visible in the distance).

Below: seaside sublime – a developer's dream from 1956, made real in the 2020s.

Below: only in Świnoujście... ancient electricity infrastructure as heritage monument; a ban on horse-drawn carriages (and therefore horse-droppings in the street).

Below: on my walk back to the quay to catch the ferry back to the station, I take a different route, passing down ulica Hołdu Pruskiego (a typical street name found across Poland's recovered territories). Beautifully restored mansions are where the the posh lived before the war, and where they live today.

Back to catch the ferry, and in time to see the carriages that will form the Uznam night train back to Warsaw (via Szczecin!) draw into the platform. Being half an hour early means I can board the train, get into my compartment and get ready to sleep as the train departs. Below: the express engine backs slowly onto the rake of coaches, as the diesel shunter that has brought them in leaves the station.

I intend to write a post next month with an update of the summer sleeper-train timetables; in the meantime, here's a photo of what can be expected in a two-berth compartment. The new rolling stock, introduced on the Świnoujście service last December, is a vast improvement over the old carriages (the ones with wood veneer interiors). Depending on demand, the sleeper-carriage compartments can be configured for two people or three. The couchette carriage only has compartments for six. I would recommend the two-person compartment, but if none are available, I'd absolutely advise you not to choose the middle bunk. It's claustrophobically cramped. 

But the two-berth compartments are fine. Note the small sink; you get a bar of soap and a face flannel, a half-litre bottle of water, and 70g of sękacz sponge cake. In the morning, the attendant brings a tea or coffee to your compartment half an hour before your destination. Out of shot behind me is a pull-out ladder for access to the top bunk (the lower one's better, but PKP now sells the upper one by default to the first person to book a two-berth compartment, in case someone buys a ticket last-minute). Sleeper carriages are 100% safe; you can lock yourself in and secure the door with a chain too; the attendant's on duty all night long, and the doors are only at one end of the carriage. Book early! 

This time last year:

Czachówek Wschodni and its new, raised, platform

This time last year:
S7 extension progress

This time two years ago:
Town and country

This time eight years ago:
Beautiful May Sunday

This time nine years ago:
Three days – three Polish cities

This time 12 years ago:
Part two of short story The Devil Is In Doubt

This time 13 years ago:
"A helpful, friendly people"

This time 14 years ago:
A familiar shape in the skies

This time 15 years ago:
Feel like going home

This time 16 years ago:
Mr Hare comes to call

Szczecin in the morning

Early morning is the best time to visit. Before the rush hour. And so it was today; arriving in Szczecin at half past five, ahead of an event that started at 10am, I had lots of time for further exploration. Other than two brief trips in 1995 and another in 2016, it's only been recently that I've had the time to get to know the centre of Szczecin well. And the quickest and best way to get to know any place well is on foot. And without too much boasting, I'd add that my knowledge of the city is vastly greater than the typical Pole's, as most of whom have never visited Szczecin – and more's the pity - there's much to see.

My sightseeing yesterday focused on the waterfront and the Oder river boulevards, which I've not previously seen.

Below: seen in dawn's light from the railway station, the Szczecin skyline looking towards the ports.

Below: half an hour later and nearer the port; a skyline of wires, towers and cranes.

Below: Szczecin goes to work. The vehicle in the foreground is a regular bus rather than a trolleybus, but it sharing the tram stop, rather as in Warsaw along aleja Solidarności. In the background, Szczecin Cathedral, dating back to the 12th century.

Below: the 'Red Town Hall' – or new town hall – this one was built in 1879 to replace a smaller building; today it's home to the Maritime Office and Inland Navigation Office, the city hall itself is located in an even bigger building (that from 1933 to 1945 served as the headquarters of the local branch of the NSDAP).

