The long summer holiday

This summer has been pleasantly long. Other than June's heatwave (unpleasant, it must be said), the weather has been nicely balanced and without extremes. Some rain – still not enough (my apples are small for mid-August), few sweltering nights, plenty of sun. And daily walks. Join me then for a brisk tour of the manor... (before my back twang – enforced immobility means I have time to process photos.)

Below: where the asphalt ends. Gmina Chynów has published plans for laying down new asphalt on ten stretches of local road... but not here. Fortunately. The dirt-track leading off into the orchards and forests beyond will remain unhardened for some time to come. And the lane on which I live will continue to see only local traffic.

 

Below: Waypoint One - the first point along my journey where I have to decide: turn left for Grobice, or carry on straight for Machcin? As orchard yields to forest, the smell of pine resin makes itself felt.

Below: Waypoint Two – a left turn (along the grassy track) takes me past several orchards into the centre of Grobice (and its one shop); going on straight takes me into the dark forest and Machcin beyond.

Below: one of the Canonical Prospects. Heading up towards where the track forks for Grabina (straight on) or Adamów Rososki (bear right).

Below: leaving Adamów Rososki. Love that sky, those clouds. Orchards line one side of the road.

Below: horse, Machcin. Reminds me of the horses painted 17,000 years ago in the caves at Lascaux.

Below: the border between Adamów Rososki and Jakubowizna. A dark cloud slides in moodily from the west.

On the way back home. I enter the forest from the south, crossing the boundary between old, abandoned orchards and the pine plantation (left). The air is cool and apple-scented, unbearably beautiful; this soon gives way to the smell of pine resin. A hare crosses my path.

Bonus shots from the past week: Below: Michalczew station, two stops down the line from Chynów.

Below: Czech-built, Czech-registered Atec 122 Zephyr 2000 ultralight aircraft overhead. 

Below: buzzed by a PZL W-3 Sokół (the VIP transport variant); I saw quite a few military aircraft in the skies locally this week; they are practicing for Saturday's big parade and fly-past.

Below: trackside views... a Warsaw-bound Koleje Mazowieckie service has just left Chynów station. A modern Polish-built NEWAG Impuls multiple unit (so much more comfortable than the modernised EN57s that share duties on this line).

Below:  two minutes later, and here is the back end of the przyspieszony ('accelerated') limited-stop service from Warsaw to Skarżysko-Kamienna being pushed along from the rear by a Polish-built PESA Gama 111 locomotive. It is slowing down as it approaches Chynów station.

Back home to feed the cats and kittens. Here's Dorian, doing OK. Wave to the folks, Dorian...

This time three years ago:
More about Walking and Health
(The definitive meta-analysis that proves more paces = better health outcomes)

This time four years ago:
Older, wiser – more credulous?

This time five years ago:
Powerless in Jakubowizna

This time six years ago:
Kilometres of new asphalt for Gmina Chynów 

This time seven years ago:
One man went to mow
[out with the scythe on the działka]

This time nine years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time 12 years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time 13 years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time 14 years ago:
Kraków and back in a day by train 

This time 15 years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time 16 years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 17 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 18 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 19 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion

Get On Down

"Expect the unexpected". I always taught the children that when they were small. This morning, having fed the cats and partaken of my coffee, I set off for a short pre-breakfast walk, accompanied by Scrapper. It had occurred to me that Pacyfik (Pacio) was missing from the early roll-call, but nothing unusual there – a late return from a long night out, I reckoned.

I got to the end of the drive, turned left, and heard a miaowing. "Who's that?" I thought... "It's most probably Pacio. I looked around, but couldn't see any movement in the undergrowth. Then it occurred to me – the sound is not coming from the depths of the next-door forest, but above me. I moved out onto the lane to scan the treetops. Scrapper joined me. We watched – we listened. We could hear miaowing high up in the branches. Finally, I caught sight of Pacyfik.

