Now is the time to see Warsaw or any other Northern European city – when the weather's grim and tourists are sparse. Let's face it – exploring cities is not about sunbathing, but revelling in the architecture without the distraction of the bucket-list selfie crowd. The lowest of the low season, between the New Year and Easter, is when it's best to wander around. Below: the market of Warsaw's 17th century New Town, Friday lunchtime – empty. Now's the time to savour the atmosphere, the klimat.
Below: Warsaw's Barbakan – the remaining stretch of the mediaeval wall encircling the Old Town. Without the hawkers touting tourist tat, without buskers, without garish adverts for shops or restaurants. Walled cities speak of a time of constant invasions and the need for defensive structures.
Below: from the steps of the Church of the Holy Spirit, looking down ulica Mostowa curving and dipping gently down towards the Vistula. The Barbakan gate to the right.
Below: by night, same composition, unsullied by the tourist throng milling noisily from shot bar to shot bar.
Below: the Barbakan as dusk falls. The Old Town lies silent.
Below: the last weekend with the Christmas lights on; the city authorities start taking them down on Monday. Ulica Freta with nary a human being in sight.
Below: corner of ul. Freta and ul. Kościelna. Architecture, cobblestones and remnants of snow give that European authenticity best appreciated at this time of year.
Below: the edge of the New Town, early-postwar Socialist Realist architecture. A Żabka convenience store is now an obligatory fixture on many a street corner in Poland's towns and cities. De jure it's actually a Żabka café, with its two barstools, a windowsill table measuring three foot by one foot six, and a self-service coffee machine, which allows the premises to stay open on Sundays pursuant to Polish retail law. From the tourism industry point of view, this is good, as visitors can safely graze on salt snacks and energy drinks the whole week round.
Most of my life has been spent living in the suburbs - 36 years in the West London suburb of the Borough of Ealing; four years in the suburbs of Coventry (including two on the campus of Warwick University) and 25 in the Warsaw district of Ursynów - it's 'green' parts - Pyry and Jeziorki. And of those years, 37 have been spent living in detached houses. No one living on the other side of my four walls. The past few years have seen me spending more and more time in the countryside, which I am coming to prefer over suburbia. I used to think suburbia was the best place to live; today - I'm not so sure, as housing density and traffic increases.
The past four days I have been cat-sitting at Moni's flat just off Warsaw's New Town (Nowe Miasto) - that's 'new' as opposed to Warsaw's Old Town - 15th century rather than 13th (rebuilt after the war). Below: looking at ulica Freta from the New Town market square, rush hour.
This is an entirely new experience to me - staying for more than a single hotel-night in a city centre - being in my daughter's flat, with kitchen, pet, routine, office work online - and city-centre life. Strange.
Left: just 400m from Moni's front door, the Barbakan marks the border between the New Town (ahead) and the Old Town (behind). Built in 1540 and rebuilt after WW2. Fewer tourists penetrate the New Town, preferring the more commercialised Old Town, its market square and the castle square. Those that make it beyond the Barbakan tend to be more curious and less prone to boozy excesses.
So it's quiet - but not silent. On the działka, the only things that make any noise are the fridge and my bedroom radiator as they cool and warm; other than that, there are no 'bumps in the night'. In the flat, however, I have the impression of being in a hotel or student halls of residence - beyond these four walls, there are people - things going on.
Through my sleep, I dimly hear somebody's alarm clock going off. People are walking up and down the stairs. Someone's hoovering - where? there's a flat upstairs, downstairs, to the left and to the right right. Little boxes all around. People separated from me not me hundreds of metres, but by the thickness of a wall.
The flats are are of various sizes (Moni's is very small - one room, tiny kitchen, tiny bathroom), the building's just four floors high - so no lift. But for one person - entirely adequate, cheap to heat and light.
In the country, I can go for a 90-minute walk and literally not encounter any other human being during that time. I can revel in the solitude, the peace, the luxury of uninterrupted trains of thought.
But here, I am a stone's throw from a UNESCO World Heritage Site. My evening strolls - either through dark, cobbled backstreets that could be from an Expressionist film-set, or else along brightly lit, car-free thoroughfares decorated for Xmas and full of tourists and revellers - are quite magical. A different magic to that of silent misty forests and orchards in the encroaching dusk.
Neither forms of magic are on offer in suburbia, all rushing cars, muddy puddles where pavements should be.
