Las Kabacki - forest in winter, with rails

Walking to the Las Kabacki forest from home, I passed upon this lovely 1950s America scene, against a clear blue sky, below. In the distance, the PWPW security-printing press and Karczunkowska Office Park.

Below: the forest itself is icebound; the snow has largely melted but the paths remain icy - where the snow was compacted then frozen again. Safer to walk along the edge than slip and slide down the middle.

Today was an opportunity to photograph the far end of the Metro rail-link (pictures from its source at W-wa Okęcie, over Puławska and into the western edge of the forest here). Below: looking west from ul. Moczydłowska.

Below: looking east towards the Metro depot. To the left, new housing development, surrounded with spike-topped fencing, not only to keep strangers out of the estate, but to keep neighbours out of one another's gardens. Paranoia!

Below: looking back west, the snow-covered section of track in the above photo is visible in the distance, giving an idea of how big the new estate is.

Below: reverse view from the above shot, looking at the (heavily graffiti'd) gates and wall around the Metro depot. Inside, hidden from view, the sidings and shed and above-ground infrastructure of Warsaw's Metro technical base.

Below: two white houses on the corner of ul. Leśna and ul. Moczydłowska, on the edge of Las Kabacki forest.

A grand day, weather-wise, first sunshine in weeks, sorely needed!

This time two years ago:

1967: The Year The World Started Turning To Colour

This time five years ago:
Rain on a freezing day (-7C)

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki in the snow

This time eight years ago:
Winter's slight return

This time nine years ago:
Unacceptable

This time ten years ago:
Pieniny in winter

This time 11 years ago:
Wetlands in a wet winter

Cycling to work - the season starts

The clocks went forward on Sunday; yesterday I decided to set off for work on my bicycle. This morning too. My route takes across me ul. Puławska, which at half past seven is totally blocked and stationary, as are the roads running into it.

To escape the madness, I cut down ul. Jagielska (below), bunged up solid for as far as the eye can see and then some more. Within seconds I shall enter the Las Kabacki forest to revel in solitude, birdsong and an escape from fossil-fuel burning short-distance one-per-car commuters.

Unfortunately, what I thought would be a pleasant ride turned out to be quite the opposite. The forest is podtopiony. (English lacks this word, having only 'flooded', but 'flood' = powódź). My cycling boots are soaked through, once again I'm forced to go to work in wet socks.

But once out of the forest, it's cycle path all the way to work. The weather is still tricky. I'm wearing four layers; my upper body is too warm, my toes are frozen and my hands (in skiing gloves) are too cold. On the way home, three layers are fine, but my hands are overheating.

Below: This is how a civilised city should commute. Proper cycle paths, signage and people using the facilities.

Below: evening commute along Al. Ujazdowskie. Note the contrast between the freedom of the cycle path and the stationary cars. More cycle paths for Warsaw! Paid for by a swingeing London-style congestion charge!

This morning I appeared in a recorded interview on Polish Radio 3 (Trójka), talking about UK-Polish trade. On the same programme with me was a financial analyst talking about the Portuguese and Greek sovereign debt crises, and a junior Pani Minister from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs talking about a new website concerning Poland's upcoming presidency of the EU Council. She was accompanied by an assistant who carried her briefcase.

After the recording, I left the studio by bicycle, the financial analyst by taxi... Pani Minister and her assistant sped away in a chauffeur-driven black Mercedes-Benz. (Three people to do a 15 minute radio programme.) And one wonders why Poland's public sector deficit is growing dangerously large... There seems a dangerous disconnect between the public administration and the real economy. Our chief executive officer has given up his car and taxis and now travels to meetings by public transport. For Martin, it's a matter of pride that he knows where the 171 bus goes and that the Metro is the fastest way from Kabaty into town.

Why do civil servants not get the belt-tightening and low-carbon transport message?

This time two years ago:

Five weeks into Lent

Autumnal blues

It's early November but the trees have already shed all their leaves. The weather changed late on Wednesday night; rain has been falling on and off since, although the temperature has stayed warm (a high of +15C today).

Above: path leading down the Vistula escarpment from Al. Jerozolimskie to ul. Kruczkowskiego.

Above: avenue of trees alongside the Kanał Piaseczyński, between the British Embassy (to the right) and Legia football stadium (to the left). Trees are almost entirely bare too. The canal is an 820m-long ornamental waterway that runs between the foot of the escarpment under the Zamek Ujazdowski castle and ul. Czerniakowska.