He was about ten metres (33 feet) off the ground, high up in the canopy of a tall pine tree (see photo, left. Click on it, then right-click the expanded image to witness it in bigger scale). Pacio was calling down to me, evidently in much distress. Having assessed the situation, I returned home with Scrapper for some breakfast and to consult ChatGPT. Which advised me to clear ground under the tree, and leave out some cat food to lure down the cat. In the worst case, it gave me the phone number for the local volunteer fire brigade and text (in Polish) to explain the situation to the call-handler (useful!).

After a filling my stomach with large bowl of porridge, I returned to the forest with lopper and secateurs and cleared a path from the lane to the base of the tree. Then I removed saplings and dead vegetation from around the area, so should Pacyfik fall, he will not become impaled on anything. Soon I was joined by Czester and Hipek, outside since after breakfast, who had been alerted by Pacyfik's miaowing.

And here's where it gets interesting. At some point, Czester, who had been watching all this keenly, and clearly understood the situation, began to scale the same tree, heading up towards his brother. He climbed about two thirds of the way up then stopped. Pacyfik, seeing this, made his way successfully to the next branch down, and then paused, unsure of what to do next. Czester then started to show Pacyfik how to reverse down the trunk, tail-first. Pacyfik was still scared and unwilling to make the next move. Once again Czester moved up, stopped, and then started to reverse. Once on a lower branch, he descended to ground level without difficulty. Below: ARF (Arboreal Rescue Feline) 1st Class Czester in action. Motto: Firmipes in altis – 'Surefooted at Altitude'. Pacyfik's stumpy tail, a genetic defect, makes it harder for him to balance than regular-tailed cats.

Pacyfik (who has a short, stumpy tail unlike Czester's normal one) finally latched on, and copying Czester's moves, proceeded backwards with great caution along the smooth and branch-free section of the trunk until he got to a branch from another tree. 

He zigged down that, zagged down another, and soon he was about half a metre from my outstretched arms. I was standing short distance off the ground in the fork between two saplings. A bit of movement from either ends and I had Pacyfik safely in my grasp. As I cuddled him, much relieved, I could smell the pine-resin in his fur. And then a triumphant procession home, with Pacio in the company of Czester and Hipek.

A slap-up feast was laid on, rich in fishy goodness, during which Pacyfik somewhat disgraced himself by hissing and growling at Hipek, who had shown such steadfast solidarity with him while he was stuck up the tree. Each cat is as different as we humans are all different.

Soundtrack to the rescue operation: Get Down by Gene Chandler (played by MJDJ on last Friday's Yours Sinsouly show on West Wilts Radio)

This time last year:
Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (VII)

This time last two years ago:
Łódź for the weekend

This time three years ago:
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

This time four years ago: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time seven years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time seven years ago:
A tale of two orchards

This time nine years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time ten years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time 13 years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 14 years ago:
Beach day, Llŷn Peninsula

This time 15 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 16 years ago:
8am and it's 26C already

Letters to an Imaginary Grandson (VII)

As a child, I was fascinated by the notion of endurance; from the Le Mans 24 Hours, the Peking to Paris race, the first aerial circumnavigation, the Long Range Desert Group raids far behind enemy lines. Long-distance journeys – expeditions, treks, these inspired me greatly. I'd re-enact these feats with Lego in our back garden that served as ocean and tundra. Getting ready, taking everything that you need, but no unnecessary baggage.

Physical endurance – getting into your stride, getting into the groove and getting on with it, hour after hour, day after day. As they pass, mile after mile of ocean or steppe, a comforting monotony is established. You settle into it. Distance ceases to be the enemy.

A journey of a thousand miles starts with a single step. My daily walks, which average more than 8km or five miles, are never easy to start. The lazy side of my brain is telling me that I've already chalked up a good series of walks this week, and that today I can afford to have a shorter walk. But once I get going, once I'm in the groove, it gets easier. The temptation to take the easy option passes.

When I started at Gunnersbury Grammar aged 11, my parents applied for a local authority travel pass, for children who lived three miles or more from school. A man with an opisometer at the town hall showed my mother on a map that we lived a few hundred yards short. And so my parents' application failed. [I have tested this with Google Maps and indeed, this is the case.] 