Living so close to a street full of excellent restaurants, cafes and bars, living one minute rather than 30 minutes walk from the nearest grocery shop, a Carrefour Express, however, is costly. The temptation to live it up is great. Crisps and a beer? Don't mind if I do. Good bottle of wine?
After a few days' city-centre living, I must say I can see the appeal. Massively. A great counter-balance to rural life, but so much better than suburban life which has little of the civilisation of the city, and little of the comforting calm of the countryside. Suburbia is not what it was.
As a rule, Warsaw's Christmas decorations are getting better each year; in good taste, avoiding the garish, and increasingly imaginative. Result: people come out to look, filling bars and restaurants along the way. Starting at Nowe Miasto (below), through Stare Miasto, taking in the Royal Castle, Krakowskie Przedmieście, Nowy Świat, Al. Ujazdowskie, down past Łazienki Park.
Below: ul. Freta, connecting Nowe Miasto with Stare Miasto. In the distance the illuminations around Barbakan.
Below: ul. Piwna looking up from Pl. Zamkowy
My personal favourites - an illuminated peacock, symbolic of the royal parks, on Al. Ujazdowskie...
...and a reprise from last year, a Jelcz 'Ogórek' bus, roof rack laden with presents.
Pictures taken on New Year's Day; on 30 December there was a brief power cut in Jeziorki after which the computer wouldn't reboot and had to be taken away for repair - it returned yesterday, so back to pictorial blogging!
Bonus shot, update 8 January, World David Bowie Day... [for He gave the world Warszawa]
Dan Cruickshank's BBC4 documentary about Warsaw is well worth watching. I watched it tonight with my father - a Warsaw Uprising veteran - for the second time in a week.
Apart from being a truly uplifting story about how a nation resurrected its capital, it's a personal tale of a return to childhood. In 1956, the seven year-old, Dan moved to the city when his father became the Warsaw correspondent of the communist Daily Worker. (This detail reminds us of how many 'useful idiots' the USSR had working for it within the British elite.)
The documentary follows Dan Cruickshank as he returns to Warsaw for the very first time since he left the city as a boy. He finds the apartment in which the family lived (on the corner of the Old Town square, Świętojańska 33/2), and shows us pictures of buildings he drew as a child with amazing levels of details (not surprising then, that he'd grow up to pursue a career in architecture).
Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Nazis but lives again, a thriving, vibrant city that blends 21st Century skyscrapers with a rebuilt Old Town. Nearly 90% of Warsaw was destroyed, Mr Cruickshank reminds us. The story he tells is one of a heroic city's courage and willpower. "Warsaw came back from the dead in a most miraculous of resurrections," he says.
The destruction of the city was "a premeditated crime, devised before the war had even started - to destroy the city and kill its inhabitants. To destroy Warsaw was to destroy Polish hopes for the future, to destroy its identity." Looking over Nazi documents held at the IPN, Poland's national institute of remembrance, Mr Cruickshank noted that Hitler's plans called for the total annihilation of Warsaw and its replacement by an architecturally banal, smaller German settlement, from which the conquered lands would be administered.
Footage from the incredible 3D animation Warszawa Miasto Ruin (below), shows the state of the city after the Nazis had left, point zero from which the rebuilding had to take place. The question facing Poland's new rulers in 1945 was just how to rebuild the capital.
The role of Polish town planners and architects who managed to convince the Soviet placemen in charge of the country that the Old Town should be restored to its original glory was crucial. Mr Cruickshank sets out the political situation that Poles were in after the war: "The Soviets had plans of their own. Poland had passed from being under one totalitarian overlord to another." By 1956, regime had arrested quarter of a million Poles for wanting an independent Poland, says Mr Cruickshank, saying that 23,000 had been killed under Stalinism.
Against this background, there were two competing visions for the rebuilding of Warsaw - straight, broad boulevards, with stone-clad apartments for the apparatchiks - or rebuilding the city as it had been before, the gargantuan vs human scale. Planners of the new communist regime wanted to build a modern city for the workers, a socialist utopia. But to buy in the population, the communists realised that the city needed to have its heart back.
The role of the rebuilding of the Old Town in post-war communist propaganda was significant. The slogan Cały naród buduje swoją stolicę ('The whole nation builds its capital') - worked, because Warsaw loved its Old Town and wanted it back. I was moved by the interview with the elderly Warsaw lady who recalled as a child spending Sundays with her family moving the rubble. The communists bought off discontent at the price of compromising their vision of a grandiose city built for a Homo Sovieticus worker army.