Below: the 'Bastion of the Seven Coats', rebuilt after WW2 in its original form (cylindrical rather than octagonal). The name come from a legend of a tailor, who had been asked to sew seven coats for a princess. He stole some of the material to make his wife a coat too – and for this he was imprisoned in the bastion. It has been allowed to become overgrown with ivy in recent years

 

Below: the half-kilometer-long Chrobry Embankment (Wał Chrobrego), built along the river's escarpment, completed in 1921. Originally named after Stettin's late mayor, Hermann Haken, it was renamed after Poland's first crowned monarch, Bolesław Chrobry (968-1025), son of Mieszko I, first ruler of a unified Polish state. The return to Poland after 1945 of territory up to the Oder and Neisse rivers was followed by a re-naming of many geographical places after the Piast dynasty (of whom Mieszko I was the first). Under the Piasts, Poland extend this far west.

Below: the building of the national museum in Szczecin, which dates from 1913; it was built to house the city's museum.

The national museum building is flanked on either side by a pair of rotundas. Below: this is the one to the left of the museum building (as seen from the front); the other one, its architectural mirror, houses a coffee shop. 

Below: at the north end of the boulevard, beyond the national museum lies the office of the West Pomerania voivodship office.  It's now around half past seven, and a large queue is already forming outside; mostly women, some older men – Ukrainians legalising their stay in Szczecin.

Left: look closely at its weathervane; N-O-S-W – Nord, Ost, Süd, West. Before the war, the building served in a similar role as a German regional administrative headquarters. 

A magnificent maritime structure with lookout tower, observation gallery, and beneath the weathervane, there used to be a time-ball that dropped at midday, so mariners could set their chronometers. [To this day, a time-ball clock is still in use in Edinburgh]

After the conference, I return to Szczecin Główny station. Not, I must add, to catch a train back to Warsaw, no – for the next train from here to Warsaw departs at 22:56. (Would you believe there's not a single direct train for Warsaw from Szczecin between 12:29 and 22:56?) However, I will be on that 22:56 train – except I will have boarded it in Świnoujście where it starts its journey from. More about that in the next post. Below: a local train belonging to Deutsche Bahn, about to set off for Lübeck Hauptbahnhof. Incidentally, the Hanseatic port city of Lübeck, formerly Liubice, was originally a Slavic town, despite lying nearer to Denmark than to the current Polish border. The retaining wall and the building atop it have a Bricktorian Britain vibe to them!

A big thanks to my hosts, the kind folks from Agencja Rozwoju Metropolii Szczecińskiej, in particular for the book Szczecin krok po kroku by Małgorzata Duda, illustrated by Edyta Przystupa, from which I gathered much information about the places I'd visited earlier in the day. A lovely book that I recommend whether you've been to Szczecin or not – yet!

This time four years ago:
Poland, the UK, Covid-19, lockdown and economic recovery

This time five years ago:
Electric cars for hire by the minute

This time eight years ago:
Mszczonów - another railway junction

This time 12 years ago:
The Devil is in Doubt - short story, part I

This time 13 years ago:
Stormclouds are raging all around my door

This time 14 years ago:
Floods endanger Warsaw

This time 15 years ago:
Coal line rarity

Anatomy of a Moment

Having walked briskly to the station and arrived in good time, I boarded my train at Chynów and found myself a window seat. I look out over an impeccably gorgeous day. The sky is crystalline and cloudless from horizon to horizon, trees in full leaf, magnificently green. The 07:33 train to Warsaw draws into the platform on time; all is good. Indeed, it's not just all good – it's perfect. 

As I sit down, I behold the empty expanse to the west of the railway line, where the goods yard used to be, beyond it trees among which farmhouses nestle. I feel like I've just settled back comfortably into a stream of consciousness temporarily interrupted by the action of boarding the train – it's familiar and pleasant... now, where was I?

PAFF! That was it! That exomnesia moment, which I identify as being from beyond this biological lifetime. Recognisably another place, another time – not the here-and-now. Qualia from elsewhere.