This shows that in the late 1960s, it was considered acceptable for children to walk three miles to school. This is about an hour's brisk walk. Slightly longer than the walk to the beach from Maison Maternelle and the Polish cub-scouts' barracks in Stella-Plage on my summer holiday in 1969. 

Long walks have not held terrors for me since the cub-scout camps that I attended since I was seven. There was always something interesting to look forward to at the end of the walk; boredom is often what stifles the ability to endure.

One walk I remember well; Polish scout camp in Hampshire, 1970. I was 12. We were on a long route march, early start. I'd skipped breakfast; the scrambled egg was too runny. After several miles walking with a heavy rucksack, I started feeling unwell. I did not know it, but my blood-sugar level was dangerously low. I felt ill – nauseous and wobbly; I had to stop and sit down. I'd never experienced this before. Someone offered me a boiled sweet. A single orange-barley drop. Once I'd popped it in my mouth and the sugar began to dissolve and enter my bloodstream – I felt miraculously better. From that day on, I came to understand the importance of preparation for sustained physical effort – above all, food and water, and proper clothing, protection against heat and cold and wet.

My first real test of endurance was at the age of 28, cycling from the Santander on the north coast of Spain to Faro on the south coast of Portugal. I covered 1,100 kilometres in ten days' cycling. Some days I'd rack up over 180km. This journey, well-planned in advance, was one of the most important events in my life. It gave me a perspective as to what's physically doable.

Physical endurance is mostly mental. Mind over matter. Overcoming doubt, laziness, boredom, and knowing that you will prevail. Once you reach a goal, that challenge, that distance, becomes a milestone by which to measure future endeavours.

Somehow physical endurance comes easier than the mental stamina needed to stay focused on a given subject (especially a none-too-pleasant or boring one) such as revising for an exam. But it does create a framework within which to measure mental endurance.

This time last year:
Łódź for the weekend

This time two years ago:
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

This time three years ago: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time six years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time six year:
A tale of two orchards

This time eight years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time nine years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time 12 years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 13 years ago:
Beach day, Llyn Peninsula

This time 14 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 15 years ago:
8am and 26C already

Zamość the Magnificent

Day three of the road trip brings in Zamość; I've been here before a few times, it's a fantastic place to visit. (An introduction to it here.)

Stunningly beautiful, unique in Poland in its scale and splendour, Zamość was designed as the ideal Renaissance city. Ain't it beautiful? Just as Edinburgh or Prague are best visited on gloomy days in late November or early February's perpetual dusk with street lights reflecting off the wet cobblestones, so Zamość, Sandomierz and Portmeirion should be visited on cloudless blue-sky days that suggest the Mediterranean. Below: the town hall dominates the northern side of the market square.

Below: the square of the Great Market (Rynek wielki), around which Zamość was planned in 1580, is flanked by merchants' houses with colonnaded arcades. 

Beauty overload. Down every side street a new vista.

A walk through the historic centre of Zamość is so rewarding. Italy has been brought north by Paduan architect Bernardo Morando, commissioned by Jan Zamoyski to design a Renaissance 'ideal city', the only one in Central Europe.

Below: classical perfection, proportioned with the humanist ideals of the Renaissance in mind. The Great Market is popularly said to be exactly 100m by 100m although the metre was not being defined for another two hundred years as one ten-millionth of the shortest distance from the North Pole to the equator passing through Paris. And yet a quick check with the 'measure distance' tool on Google Maps shows that it's pretty damned close!

Below: not just streets, but courtyards and communal gardens set back from the thoroughfares. Pop through this arch, and enter a more private space.

Below: over three hundred years before Ebenezer Howard came up with the concept of the garden city, Zamość was providing its citizens with a quality of life that Victorian Britons would have envied.

Church architecture fits in perfectly. The Baroque Franciscan church dates back to the late 17th century.