Last dry run? On Wednesday I made the most of the weather by cycling from home to a meeting in Konstancin and then onto the office; 32km covered. Right: the singletrack trail that snakes along the southern edge of the Las Kabacki forest.

But it's that darkness that gets everybody; just gone 3pm today and everyone in the office was in a state of gloom induced by the darkening sky; despite the impending weekend it's still five months before the clocks go forward and we can leave work in daylight again.

And as I wrote two weeks ago, that is a very depressing thought. We have moved from that first half of Polish autumn - złota jesień ('golden autumn') into słotna jesień; the damp muddy greyness that stays until the Frost Gods arrive bearing with them the first snow.

I reach W-wa Jeziorki station at six pm this evening; it's been dark for nearly two hours already. Any pleasure I may have derived from walking home is entirely mitigated by the drizzle, the darkness and the fact that the entire route home is muddy.

A glorious week

The sun has shone all week, barely a cloud in the sky, no rain since last Friday. While the sun shines, you'd better make hay - or continue cycling to work in my case. Below: this morning in the Las Kabacki forest. Does this not compare most favourably to sitting in a jam on Puławska? Note the greenery of the leaves; only the russet-coloured forest floor suggests it's already autumn.

All week, the wind blew cold and strong from the south east; a strange direction for cold strong winds. Usually, a south-easterly will be balmy, bringing with it hints of the Black Sea, and Tartary beyond. On Tuesday I experienced something very unusual - continuous gusts of wind strong enough to rattle windowpanes and chimneypots - in the presence of clear blue skies. My usual experience of such equinoxial gales is of scudding clouds chasing each other pell-mell across a leaden firmament.

A bicycle affords you the luxury of taking a slightly different way on every journey. Explore, find new streets along which you've never yet been. Above: ul. Ludowa, the Morskie Oko apartment building caught by the rays of the setting sun. Polarising filter cranked up to the max.

Sunny Sunday, Powsin, bikes

Sunny Sundays will become fewer and fewer as we head into autumn and then winter, so one must make the most out of them. get out into the Las Kabacki forest and go mad on your bicycle (where conditions allow of course. It's annoying to see cyclists hurtling at full throttle just inches from mums pushing prams). But the 900-hectare forest is large enough to provide stretches where you can open up (below). Suffice to say, like George W. Bush, when on my mountainbike I do not pootle around whistling show-tunes.

Especially good fun is the so-called 'Technical Trail' which runs inside the forest along its southern edge. Twisting and turning between trees, charging along here is exhilerating (helmets essential given the risk of getting whacked in the head by low-hanging branches).

Then right across the forest from south to north, to the railway line linking Warsaw's Metro to the outside world and the Metro Depot. To get up to the beautifully evocative trail running alongside the depot's sidings (below), one must first rush a five-metre high earth ramp along which the trail runs. There's only a 25m long run-up - not enough to accelerate to full speed - and the final part of the ascent is at least one-in-three. I used to be able to get to the top first time, today I managed on my third attempt (above left).

And finally on to Powsin (below), where the ride starts and finishes. At least a hundred other cyclists have had the same idea. Get out on a Sunday, cover 30-35km then relax with a beer and grilled pork shoulder (karkówka). It is a remarkable contrast with Britain, where Sunday sporting activity is usually team-based such as Sunday League soccer or rugby. In Warsaw, thousands of people take to the forest for jogging, Nordic walking or cycling. Would you witness such scenes in say, Richmond Park?

Repair or replace or leave to rot?

Cycling home last week, I noticed that the footbridge (kładka, pron. 'KWUDkuh') over ul. Puławska has been well and truly closed. I decided to investigate today. It transpires that a large chunk of it simply fell off on to the bus stop below. The bridge was instantly sealed off, according to an article in Życie Warszawy. Incidentally, the photo illustrating the story is not of this particular bridge!

The closure means huge inconvenience for those living on ul. Jagielska; coming home from town on the bus, they are unable to cross the six-lane highway. The alternative is walking one stop from either Karczunkowska or Kapeli. This is also a useful bus stop for the Las Kabacki forest, I wonder how many people were left stranded here this weekend.

Taking a closer look, one can see the enormity of what had happened (right). Imagine standing at the bus stop when all of a sudden a large slab of reinforced concrete falls on your head. Or crossing the road and suddenly plunging 20 ft onto the pavement below.

