In town and around

Below: tram stop outside Rondo ONZ 1 tower. Modern public transport serving modern offices. A safe, clean, modern, reasonably priced city. Though peeking into an estate agent's window, I'm shocked at what's happened to house prices over the past ten years. From 2002 to 2014, hardly any movement, then a London-style explosion.

Below: Rondo ONZ 1 tower from across the road. All this was brand new not so very long ago; today the centre of gravity of Warsaw's business district is shifting westward towards Wola.

Below: one of my favourite thoroughfares in Warsaw, just around the corner from my office, ul. Świętokrzyska. Across the road from the Palace of Culture. And here's one my favourite shops in Warsaw, Voltarex, a shop selling high-end kitchen equipment. I pop in to buy a stainless-steel vegetable steamer insert for my pan; from now on, steamed broccoli, steamed asparagus, steamed runner beans, healthier and tastier than boiled veg. It's the end of April, and the restaurants have their pavement tables out, creating a wonderfully Mediterranean atmosphere. The long weekend is just beginning...

Below: ulica Grzybowska as it intersects aleja Jana Pawła II, shortly after sunset. The old 1990s Atrium International plaza has been demolished; the crane stands where the 34-story Upper One building will shortly emerge. My father spent his earliest years around here; on his last visit to Warsaw in 2019, he was delighted by how modern Warsaw has emerged from the rubble of Nazi occupation.

Warsaw might have moved forward dramatically, but here and there are signs of past ways of thinking. This one, for example, by a block of flats off Grzybowska, reeking linguistically of Tsarist-communist bureaucratic formalism. "Forbids one from leaving uncleanlinesses by the chute, key to the abovementioned space finds itself in the porter's kiosk". Note use of the agentless passive.

Below: back home in Jakubowizna, flags are out for 3 May, Poland's national day, remembering the world's second (after the USA) and Europe's first written constitution (1791).

Below: shimmering in a heat haze, Warsaw's skyline as seen from ul. Kinetyczna ('Kinetic Street'), on the south side of Warsaw airport.

Below: out by Warsaw Okęcie airport –a US Army Beechcraft C-12F Huron shortly after take off. (This is the basic transport aircraft, rather than the RC-12 Guardrail signals intelligence platform, which I see from time to time on FlightRadar24.com flying around the Baltic.)

Below: a Gulfstream G600 business jet belonging to the Bank of Utah (!) taking off from Okęcie.

Below: SP-LIM, a LOT Polish Airlines Embraer EJ170 in retro livery, passing the radio tower at the airport's edge....

...and this time in focus... 'Flying you since 1929'. 

This time three years ago:
Return to the Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings

This time six years ago:
A review of the second part of Hillier's Betjeman biog.

This time seven years ago:
New roads and rails

This time eight years ago:
The Gold Train shoot - lessons learned

This time 11 years ago:
Digbeth, Birmingham 5

This time 12 years ago:
Still months away from the opening of the S2/S79 

This time 13 years ago: 
Looking at progress along the S79  

This time 14 years ago:
Snow on 3 May

This time 15 years ago:
Two Polands

This time 16 years ago:
A delightful weekend in the country

This time 17 years ago:
The dismantling of the Rampa

This time 16 years ago:
Flag day