Whilst I have bewailed the overtouristed nature of destinations such as Prague, Kraków, Sandomierz and Kazimierz Dolny, Zamość as yet has to fall victim to its own attractiveness. The holiday season is in full swing, yet the crowds are not here. There are plenty of places to sit down and eat, and the side streets are not choked with throngs of gormless folk grazing on ice cream and fizzy drinks.

It's quiet and peaceful, and I love it. The optimal tourist/attraction ratio.

As night falls, the sky remains immaculate, the town remains peace with itself. 

A beautiful town that has maintained its soul. The atmosphere takes on a dreamlike quality, real and surreal in equal measure, like a Giorgio de Chirico painting.

Morning calls for another circuit of the old town; an exploration of the fortifications which ring Zamość from the south and east.

Below: Zamość skyline from the top of the defensive wall.

The Franciscan church, this time from the back, this time in the morning.

Another visit is in order; but the weather must be like this to get the vibe right.

This time last year:
Assessing the passage of time while asleep

This time two years ago:
Summertime dreamland

This time four years ago:
Getting our heads around UFOs

This time seven years ago:
Bristol-fashioned

This time eight years ago:
The imminent closure of Marks & Spencer in Warsaw

This time 13 years ago:
Along mirror'd canyons

This time 14 years ago:
Mad about Marmite 

This time 15 years ago:
Komorowski wins second round of Presidential elections?

This time 16 years ago:
A beautiful summer dusk in Jeziorki

This time 17 years ago:
Classic cars, London and Warsaw

Łódź for the Weekend

Back to Łódź for the fourth time this year (the first three times were on business). A mere one hour and 20 minutes by train from Warsaw*, the city has much to see and I can highly recommend it for a weekend break. Over the quarter-century since my first visits to Łódź, it has improved like no other Polish city, having dragged itself up from a depressed, grey, crumbling place, full of people without hope. [See my impressions from 2011 here to see how much has changed.] Today, a dynamic tourist attraction, a booming economy, a city in a continual state of reinvention. 

Łódź's renaissance was driven by the city's authorities on a mission to rebuild a city that had been built on textiles into one with a broad and deep economic base – foreign investment in manufacturing, FMCG and shared services, the creative arts, IT and tourism. A virtuous spiral was initiated; new investments, new jobs, local taxes, renovation, gentrification, more investment, falling unemployment, more jobs, more visitors – it's been going well. 

At least Łodź never had to rebuild itself from the ashes of war. Other than the complete destruction of the city's synagogues by the Germans in WW2, the vast bulk of its architectural treasures survived unscathed, scarred only by time and neglect.

Below: the north end of ulica Piotrkowska, the main north-south axis around which the city arose. At 4.2 kilometres (2.6 miles) in length, ul. Piotrkowska is one of Europe's longest shopping streets. Subtle changes in character, from small shops to a preponderance of bars, cafes and restaurants, and then small shops again, ensure the street's variety. It has been pedestrianised for most of its length; electric delivery bicycles, however, hurtle past in near-silence at frightening speeds.

Below: corner of ul. Piotrkowska and ul. Zielona. Europe – but south, west, north or east? Or as centrally European as you can get? I'd say the east predominates in the typical 19th century architectural styles that Łódź shows off.

Left: Piotrkowska 86, the Gutenberg mansion, with its eclectic mix of Neogothic, Baroque and Art Nouveau styles, historically home to the editorial offices of local Jewish, then German newspapers. Renovated in 2011.

Below: OFF Piotrowska, a mixed-use development in the former cotton mill built in 1889 for German-Catholic entrepreneur Franciszek Ramisch. Nationalised by the communists in 1945, the factory went bankrupt in 1990, and in 2014 it was converted into what it is today: one of Łódź's more famous attractions. As well as bars, cafes, restaurants, showrooms, night clubs, barber shops and rehearsal spaces, there are lofts where fashion designers and architects operate. 

A major project about which I've written here before is the railway tunnel under the city centre that will turn the current terminus station, Łódź Fabryczna, into a city-centre hub, as trains will be able to pass through from Łódź Kaliska station to the west right through the heart of the city. Currently, trains passing through Łódź stop at Łódź Widzew station, 5.4km from the centre.