The bus stop has been moved several metres south; a mesh has been slung under the gaping hole to catch any falling debris.

The question now is - what next? Many of Warsaw's kładki of this era have been replaced (such as the ones along ul. Czerniakowska). The work went on for months and led to traffic misery. Rush hour traffic here is already miserable at the best of times. Will it be repaired? A structural engineer will have to answer that. Repairing it would still necessitate lane closure. The other alternative - just leave it. To the annoyance of locals and visitors to the forest. But there's a local election coming up in the autumn...

The classic Warsaw kładka such as this one was a nuisance for cyclists and parents with pushchairs or prams - for the wheelchair-bound, without a very strong person helping, getting up and down the steps was impossible. The iron ramps were too steep and too narrow. New kładki have wheelchair lifts at either end, or, as in the case of the super-kładka across Al. Niepodległości by the Pole Mokotowskie fields, a spiral ramp for cyclists to ascend and descend without having to dismount. Plus wheelchair lifts. I doubt if the city's budget would stretch to one of these.

I hope they don't demolish it. I've taken some good snaps from up there... like this one, and how it looked in the days when traffic jams had just ceased to be tolerable.

UPDATE 1 May: Temporary traffic lights have been installed on Puławska by the closed kładka. For you motorised, important, self-impatient wozidupki driving your big, black four wheel-drives with darkened rear windows stuck in the resultant jam, all I can say is that they were designed for muddy fields.

Winter still holds in the forest

It may surprise my readers from Warsaw that though the snow's retreated from the city's pavements leaving only piles of icy grey heaps here and there, the Las Kabacki forest is still experiencing a proper snow-covered winter. After lunch the skies cleared, so it was time to check it out.

Above: a cyclist coming the other way. As he passed, he said that the going would be tough. Indeed it was - there's only one surface I hate cycling over more than snow - soft sand. My first journey into the forest since November, the remaining snow here came as a complete surprise. I thought at least the paths would be clear - but not a bit of it.

Right: a better way of getting round the forest - cross-country skis. Although the forest was nearly empty as sunny Saturdays go, the people I did see were very active, with plenty of joggers and nordic walkers taking their exercise.

Within a week spring will have theoretically arrived, although I predict that it will be at least a fortnight before we start seeing the first real signs of nature exploding back into life. And the masses of remaining snow in the forest - when it melts, the place will be waterlogged for a long time.

So - if you're missing the snow already, you can still find lots of it in the Las Kabacki.

Google Earth updates Jeziorki

In the last few weeks or so, Google Earth has updated the map of south-west Warsaw to one dated 23 July 2009, replacing the earlier one from 24 June 2008.

A neat feature in later releases of Google Earth is the time slider; you can replace the latest image of Jeziorki with ones from 2008, 2007, 2003 and 2002. Below: Our house April 2002 (left) and July 2009 (right). Main difference is vegetation flourishing in garden. Two fruit trees have been cut down in the field to the right.

The biggest changes in and around Jeziorki, visible from space, are the development of the 'Elka' (S2 southern Warsaw bypass and the S79 linking it to ul. Sasanki) and the destruction of the rampa na kruszywa (torn down in 2008, the developer who was going to build a large estate of houses and flats here clearly in trouble).

Copy and paste these coordinates into the Google Earth search box for the Rampa (52° 6'24.15"N, 20°59'47.47"E) and Węzeł Lotnisko ( 52° 8'19.68"N, 20°59'18.85"E). The roadworks are particularly visible as a sandy-colour scar running north-south and east-west across our corner of Warsaw.

Also of interest, across ul. Puławska in the Las Kabacki forest, is the crash site of LOT Flight 5055 ( 52° 6'47.04"N, 21° 2'44.67"E) on 7 May 1987. In the 2002 shot, the scars of the crash (some 360 metres long by 50 metres wide) are clearly visible. In the most recent photo, it's visible, but only just.

Warsaw's woodlands in autumn

A defining feature of Warsaw is its scarp that runs parallel (though some way from) the Vistula river. Much of it is covered in greenery. Above: the path running from Al. Władysława Giżyckiego (the north side of the Królikarnia park) down to ul. Piaseczyńska. I'm on my way to the studios of Radio TokFM, where again today I'm taking part in the EKG talk show with Tadeusz Mosz (eighth time this year). Today I bemoan Poland's lack of a PPP-promoting body within the public sector. If this doesn't happen, Poland won't have any PPPs (and plop-plops will continue to flow down Polish rivers).