I search for more, but that moment, that precise feeling, evaporates within a fraction of a second. It leaves a haunting, beautiful aftertaste. I want to hang on to the moment, extend it, grasp it, revel in it, understand it – yet it is ephemeral; it is not to be. (Is it not meant to be?) This moment did not have the quality of a thought, it was a quantum of consciousness, a discrete unit of experience, clearly anomalous, yet entirely familiar; I have had many of those over the course of my life. What brings them on? Why do they occur – is there a purpose behind this phenomenon? Why do they feel so familiar and pleasant? Why don't other human beings report such experiences?

Qualia, units of experience, befall us in the here-and-now. They return to our consciousness, bidden or unbidden, triggered or spontaneously, like Wordsworth's Daffodils. ["When oft upon my couch I lie, in vacant or in pensive mood, they flash upon my inward eye, which is the bliss of solitude"]. What I'm talking about here is an anomalous qualia memory, in which that moment re-experienced is not from this lifetime.

I consider the physical aspects of what has just occurred. Is it a combination on my brain of the effects of brisk biological activity (hurrying to the station) and sense of relief (anxiety lifts, I've caught my train, it's on time, it's not crowded)? Is it the strong sunlight, streaming in from east, triggering greater neuronal activity? Is it just the aesthetic pleasure of being? Do the eight grams of caffeine in my morning coffee, drunk less than an hour earlier, have any influence?

Over the next two days, I'd have three more such anomalous experiences, less intense but entirely congruent with each other in how they felt, two more on board the train, one into town and one back home again, and one while on a morning walk, glancing down at the dry earth between the weeds and my suede desert boots kicking up dust. The strong sunlight, morning and evening seems to be a common thread.

The flashbacks – they are like cracks in spacetime that allow in a simulacrum of a conscious experience that occurred in the past, experienced in the present,as though it were in the present (that specious present, that one-tenth of a second). Past and present merge for an instant, then part company again. And as they do so, qualitatively I have tasted reality. As real as it gets.

So, here it is; if I have a life's quest, it is to get a closer understanding of what's happening here. As with the hard problem of consciousness, is this a physical or spiritual phenomenon? Or both? Is this an intimation that conscious life extends beyond biological life – that our bodies are but containers for an eternal awareness? And if so, is there a mechanism at work here?

My search must above all be intellectual honest, whittling away wishful thinking or other forms of cognitive bias. I cannot deny that I often experience such exomnesia moments. This is something more profound than the anemoia, a word concocted by John Koenig in his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows explained here.

I can say that I experience these exomnesia moments more frequently in Poland than in Britain, and more frequently in Chynów than in Warsaw. Is this because of a continental climate that feels more 'past-life' familiar? I notice these moments occurring more frequently happening as seasons change, or as one spell of settled weather gives way to another? Or is climate change making Mazovia's climate more like that my spirit experienced in a previous incarnation? And then there is the role of the sun; Mazovia receives about 18% more direct sunlight than does London. Do the rays of the sun unfiltered by cloud cover stimulate the brain to process thought differently? Could this be the effect of relic neutrinos? Or am I getting exomnesia moments more frequently as I age?

"All was before

All will repeat again,

And only that moment of recognition

Brings us joy."

 
- Osip Mandelstam 

As always, more questions than answers.

UPDATE 19 MAY: Walking through the forest alongside the railway line between Chynów and Krężel stations, I have another exomnesia flashback moment; again, strongly familiar and pleasant. Again, America, mid-1950s; a prosperous suburbia, evening, getting ready to go out and meet friends.

This time last year:
Ego – self-consciousness – pure consciousness

This time five years ago:
The Day the Forecasters Got It Wrong

This time six years ago:
Carlo Rovelli's The Order of Time

This time ten years ago:
W-wa Wola became W-wa Zachodnia Platform 8 two years ago today 

This time 11 years ago:
From yellow to white - dandelions go to seed

This time 12 years ago:
The good topiarist

This time 14 years ago:
Wettest. May. Ever.

This time 16 years ago:
Blackpool-in-the-Tatras
[My last visit to Zakopane – I've not been back since]