In the meanwhile, the city is doing itself up, tenement by tenement. On any given street, shabby buildings covered with nets to protect passers-by from falling stucco stand next door to beautifully restored mansions. The process will take time, but a critical mass has already been reached; tourists have started to come. From Gdańsk, from Poznań, from Warsaw they come, "but not so many from Kraków," said the waiter in an OFF Piotrkowska cafe. Gentrification is under way. The tipping point will make it easier. There's much to see, but once the city's all properly done up, Łódź will truly shine.

Left: the Leopold Kindermann villa (1903), a gem of Art Nouveau architecture on ulica Wółczańska; romantic nationalism, a rejection of Russian influences – clear links to what was happening north of the Baltic at the time. Dour yet ornate.

Below: the neoclassical town hall at the top end of Piotrkowska, the first brick-and-stone edifice erected in Łódź, dates back to 1827, under the Russian partition. The town was only just beginning to grow; an administrative centre was needed. The building contained the meeting room for the town council, the police station and prison.

Left: the old town hall's facade, from Plac Wolności. In November 1914, it was damaged by a bomb dropped from a German plane; the next month, German forces occupied Łódź and stayed until the end of WW1, when the city became Polish. I won't say 'again', because its transformation from a small village to major manufacturing centre occurred under Tsarist administration.

Below: a reminder that not all of Łódź has been renovated. And yet, and yet. Look closely at the building and you'll see the words 'Acta est Fabula' and the name 'Fifi Zastrow'. This is an art installation referring to the 1930s and '40s Jewish-German actress, Fifi Zastrow, who played in the Jewish theatre in the Litzmannstadt ghetto. You can see her name above the middle window on the top floor. She survived the war, but had been subjected to medical experimentation by Nazi doctors. She lived the rest of her days in seclusion, mentally scarred. 'Acta est Fabula ('The play has ended') were the final words spoken in ancient Roman plays, before curtains were introduced to the theatre.

Below: beautifully renovated vintage tram, dating back to 1929, running through Łódź streets. Built in Sanok, the tram is in the original livery of the Kolej Elektryczna Łódzka (KEŁ) – Łódź electric railway – which had been serving the city since 1899 under, variously, Russian, German, Polish, Nazi German administrations before communist Poland nationalised it. Łódź's trams run on narrow gauge (1,000mm) tracks; visitors will notice that the trams rock and sway more than standard gauge trams in most other cities. [Bydgoszcz, Toruń, Grudziądz and Elbląg also have narrow-gauge tram networks, but all four together total less than Łódź's extensive network.]

Tomorrow: the Importance of Izrael Poznański

* In 2008, the fastest InterCity trains between Warsaw and Łódź made the journey in two hours and 24 minutes; one hour and four minutes slower than today.

This time last year:
Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

This time two years ago: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time five years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time five year:
A tale of two orchards

This time seven years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time eight years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time 11 years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 12 years ago:
Beach day, Llyn Peninsula

This time 13 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 14 years ago:
8am and 26C already

More about Walking and Health

An interesting piece appeared in the BBC's newsfeed yesterday, headlined "Fewer than 5,000 steps a day enough to boost health - study". 

So - should I trim my long walks down to 5k a day? 

I read the intro: "It has long been touted that 10,000 steps a day is the magic number you need to stay fit and healthy - but a new study shows fewer than 5,000 may be enough to see a benefit."

For the physically lazy - this sounds like good news. And the intellectually lazy will probably not go on beyond the intro. 

But read on: "The more you do, the more health benefits are seen, researchers said. Every extra 1,000 steps beyond the 4,000 reduced the risk of dying early by 15% up to 20,000 steps." This is great news! Referring to my fitness spreadsheet, I see that since 1 January 2014, I have on average walked 11,400 paces a day, every day. For over nine and half years. And I'm on target for 12,000 paces this year.