Last week I did this same journey, also by bike, though on the fixed wheel one. A mistake - the fixed wheel does not like steep downhills like this one! So today, the Cannondale did the job much better. Suspension, gears, fat knobbly tyres and two brakes.

Right: I'm riding home in time to catch the sun setting through the trees in the Las Kabacki forest. The leaves have all gone in this deciduous part of the forest. The paths are covered with a thick and slippery carpet of leaves. Again, the Cannondale is in its element with its grippy tyres that make light work of the twists and turns in the trail.

I'm using the new Blogger control panel. Now why can't I justify the text at the top of this para to line up with the top of the pic (right)? Looks OK in the control panel, but when I publish post, the text jumps down a line. BAH!

Late summer dad'n'lad bike ride

Finally, the school holidays are at last coming to an end. Ten weeks of leisure. "Won't be long till summer time is through!"

To celebrate, I dragged a reluctant Eddie out on his bike for a spin around the Las Kabacki forest, then to the edge of the airport for a spot of spotting.

Above: The railway line that connects Warsaw's metro to the outside world. Rust suggests it's not been used for a while. The only traffic that comes this way is the occasional drezyna (technical railcar). But worth remembering that every single piece of rolling stock that runs daily between Kabaty and Młociny once came down this track.

We rode west from the forest towards ul. Puławska. Eddie waits, bored, while I adjust the circular polarising filter, set the correct exposure and get the pic.
This path, from the forest to ul. Żolny, is particularly atmospheric and is one of my 'spirit of place' locations.

On to the airport. The large earthworks screening the S2-S79 expressway junction (Węzeł Lotnisko) are an excellent place for watching planes land. Below: An Austrian Arrows Dash-8 flies overhead, taken with lens at 55mm, uncropped, so you can see how close it was.

Below: Eddie making his descent from the man-made plateau. There was quite a crowd up here, plane spotters and mountain bikers. Neither of us rode down - you need a full suspension bike to do it comfortably, it is steep. But we saw other guys doing it - hair-raising!

On the way back to Jeziorki, we rode along the untarmacked stretch of ul. Wirażowa. Work on the new expressways starts next month; so we are witnessing the last moments of semi-rural tranquility here (currenly interrupted only by frequent landings and occasional trains).
Below: Back in Jeziorki. Still parallel to the railway tracks. Still rural. Close to home now.

Topophilia - a love of place

Here's another of my favourite places in Warsaw. On the edge of the Las Kabacki forest, south of the Metro Depot, is an embankment, on top of which runs a tree-lined path, just over a kilometre long. Coming here before dusk, with the setting sun illuminating the trees (my favourite blend of silver birch and pine), fills me with a particular love of place. Especially when its empty and I can ride my bike at high speed along the path, barrelling between the trees. Riding here on a sunny summer evening is an enlifting experience, bringing me closer to the notion of eternity.

This time last year:
The beauty of the English village
Hercules low pass - Matlock Bath
Duffield to Wirksworth railway

This time two years ago:
To the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution
Over the Peaks, by bus
Memory and Comfort
The Tissington Trail, by bike
Of stained glass, rainbows and floods
Bouncing queen, see her bounce on the trampoline

Get on your bike and RIDE!

No more excuses. It's healthy, cheaper than driving or public transport, the day is long, and although the heavens are prone to open on July evenings, its warm enough. Today I spent my two commuting hours of the day hugely enjoying my bicycle. BICYCLE BICYCLE I WANT TO RIDE MY BICYCLE I WANT TO RIDE MY BIKE - and the difference between a cheapo supermarket bike and something decent, is that the something decent wants to be ridden. When you mount it, that bike just urges you on, makes you want to spin those pedals and accelerate. Having that thing parked outside the office creates a huge temptation to abandon work and pedal off into to wild green yonder.

My current mountain bike, a 2007 Cannondale Caffeine F1, replaced my 1997 Klein Matra (which Moni had appropriated for herself). The Caffeine is much lighter, being front-suspension only, while the Mantra was lavishly appointed with front and rear suspension. Riding the Klein at speed over the pot-holed and largely untarmacked roads of Pyry in the late '90s was like driving a Citroen DS23 over a ploughed field - comfortable, yet... not a performance ride.