It is worth looking at the images for odgruzowywanie Warszawy on Google Images. "When people of Warsaw wanted to put the horrors of Nazi occupation behind them, they had to do so under the shadow of Stalinism," says Mr Cruickshank.
And then there's the Palace of Culture. "A vision of a socialist utopia. A Soviet vision for the new Warsaw. The unwelcome gift from the Soviet authorities, paid for from the exploitation of Poland's natural resources, a Soviet brand burnt into the heart of the city," he says.
About half of the hour-long documentary is dedicated to the story of the rebuilding of the Old Town and the Royal Castle, and how it was done. I learned several new facts. The Old Town as we see it today is not an absolute replica of how it looked before the war, but rather an ideal of how it looked like in its glory days in the 18th Century. The plans were based on Bernardo Bellotto's paintings and pre-war technical drawings made by architecture students. The City Museum - located in three of the five houses in the Old Town that survived, thanks to their fire-proofed interiors - contain many original features including painted ceilings from the early 18th Century.
Work on rebuilding the Royal Castle - seriously damaged in 1939 then totally destroyed in 1944 - didn't start until 1971, and was largely paid for by Poles, including those living abroad. The communists didn't want it. Royalty and lavish interiors are the very stuff that inspires revolutions, said Mr Cruickshank. Of the treasures currently on display in the castle, 80% of that which had survived had been hidden from both the Nazis and the communists. Historic doors were smuggled out after the war by being used to carry away in rubble. But much was recreated. Behind the throne, some sixtty or so silver eagles. The originals were all looted by German soldiers. One turned up in New York in 1991. From it, the rest were re-cast. The result is that today, "with its sumptuous gilded interiors, the Castle looks as if the war had never happened - and I suppose that's just the point," he says. "This is a heroic story for a city of heroes."
Aesthetically, it works, concludes Mr Cruickshank. The people of Warsaw had recreated their city "as a vital, total, work of art. Seventy years on and World War 2 is a distant memory. Warsaw today is a boom town..." To prove the point, he visits Warsaw Spire, at an earlier phase of construction without much of its cladding. This will be, he says, the city's second-highest building after the Palace of Culture. "The resurrection of Warsaw has been miraculous, from a city almost 90%, destroyed a place of despair and desolation," he says as the camera down sweeps across a modern skyline. "We can learn much from Warsaw. Confidence in the future. Passion and verve, commitment, determination and love;" the camera cuts away to the large Kocham Warszawę sign on the Spire (below).
I hope Dan Cruickshank's documentary will one day be shown on Polish television. I'm proud of the way the BBC has portrayed Our City.
As Golden Autumn turned to cold greyness I promised a visit to the Old Town when the first snows started to settle on the cobbled streets. Today, though the temperature was only -1C, the wind was a damp northwesterly, the Old Town was calling.
Below: on the way, the junction of ul. Kozia (left) and Krakowskie Przedmieście (splendidly and tastefully lit, to the right). Fewer people than expected on a Saturday night, even in January. Some hardy souls out and about to capture the atmosphere, but no crowds.
Left: looking down ul. Kozia (notable for the caricature and cartoon museum) towards Krakowskie Przedmieście. In the distance on the corner (click to enlarge), Kino Kultura, a self-confessed art-house cinema run by the Polish Association of Film Makers.
Below: ul. Kanonia in the snowstorm. Howling winds made the evening feel much colder than it was.
Right: looking towards ul. Kanonia from ul. Dziekańska, the walls of Katedra Św. Jana (St John's Cathedral) on the left. With the temperature just below zero, wet patches on the roadway indicate where the hot water pipes are running just below the surface.
Below: view of the Barbakan, the Old Town's mid-16th Century defensive fortifications, from the Old Town walls.
Below: ul. Krzywe Koło (lit. 'Crooked Wheel Street'), with its 90 degree bend.
Below: ul. Piwna, back on the tourist trail, Christmas lighting and small gaggles of foreign-speaking visitors taking in the town.
When the snow starts a' fallin', Warsaw's worth a visit. Ideally, it should be a bit colder, so the snow's not so damp, no wind - or just enough to produce slight swirling; the best time of day? Just after sunset and early evening, before the nightlife kicks off. Annoyingly, my photos of ul. Rycerska didn't come out - too blurred - next time a tripod would come in handy, as the street is not well lit.