But I wanted more information on this research. Turns out it's a meta-analysis of 17 studies with a total of almost 227,000 participants, making it the largest such study ever conducted. It was published in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology. And the lead researcher was Maciej Banach from the Medical University of Łódź. [Link to paper here.]

Below: graphical abstract from the paper (CV = cardiovascular).

The walker's age is important - the sooner you get into daily walking, the better it is for your long-term health. That 15% decrease in risk of premature death falls to 7% among the over 65s. Presumably because they have already avoided early death.

The paper's conclusion is straightforward: "our analysis demonstrates that ‘more is better’ with respect to step counts in both sexes - irrespective of age and the location where walking takes place. In addition, the results indicate that as little as 4,000 steps/day are needed to significantly reduce all-cause mortality, and even fewer steps are required for a significant reduction in cardiovascular death."

It was interesting reading the comments below the BBC's reporting of the story; there's still a hardcore of idle folk who cannot be persuaded to stop driving short distances - despite the overwhelming evidence that walking benefits health outcomes. Out sedentary lifestyles need the physical punctuation of long strolls. Evolutionarily, Homo sapiens has spent 90% of its time as a separate species in hunter-gatherer mode. Sitting for hours at a time is not something we are designed for. 

It was also interesting to see that "This research received no external funding." Well, of course not. The pharmaceutical industry has no incentive whatsoever to promote walking, sleep or healthy eating.

My walk today (13,508 steps), through the woods around Jakubowizna, Machcin II, Dąbrowa Duża and Gaj Żelechowski, returning through Widok and Chynów in perfect summer weather, was boosted by fresh air, hardly any traffic, and a friendly chat with an old guy along the way.

This time last year:
Older, wiser - more credulous?

This time two years ago:
Powerless in Jakubowizna

This time three years ago:
Kilometres of new asphalt for Gmina Chynów 

This time three years ago:
One man went to mow
[out with the scythe on the działka]

This time six years ago:
My father's penknife and airport security

This time nine years ago:
Post-holiday detox diet starts today

This time ten years ago:
Cycle ride up and down the S2 and S79 before they open

This time 11 years ago:
Kraków and back in a day by train 
[The new timetable of 2 September 2023 will see journey times between Warsaw and Kraków cut further - to a mere 2 hours and 10 minutes!]

This time 12 years ago:
Fountains by the New Town

This time 13 years ago:
Old-School Saska Kępa

This time 14 years ago:
The land, the light

This time 15 years ago:
Rainbow over Jeziorki

This time 16 years ago:
Previously in Portmeirion

Wes Anderson's Asteroid City

A film I just had to see: about  flying saucers; set in mid-1950s America, and Wes Anderson's visually stunning aesthetic - so close to my own tastes. My experience of Asteroid City was very similar to that of watching Anderson's Grand Budapest Hotel - a delightful confection, very funny - but ultimately, it could have been deeper in meaning. The Coen brothers would have done a better job. 

Nevertheless, I found myself thoroughly entertained, laughing out loud many times (good that the cinema was nearly empty). I loved the comic touches, the homages to the era, the cultural references and the  overall klimat. And a soundtrack that contains Bob Wills, Hank Williams, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Slim Whitman and other C&W acts from the early- and mid-1950s. And that train at the beginning...

The UFO conspiracy/cover-up theme is right on time - just as whistleblowers are about to be grilled by the House Oversight Committee in real life, the presidentially imposed quarantine on the Asteroid City mirrors the paranoia around the subject. The Military-Industrial Complex, supported by private  foundations, run the show. Who will own the intellectual property of alien-derived tech - free enterprise or the government?

I have a habit of watching a film's credits to the end; there were are large number of Spanish surnames involved in making the set and props (such as the railway - see below) - I naturally assumed that the film was shot in Mexico - but no - it was shot in Spain in a specially made set near the town of Chinchón, some 30 miles south-east of Madrid.

