It's been a long time coming

Friday 28 November 2025. The opening of the passage under Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) station. I came on Sunday to cast mine eyes upon this marvel, for which I had waited so long.

Goodness! When did work start? Six years ago or longer? It's become a blur. So many memories; of the old underground passage, reeking of the 1980s, cigarette smoke and burnt casein, and its closure; of years of inconvenience, thumbing through back-dated magazines sold for a quarter of their cover price, trying to read the printed timetables in dim light, garbled station announcements saying that my train will be arriving at a different platform to the one advertised... A commuter hellscape that... finally... is over.

In its place, a modern, bright, civilised, convenient station; escalators, lifts, digital signs showing departures in real time; and the promise of modern retail and gastronomy replacing the dives and dinginess of what I considered at the time Poland's worst railway station.

Below: lots of space in this mall....

Left: ...Disco pants and haircuts. This place has got everything!

Though we'll still wait for the cafés and stores to open, soon there'll be a choice of a Starbucks, Costa and a CoffeeToGo; there'll be a Żabka (naturally), an Aldi (wow! I've never been in one, in Poland or in the UK! Wonder if they are licenced to sell alcohol, or is the shop deemed to be too close to the platforms?) A Subway, a Paul, a 1minute SmaczneGo and a Gorąco Polecam (the last one for me), and a second Scottish Restaurant (one at either end of the tunnel), a Relay, a Rossmann and a HeBe. Travellers will not be left wanting for choice, though I wonder what the opening hours of these shops and cafés will be, given that there's a gap of just 68 minutes between the last train of one day and the first train of the next.

Below: if not, there are several sets of these well-stocked and reliable (contactless card) vending machines dotted around the premises.

Below: looking west, with the old tunnel from Aleje Jerozolimskie behind me. The dip in the tunnel ahead leads down to what will be the underground tram stop when the tramline is finally completed (2026? 2027? I neither wish to believe the press releases nor to speculate). Once done – this will be marvellous. To be able to descend from your train and board a tram heading north to Wola or south to Mokotów will be a huge improvement in the travelling lives of Varsovians. For now, the passage down to the tram tunnel to the left is fenced off (and probably will continue to be for some time to come).

Below: to reach other platforms you no longer have to go up via the footbridge. Stairs, escalators and lifts now take you down to the tunnel. This is Platform (peron) 3, serving two tracks, one eastbound, one westbound. Try not to get confused by the track (tor) numbers, one aspect of the old station that's not been reformed. Track 23 eastbound, track 21 westbound. I think. 

Below: the western waiting room/booking hall on the ulica Tunelowa side. Smaller than the one on the Aleje Jerozolimskie side (but less busy). 

Below: here you'll find the 'Neighbour Area Plan' which nicely shows  central Warsaw's railway stations. Not 'train stations', not 'neighbor'. The Radom line terminates at W-wa Gdańska station to the north and skirts the city centre through which it used to go. Much to my annoyance.

Below: access from the booking hall to the platforms is via stairs, escalators and lifts. No more having to walk up 50 steps, then down 50 steps, then down another 50 steps, and finally up another 30 steps to get from Platform 3 to Platform 9. Real-time digital timetables everywhere.

For my purposes, the opening of the tunnel marks a huge leap forward in being able to change trains at W-wa Zachodnia. From a 20 minute walk up and down stairs and ramps, through mud, across the busy road at the back of the station and along a corrugated canyon to reach Platform 9, cut to 15 minutes with a shorter route, down to eight minutes when the western section of the tunnel was opened in October 2024, the interchange now takes six minutes. But ultimately, the Radom line should really go back to serving W-wa Ochota, W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Powiśle like it always had done. Changing at W-wa Zachodnia is no longer the monumental pain in the arse that it once was. 

Poland is getting on with it; works take a long time, but in the end they get there (hello HS2) and things get noticeably better. Repeat consistently over a couple of decades, and the contrast between then and now is stunning.

Ultimately, vast improvements like the ones I've seen here and elsewhere across Poland's railway network over the past 28 years, demonstrates that it is possible to make rail travel more attractive to passengers. Just don't privatise it. British trains are worse than Poland's and vastly more expensive.

Below: bonus photo – Last Train to Warsaw, just leaving Chynów.

This time last year:

Biorhythms are nonsense. And yet...

This time four years ago:
Twilight rambler

This time six years ago:
Late-November pictorial round-up

This time seven years ago:
Artificial Intelligence vs Artificial Consciousness

[In retrospect, an interesting and prescient piece!]

This time eight years ago:
Viaduct takes shape in the snow

This time 11 years ago:
No in-work benefits for four years?

This time 12 years ago:

Third snow-free November in a row

This time 13 years ago:

Another November without snow

This time 13 years ago:
Snow-free November

This time 15 years ago:
Krakowskie Przedmieście in the snow

Morskie Oko in winter in black & white

Following on from last week's morning exploration of the Vistula Escarpment between Smolna and Tamka, today's morning walk to work (a seminar at the Regent hotel) took me down the escarpment by Morskie Oko. More black & white snaps with the 10-20mm Nikkor wide-angle zoom...

Snow began to fall just as the morning rush hour got under way; I travelled by bus to Stokłosy, by Metro to Racławicka, and walked from there to the Regent - I didn't see a single snow plough. Surely they were not caught out? The weather forecast predicted this fall... Whatever; there was no untoward traffic chaos either on Puławska nor on any of the side streets. Warsaw coped without skipping a beat.