The Caffeine is stiffer, much lighter, but a bit skittier. It comes into its own on the forest trails through the Las Kabacki, which wonderful as it is to ride through, forms only 2.2km of my 18km journey to work. Much of the rest is along cycle paths.

Right: The Las Kabacki, shortly after 8am. Turning off ul. Jagielska, snarled up with a queue of traffic waiting to turn right onto ul. Puławska, I escape from the noise and pollution into a world of sunlight, bird song, peace and near-solitude (there are other cyclists in the forest, and joggers and Nordic walkers). I wonder whether there is any city around the world that has wedges of forest protruding into the very centre, so suburbanites can cycle or walk right into the heart of the city without having asphalt and concrete all around.

But if that's impossible, let there at least be civilised cycle paths, like the one that runs down Al. KEN (below), Ursynów's backbone. Notice how a fenced lawn separates the pavement from the cyclepath, and how shrubberies separate it from the kerb and roadway. This, dear reader, is decent urban planning.

While the sun shone on the way out, the homeward leg was threatened by that daily July meteorological phenomenon, the July storm. All day long, clouds build up, small white ones at first, then getting increasingly large, conjoining, darkening, brooding... As I left the office I could see the horizon threatening. Would I make it home dry?

Well, this evening I was lucky. Apart from a few drops which caught me just before I entered the Las Kabacki, I would get home unsoaked. Rain on a warm summer's evening is not a great deterrent to cycle commuting, unless it's a complete downpour. Consumer electronics (camera, phone) do not like drenchings.

UPDATE: 10 July 2009 - my ride to work this morning took only 53 minutes - beating my 2007 best time of 55 mins.

A change in the weather

Five days into May and there's a change in the weather; the relentless blue skies finally clouded over yesterday and, for the first time since Easter, rain at last fell on to the dry and dusty Mazovian plains. It rained overnight, it rained for much of today. It's about to rain now. Above: stormy sunset photographed from upstairs balcony. Wind caused camera shake.

Farmers and gardeners will be happy; April was just too dry for this time of year. And the nice thing about the rain is that it did not fall as a sudden, intense deluge. A few more days like this would come in handy.

I cycled to work today and got caught out by a shower on the way home; I diverted via the Metro (from Politechnika to Natolin); by the time I arrived it had stopped raining and the rest of the way was dry. I note the ban on entering the Las Kabacki forest has not yet been officially lifted, yet this evening the forest was full of cyclists, joggers and walkers.

This time two years ago:
At last - the blessed rain

(The above old post is so apposite. The first three lines for those who don't feel like clicking through: "Today we had rain; lots of it. At last - it hasn't rained in over two weeks. Good news for farmers, gardeners and frogs. The grey sky offered contrast from the generally cloudless blue that we enjoyed since 20 April.")

Summer's here and the time is right...

...for cycling to work.

One hour, 15 minutes door to door, 18km, through the Las Kabacki forest, and along the cyclepaths of Ursynów, Dolinka Służewiecka, Belwederska, Agricola, Ujazdowski park. Only two kilometres of my entire journey to work is not along cyclepaths. For days when I don't need to take anything or anyone, and when my journey is not punctuated along the way, the bicycle is ideal for dry spring and summer days.

Today, I took it easy, cycling slow enough not to break sweat. My door-to-door record last summer has been as low as 51 minutes, but I'd turn up at the office extremely sweaty, requiring a wash and change of clothing. That, plus recovery from a fast ride, would take the best part of 20 minutes, so the advantages of haste are marginal.

Above: My way to work. Eight minutes after leaving home, I'm in the forest. A short run along this piece of woodland track and I'm on the main cycle path through the Las Kabacki, ul. Moczydłowska. At this time of year, at 8 am, the forest is gorgeous; the solitude, smells and sounds of nature are infinitely more pleasurable than the traffic jam on ul. Puławska.

Returning home from work in the evening, I did a 5km extension taking in the whole of the forest. On the stretch above, I saw a wild deer, no more than about 50m away, disappearing off into the trees. So today I covered around 40km, not bad for my first cycle commute of the year.

This time last year:
What I miss about England

Warsaw's first Metro line is completed

Eddie and I took the Metro from Stokłosy (literally, Hundred Sheaves) through Warsaw, and headed north to witness the opening of three new stations, thus completing Warsaw's first Metro line. En route we popped off at Dworzec Gdański, where, in a long rake of freight wagons there's an exhibition about Poland's south-west, before, during and after the war. Worth a visit. Next, we stopped off at Plac Wilsona (above, pron. Pluts VeelSOHNuh), voted at the 2008 MetroRail conference in Copenhagen the world's most beautiful metro station. On Earth. Of recent years, anyway.