This is, I feel, a film made by a savant about savants for savants - quotable quotes aplenty, details to spot and laugh at (vending machines that served Martini cocktails and sold title deeds to tiny parcels of arid desert land), obsessively symmetrical shots. A sure-fire cult film that will be loved for many years to come by a small die-hard group of devotees, able to single out arcane references to this or that (alien symbols or cattle-ranch brands?). And indifference from the mainstream.

Below: example. Augie Steenbeck*, war photographer, in Asteroid City with his son, nicknamed 'Brainiac'. Note the camera. A Müller-Schmid Swiss Mountain Camera. Well, no. It's a prewar German Contax III or its postwar Soviet copy, the Kiev 4A. My guess is it's the latter, Contax cameras were used by American war photographers, Kievs weren't, so Wes Anderson had the front plate mocked up. Nice touch.

If you enjoy Wes Anderson's movies, you'll know what to expect; it's certainly one I'd want to see again. And then dive into a subReddit (r/AsteroidCity) with hundreds of nerds seeking Significance. You'll find more in The Big Lebowski or A Serious Man. Don't let that put you off - Asteroid City is still a highly likeable movie.

And if you like trains, have a look at this... (and then scroll down this post from 2017.)

* Steenbeck - manufacturer of flatbed film editing machines, used to edit 16 mm and 35 mm optical sound and magnetic sound film.

This time last year: 
Quarter of a century in Poland

This time four years ago:
22 years on the 22nd

This time four year:
A tale of two orchards

This time six years ago:
My 20 years in Poland

This time seven years ago:
PiS, Brexit, Trump and cognitive bias

This time ten years ago:
Portmeirion, revisited, again
[My last summer holiday - not had one since!]

This time 11 years ago:
Beach day, Llyn Peninsula

This time 12 years ago:
Down with cars in city centres!

This time 13 years ago:
8am and 26C already

Wałbrzych, Książ and Riese

Europe's night trains are a great institution. Go to sleep in your home city and wake up in an entirely different landscape. Warsaw Gdańska depart 22:06; arrive Wałbrzych Główny at 06:36; in good time to explore one of the most fascinating places in Poland - Książ castle (09:00 opening).

Below: waking up to this! Next stop, Wałbrzych Główny. Passing Kilometre 75.4 - some 10km beyond the legendary Kilometre 65, where the Nazi Gold Train turned out not to be. They scanned, they planned, they held press conferences, the world came - they cleared the ground and dug - nothing.

Below: approaching Wałbrzyska Fabryczna station, one of Wałbrzych's five stations, strung out along 13km of serpentine track that winds between the hills. Summer lightens the atmosphere somewhat; but abandoned factories and mines still haunt - the past abides.

Wałbrzych was an important railway hub with several lines branching off the main line, serving local communities, coal mines and factories. Some lines have been closed, others are being refurbished.

Książ castle is a phenomenal slice of European aristocratic history - from feudalism to the Third Reich - and it's also an integral part of the great unsolved historical mystery that continues to be Projekt Riese.

A castle that morphed, like many did, from a fortification against armed attack (a castle) to the projection of status hierarchy (a palace). Built in the 13th century on a hard-to-assault hilltop by Bolko I Surowy ('the Strict' or 'the Raw'), a Silesian duke. Książ castle - by then Schloss Fürstenstein - came into the hands of the Hochberg family after 1509. It flourished until the family tipped into bankruptcy, dragged down by the wild spending of Daisy, Princess of Pless (née Mary Cornwallis-West), the British-born wife of Prince Hans Heinrich XV von Hochberg. The castle was seized by the Nazis during WW2, where it was to become a part of the mysterious complex known as Riese ('giant'). The oldest part of the castle is the left; the newer palace building stuck onto it on the right.

To this day, no one knows for sure why the Third Reich invested so heavily - and so desperately - until the very end - in the project. Too large to be just a bunker for Hitler and his accomplices, out of range of Allied bombers; to late in the war to be a megafactory for wonder-weapons - there has never been any documentation discovered pertaining to what Riese was for. A project that soaked up vast amounts of cement and steel at a time when it was desperately needed on the western and eastern fronts.  [Whistleblower David Grusch's mention of a UFO crash retrieval in Mussolini's Italy revives a rumour that Riese may have been intended to be a Nazi Area 51.]