It is entirely possible that in six weeks' time, we'll be enjoying 20C warmth... or still shivering under a light dusting of late snow.

This time last year:
Preparations for Lent

This time three years ago:
Religion and Spiritual Growth

This time five years ago:
When trams break down

This time seven years ago: 
Who are the thickies of Europe?

This time eight years ago:
Oldschool Photochallenge: Response No. 2

This time nine years ago:
Oligocene water from Jeziorki 

Plac Unii open but underwhelming

The Grand Opening attracted dense crowds - a week and a bit later, on a Tuesday lunchtime, the crowds were no longer there. Plac Unii, Warsaw's latest shopping mall, is now fully open for business, though I can't say I'm particularly impressed by the retail choice.

The mall itself is nice enough, and it's a mere two minutes' stroll from my office, but the shops are nought but the usual mall suspects - the retail outlets you can find in Arcadia, Promenada, Złote Tarasy, Galeria Mokotów, Blue City, Klif, Wileńska or any of the lesser Warsaw malls and indeed in malls across most of Poland's agglomerations. There's an H&M, Zara, Maximo Ponsi, Benetton, Deni Cler etc etc. Empik, Inmedio, iSpot etc. A Vistula for me should I run out of suits or shirts.

Food wise - poor. Wiking - overpriced home cooking with a Scandinavian twist, Thai Wok - overpriced stodge with a vaguely Asian twist, a Subway. No Scottish Restaurant, no burger monarchy or pizza outbuilding.

Has a quarter of a century of the free market made me too fussy, or has Warsaw shopping got a tad dull? Architecturally, however, I can't complain. It's a fine building from within (I commented on its external appearance recently), on a sunny day like today, a pleasant place to be. Some snaps then...

Plac Unii is airy and spacious. There are still some vacant retail units.

The interior is 'Y'-shaped with shops on the ground and first floors, a food court and supermarket in the basement. Left: looking west towards ul. Waryńskiego, Costa Coffee tables situated on a bridge linking two passages. Office windows line the upper floors, a glass roof lets the sunshine flood in. 

Maybe local office workers have not yet got used to it, but for a Tuesday lunchtime, the place was very quiet. Or maybe it will get busier as the weather gets worse... Warsaw's best malls are much busier.

There was still an air of 'just finished' about Plac Unii; men in hard-hats and hi-vis vests mingling with shoppers, architects talking on their iPhones while consulting plans. 

Right: I'm curious as to how the glass roof will cope with half a metre of snow that will settle upon this structure if not this winter than certainly some time this decade. The building was designed by the late Stefan Kurylowicz, who died in a plane crash in 2011.

Good to see the neon: Supersam was Poland's first supermarket (1962). It stood on Pl. Unii and was knocked down in 2006 to make way for the new retail and office development. The brand is back, as a supermarket down in the basement of Plac Unii, though I'm told the retail experience is even less exciting than a Carrefour Express.

This time two years ago:
Visceral and Permanent, Part II

This time three years ago:
Autumn colours, locally

This time four years ago:
Edinburgh

Warsaw has a new landmark

Won't be long now until Our City gains yet another shopping and office complex. This one's right outside my office... Temptations by the score... due to open next month, in good time for Christ's Mass.

This is Plac Unii, located on Pl. Unii Lubelskiej (Plac = Platz = Place = Square but this one's more of a roundabout). Like Rondo ONZ 1, the development is named simply after its address.

Since moving here, I've been watching it grow and grow; controversially, its height looms large over the panorama of the Belvedere palace from Łazienki park. "Sacrilege!" shout traditionalists - they have a point.

But in the less rarified environs of the bottom end of ul. Marszałkowska (where it meets the top end of ul. Puławska), the new development is a) welcome and b) pulls the neighbourhood in an up-market direction. It is, however, a shame that Warsaw's first self-service supermarket, the modernist Supersam (1962), had to go to make way for it.

Anyway, today, for the first time, I noticed that shops are in place in the new complex. There's a Maximo Ponci on the corner. There's an ING logo on top of the office tower. And leaving work this evening... Hang on a second... That's wonderful! Just look at that lighting...

May I be the first to offer a popular name for the building... Kameleon?

This time last year:
Tatra time (worth another watch and listen!)

This time two years ago:
The passing of Old Poland

This time three years ago:
A glorious week

This time four years ago:
Trampled underfoot: Sobieski and the Turks at Vienna

This time five years ago:
The first, spontaneous signs, of a Park + Ride at Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Early autumn atmospheres, Jeziorki

A warm blanket of snow

I consider temperatures down to -8C to be eminently bearable - wrap up warm (M65 parka, Rossignol skiing gloves, fur-trapper hat, Biedronka boots and my new grey scarf, maybe a thin sweater under my Vistula suit - no vest or t-shirt, heavens forfend!) and such temperatures hold no dread. Minus 15C is a different matter; this limits my enjoyment of being outdoors - unless the sun's shining.

Last night it snowed hard, but this morning the temperature was a mere -1C which, after the -10C we had on Sunday, is a doddle. There was much snow. But - dare I say - pleasantly warm. Much more pleasant than +2C with rain and wind. So then - a few snaps from this morning. 
 

Skwer Olgi i Andrzeja Małkowskiego, Mokotów.  Silent morning park.

A view of Sielce from the top of the Vistula escarpment

Ul. Gagarina, looking east towards ul. Czerniakowska

 

Outside my office, Al. Szucha. Cars parked overnight are hidden by snow

This time last year:
Tinker, Tailor - the allure of film-going

This time five years ago:
Trundling Tamara