The new stretch - Stare Bielany, Wawrzyszew (pronounce that after a few ales!) and Młociny, was due to be open at 16:00 today. Eddie and I arrived at what used to the northernmost station - Słodowiec - and waited a few minutes. Right on time, a few minutes before four, the first train arrived, already quite packed.

More people joined the train at the two new intermediate stations before Młociny, by the time it arrived, it was as crowded as a regular rush hour train between Centrum and Politechnika stations (above). As the doors closed at Wawrzyszew, passengers heard, for the very first time, the recorded announcement - 'Następna stacja - Młociny'. Soon we were there. As the doors opened, we beheld scenes reminescent of a Boxing Day sale at Harrods - thousands of people jostling to grab a commemorative badge from the Metro staff greeting the train. The media was on the spot. The chap in the red cap and camo jacket below was deemed by the TVP crew to be the First Passenger. (Fashion note: mohair berets are still in, ladies!)

A tidal wave of excited sightseers of all ages surged up the platform, snapping as they went (ah! the democracy of digital photography!), to the official opening of not only the station, but also Poland's largest intermodal public transport nexus - bus and tram termini and park and ride facilities. Great!

Up the escalators with the throng, past the reporters, photographers and camera crews, and on to the new termini. Here, a pop concert would be held later in the evening to celebrate the event. We got there as Warsaw's deputy president, Jacek Wojciechowicz, was addressing the massed ranks of the Polish media.

Eddie and I had a quick look round then headed back, on what was the second ever passenger train to leave Młociny. We went all the way to the other end of the line, Kabaty. The 23km (16 mile) journey took 35 minutes. Not at all bad. 15 minutes from Młociny to Centrum, 20 minutes from Centrum to Kabaty.

Kabaty. I was here 13 years and 6 months ago, with Moni, then just two years and three months old, and still in a baby buggy. We took a train from Politechnika down to Kabaty three days after the opening of the first 11km section of the Metro. It must be said, that already the station signage acknowledged the finite nature of the project. The up platform was signed 'Kierunek Młociny'. And so it's been for 13 and half years - Młociny was always destined to be the place where the Warsaw Metro would end.

This is an amazing sight for anyone who lives in Kabaty today. The station appears to have been built amid fields. Nothing as far as the eye can see down to the Las Kabacki forest. Today, there's a Tesco hypermarket to the left, houses and flats in front and to the right. The sad thing is that the Metro will never be extended south. It should though. It should tunnel deep under the roots of the forest, emerging to serve Józefosław, Chylice and Konstancin beyond.

[Eddie found two excellent photos, taken a month or two after the one above, here and here. The second one, looking north towards Ursynów, clearly shows no buildings between Kabaty Metro station and ul. Belgradzka.]Otwarcie Metro Młociny
More photo coverage of the Młociny opening (in Polish) here (good photos) and here (decent blog)

This time last year:
End of Babie Lato

Coming into land from the east

Strong westerlies when flying from the UK to Warsaw mean two things: one - a quicker flight home, as the plane has a good tailwind, and two - an unusual approach to Okęcie airport. Rather than Runway 33, used for landing into the prevailing north-westerlies, we landed on Runway 29. So instead of flying over Piaseczno and Jeziorki, we came in over Konstancin and Ursynów. Right: the Vistula east of Konstancin. Note the strips of land, ripe for organic produce, farmed by hand, and sold at high prices to the supermarkets of the West.

Below: Ursynów and the Las Kabacki forest. In the foreground, the upmarket Kabaty district. When I first visited it in April 1993 with Moni (then aged two), this literally was all fields. I wondered why the Warsaw Metro bothered going out this far. Now, it's all built up. Between Kabaty and the forest is the Metro depot, acting as a natural barrier to developers. But all round the forest, land is being nibbled away. Despite being protected by law, the Las Kabacki, 900 hectares of it, will shrink over the coming decades. Yet Ursynów needs all of this forest if it to stay sane.

Below: flying over the Warsaw-Radom railway line. In the foreground the new viaduct linking Okęcie with Ursynów. In the distance, one can just make out the headlamps of a coal train heading towards the Okęcie sidings in the foreground.

This time last year:
Where am I? In the village
I must go down to the sea again