Below: an extensive tunnel network extends in all directions under the castle. In the distance, the old lift shaft that would have connected the castle. After the war, the local authorities wanted to seal it off, and used it as a dump for rubble from the heavily damaged town. No one today knows the full extent of the tunnels. The Polish Academy of Science has a chamber down here used for seismographic equipment, deep in the rock, sensitive enough to detect small earthquake on the other side of the planet. To conduct any serious exploration of the the tunnel network would mean having to switch off the seismometers and stop all experiments. Also, exploration would mean no conducted tours of the network - and tourists are money. But questions remain. Is there a tunnel from here to the main railway line? Was Książ meant to have been connected to other parts of the Riese complex?

Below: roof detail. Blasted out of solid gneiss by slave labourers, the walls and ceiling were to be reinforced with concrete. In the foreground, rock. Deeper in - concrete. Note the mounting for electrical cables and ventilation pipes. Now here's part of the mystery. In February 1945, with the Red Army drawing near, the prisoners were evacuated from the site and force-marched westward. But in April, with Berlin surrounded and Lower Silesia within range of Soviet artillery, part of the construction team was herded back to Riese installations and made to install the concrete reinforcements. Why? The war was almost over, the work was not even one-eighth complete. What could have drove the Nazis to desperately continue tunnelling?

Left: one of the narrower corridors. There is a feeling of security down below - nothing is likely to cave in - the solid gneiss, the concrete reinforcements, the quality of the civil engineering. Much safer, I felt, than old coal mines now opened up to tourists.

The thing with Książ is that there's much to see above ground too. Below: the front elevation of Książ castle - the palace side. Above the entrance, two stories high, is the ballroom, magnificently decorated. In the room above, under the floor, is the winding mechanism for the ballroom candelabra, allowing them to be lowered and lit up before they ascend to operational altitude. The castle had a staff of three hundred, and in winter was kept warm by two wagon-loads of coal a day.

Below: the reverse angle, looking down from the third floor toward the gate house. Note the parched lawn - meadow would be better for the environment, if not keeping with the aesthetic of the period.

Książ castle is one of those places that strikes me as quintessential Europe; a long and rich history. Today a complex of hotels, restaurants and cafes ring the main building. I am reminded of Sir Clough Williams-Ellis's whimsical Portmeirion, but Książ has history. All that's missing is the sea.

The sides and rear of the castle are surrounded by ornamental terraced gardens. Above the terraces, a café serving craft ale on tap (just the thing of a hot lunchtime).

Left: portrait of Frederick the Great. Supervised the first partition of Poland, so not many fans of him around here today. His head is directed at the viewer, but his gaze is detached; those characteristic large eyes looking down. His right hand appears to be pointing at the viewer, but is actually grasping the chair. Unsettling. Painted by Oskar Begas, around 80 years after Frederick the Great's death. Painting on loan from Germany, which I think is telling about cultural and historical ties within the EU. A shared history, not altogether comfortable, but one that we're now open to.

Below: exceptionally beautiful location gives rise to magnificent views from all four sides of the castle. 

Below: the Palm House, quite a way from the castle, but on the same ticket, so worth dropping in. Part of Princess Daisy's expensive investments.

Wałbrzych has really come on as a town since I first visited 16 years ago. It has reinvented itself as a centre for advanced manufacturing... and history.

This time eight years ago:
Something new in the skies over Okęcie

This time nine years ago:
How the other half lives - a Radomite's tale

This time ten years ago:
On guard against complacency

This time 11 years ago:
Ready but not open - footbridge over Puławska

This time 12 years ago:
Dusk along the Vistula

This time 13 years ago:
Mediterranean Kraków

This time 14 years ago:
Around Wisełka, Most Łazienkowski, Wilanowska by night

This time 15 years ago:
Summer storms

This time 16 years ago:
Golden time of day