As the weather improves and hours of daylight lengthen, the Old Town beckons. Far more tourists and young people on the streets; more musicians and jugglers and the like. But for me, the allure of the Old Town (and indeed New Town) is found in those byways less travelled.
Above: Straddling the Vistula escarpment is the Dom Profesora (professors' house). The main entrance, via a bridge, is on ul. Brzozowa, while the lower floors look out over ul. Bugaj at the foot of the escarpment.
Above: the backs of houses on ul. Boleść, those balconies looking more New Orleans than Warsaw. The sun is low in the sky
In a little garden, I see what at first sight appear to be bluebells - a common sight in English woodland at this time of year, but quite unusual in Poland. So unusual that few Poles will know what 'bluebell' is in Polish. And unusual enough for me to check... (click to enlarge). I don't think these are bluebells. Anyone care to suggest what flowers these are?
Below: a socialist-realist mosaic mural on the side of a house on ul. Mostowa. Classicism meets the Working Man (and Woman) at work and at play.
Below: Looking south from the crossroads - the junction where ul. Mostowa, Stara, Boleść and Brzozowa meet. To the right, the eastern end of the Barbakan (Old Town fortified wall); the slope of the Vistula escarpment is clearly visible.
Below: Kolumna Zygmunta on the castle square, caught in the sharp light of a setting mid-April sun.
I wrote recently about the less-frequented streets and passages of Warsaw's Old Town and New Town, situated over the Vistula Escarpment. Here are some more views. Below: this is ul. Celna (literally, 'customs street'), which runs from ul. Brzozowa to the Old Town market square. Picture taken from the stone steps leading down toward the river.
Hand held at three-quarters of a second exposure (steadying my elbow on a wall), the photo shows how well Nikon's Vibration Reduction (VR) system works. Without it, the image would look unacceptably blurred.
Left: this is ul. Krzywe Koło (lit. Crooked Wheel Street)which runs off the north side of the Rynek (Old Town Market). Less of a wheel than a broken dog's leg, the atmosphere on Krzywe Koło at dusk, with no people or cars, is timeless. Where are we... 2011, 1951, 1881? Electric lighting replaced gas, but otherwise, the cobblestones, the cobbled pavements, doors, windows and walls could be from any period in the past two centuries.
Right: looking down ul. Dawna (lit. Long Time Ago Street) towards the Sanctuary of Our Lady and ul. Kanonia. This pic and the one above left were both shot without VR (18-55mm Nikkor set at 18mm) at a quarter of a second. With a steady hand, you can just about get away with it. Three quarters of a second is way too long to hold blur-free unless you have VR. The current generation of 18-55mm Nikkors have VR, optically an excellent lens, and lightweight (although it feels a bit flimsy it's actually very robust).
Today's Gazeta Wyborcza mentions this story about a commemorative plaque from the inter-war period being tampered with by the communist authorities. Coincidentally, yesterday I photographed this plaque (below) on top of Kolumna Zygmunta, which somehow seems not to be mentioned in any online references to the monument.
The statue of King Sigismund III stands on a pedestal atop a 8.5m-high marble column. Below it is a larger lower pedestal around which are four bronze plaques in Latin with dedications to the King (including one mentioning that he 'recaptured Smolensk'). Above the plaque on the western face is a smaller one, pictured above. The text is faithfully translated below to show the distorted nature of communist Newspeak.
COLUMN OF SIGISMUND III BARBAROUSLY DESTROYED BY THE HITLERITES IN 1944 REBUILT IN THE CAPITAL OF PEOPLE'S POLAND ON THE FIFTH ANNIVERSARY OF THE HOLIDAY OF LIBERATION ON 22 JULY 1949 WHEN THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC WAS BOLESŁAW BIERUT FROM VOLUNTARY CONTRIBUTIONS FROM WORKERS IN THE INDUSTRY: MINERAL MEMBERS OF THE TRADE UNIONS OF CONSTRUCTION, CERAMICS AND RELATED TRADES AND THE CHEMICAL INDUSTRY
Question now is - leave this for posterity - or remove it? What should be done about traces of Poland's communist past? I've photographed PRL-era plaques on the Most Łazienkowski bridge and by the escalators by Trasa W-Z. There are more around Plac Konstytucji and the Palace of Culture.
But given the iconic nature of the Kolumna Zygmunta to the Polish people and history (after all, it is not a PRL relict but part of the capital's cityscape for over three and half centuries, the fact that this Stalinist-era plaque has survived even the late Lech Kaczyński's term as mayor of Warsaw is surprising. Maybe the fact that it was cast in the same style as the original 17th C. plaques beneath it means that it has escaped the notice of the keepers of national purity.
* Święto = feast-day, holiday (as in holy day), festival. From święty, holy, saint. The word - with its religious connotations, has been put to use to describe 22 July 1944; not actually the day that Poland was 'liberated' from the Nazis (the Warsaw Uprising would not start for another week yet) but the date that the manifesto for the Soviet-backed communist puppet government was announced. Voluntary contributions? No reason to doubt that people genuinely wished to see the column re-erected in the Plac Zamkowy - but why only trade unionists and industrial workers?
Warsaw's Old Town always draws crowds of tourists. They tend to wander down from Plac Zamkowy starting from Kolumna Zygmunta, drifting down ul. Piwna or Świętojańska to the Old Town market square. The more adventurous will go further to the Barbakan, and then usually retrace their steps, ticking off Warsaw as done. Earlier this month, I took some pictures on ul. Kanonia and ul. Jezuicka in the Old Town. These two streets are less used by tourists but still have the same charm (if not more - there are fewer souvenir stores) and they open up the way to interesting vistas off the beaten track.
Now to explore a bit further. Dropping down a steep flight of steps that's ul. Dawna, we find ourselves on ul. Brzozowa. This street opens out on a semi-circular platform overlooking the Vistula escarpment and Praga beyond the river dominated by the twin spires of the Katedra Praska. At dusk, there's a sense of peace and security; the tragic history of our beloved Warsaw is firmly in the past.
Below: Walking along ul. Brzozowa towards the end affords a different view of Stara Prochownia (the old gunpowder storehouse) to the one you'd get from descending ul. Mostowa. The building is now a theatre (Stara Prochoffnia - that's "off" as in "off Broadway").
And finally, we go down ul. Stara (below) as it opens out onto the square of the New Town market. Winter dusk, a frosty cloudless evening creates a perfect mood.
Think of Warsaw's Old Town, and you'll think of the Rynek Starego Miasta (Old Town Market), the Barbakan, the Plac Zamkowy facing the Royal Castle. But there's more to the Old Town than that. This evening I was on ul. Jezuicka to pick up Eddie from the Teatr Staromiejski where he went with his class to see The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)in Polish.
A good opportunity to take some photos of the less well-known parts of the Old Town. Above: looking from ul. Jezuicka (standing outside the theatre) towards ul. Kanonia.
Above: looking along ul. Kanonia towards ul. Jezuicka; in the background St. John's Cathedral (katedra św. Jana).
Above: ul. Kanonia, the archway to the right opens up to ul. Dziekania. And there's Eddie. Sadly, he wasn't impressed by the play, or theatre in general. It was a cold night; I was glad for the warmth of the big furry hood of my new M-65 parka.
On my way to a breakfast meeting at the Hotel Bristol this morning I made an early start so that I could snap some snaps of the Old Town in a mantle of first snow.
Above: ul. Freta, connecting the Old Town with the New Town. It's 8am and the place is nearly empty. Below: ul. Mostowa leading down to ul. Boleść and the Stara Prochownia (Old Gunpowder Store, now a theatre). Not a street for racing down!
Left: the steps leading down to the Trasa W-Z (the East-West Road that leads from the Trasa Armii Krajowej all the way to the Trasa Zmieniona).
Below: Through the Barbakan gates and into the Old Town proper. In the Market Place a big effort is going on to clear the footpaths so that tourists can get around.
I'm wearing my M-65 field jacket for the second day. By late-March I will be heartily sick of wearing it day in, day out, but it is supremely practical and comfortable with its quilted lining; tried and tested in the most adverse of winter weather conditions.
Below: I reach my destination with 20 minutes to spare. This photo of snow piled up outside the Hotel Bristol (right) gives you some idea of how heavy was yesterday's snowfall. To get such massive heaps of snow last winter, we had to wait until February.
Below: Back to Powiśle and our office. A little game for my readers, the first of this winter - 'Guess the Car'. What's the make of the vehicle shrouded by a heavy blanket of snow? (Answers in late-March 2011.)
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