Czachówek and the meaning of Alignment

When flying into Okęcie from the south, look out for Czachówek. This is where aircraft will make their final turn before aligning themselves with the approach path. This will take them over Zalesie Górne, Piaseczno, Nowa Iwiczna, Jeziorki and Dawidy before landing at Okęcie's Runway 33.

Czachówek, as I've mentioned before, is a small village in Mazowsze notable for its railway junction where the Warsaw-Radom line crosses the Łuków-Skierniewice line. Trains can switch from one line to the other via four connecting links. (Google Earth users - 51°58'9.94"N, 21° 4'36.79"E) Until a few years ago, when passenger traffic (sadly) ceased on the Łuków-Skierniewice line, Czachówek was served by foue stations. Today, only two still serve passengers, Czachówek Górny and Czachówek Południowy. Click on photo above to enlarge.
Above: Crossing the rail bridge north of Czachówek Górny station, looking down on the station building of the no-longer functioning Czachówek Środkowy. Recently a ticket office opened up here, so if you wish to travel from Górny station, 100m away, you can do so with a valid ticket in your hand. As you can see from the picture, the left-hand track seems less used. In the distance, though not visible, is (or rather was) Czachówek Wschodni station. Beyond that is the traction depot, which maintains the high-tension power lines.

Some 30km to the east, across the Vistula, is another, similar junction at Augustówka/Pilawa. Here the Skierniewice to Łuków line meets the Warsaw-Lublin and the Tłuszcz-Lublin lines. Some rails have been lifted here, but the embankments remains. I must go to Augustówka again. ((51°58'38.82"N, 21°31'8.05"E)

Mazowsze, being so flat, lacks the natural landmarks and waypoints that Alfred Watkin noticed in England in early 20th Century, and how footpaths linked pagan sites (later Christian churches) in straight lines. These 'Ley Lines' now have ascribed to them supernatural qualities. You can believe this - fine, you can reject this notion, fine. My point is that man seeks alignments, coincidences, patterns; it helps make sense of our environment and our lives. Quite how that fits in with looking at the maps of the places we inhabit is a deeper question. Like the small magnetic bone in the skulls of migrating birds, have we something that helps us find our way across the earth?

Human beings are always looking for patterns, alignments, coincidences and meaning. Above: West Hampstead Thameslink station, last week. The sky is criss-crossed by a web of wire and vapour, drawn by compasses and setsquare.

UPDATE: 30 October 2008 - Koleje Mazowieckie run a trial FLIRT from Warsaw to Góra Kalwaria via Czachówek. With a bit of investment, it may be that a regular service will run this route.

UPDATE: 1 June 2009 - Koleje Mazowiecki has inaugurated a Warsaw to Góra Kalwaria service, with one of the five return trains a day running on to Pilawa

This time last year:
Sunshine and rain, like joy and pain

Moles in my own garden

I woke up on Saturday morning to the sight of several molehills on our back lawn. My wife, having taken advice from our gardeners, bought three ultrasound devices, seen stuck into the molehills (above), which give off an annoying high-pitched beep every 30 seconds. The number of molehills has not increased overnight, so it seems effective as a deterent (I didn't want to lay poison traps for environmental reasons; there's lots of fruit growing in the borders. We've not had a mole outbreak like this before; our cat (which has killed several moles) must be getting lazy. Cut back on the Kit-e-Kat! To live, you must kill!

Bike ride to Święty Krzyż

Time for a weekend dad'n'lad bike expedition. On Saturday morning, Eddie and I set off for Piaseczno station, 7km away, to catch the Olsztyn to Kraków (semi-) express, a train which has bicycle facilities (right). I must say, my first reaction at this novel form of cycle storage was a worry that I'd end up with an egg-shaped front wheel. Note my bike (a Cannondale Caffeine F2) has but one front fork. To save weight. It works! The travel of downhill forks (dual crown) but the weight of cross country forks. And yes, I can ride 'no hands' without it pulling to the left. Two hours and eight minutes later we arrive at Skarzysko-Kamienna, a small town with a big railway junction at the northern end of Świętokrzyskie province. My front wheel is still the same shape. Last week's unemployment statistics show that the Skarzysko-Kamienna district has the highest unemployment in the province (23.2%). Neighbouring Szydłowiec (the previous stop on this line, still in Mazowsze) has Poland's highest, 30.2%.

Above: Eddie crossing the Kamienna river. Note the narrow-gauge rail sections from which this rather ramshackle bridge is built. What would Britain's Health and Safety commissars say! After a while we come across the marked cycle track that would take us down to the Góry Świętokrzyskie (Holy Cross Mountains). This is the yellow path, with the logo of a mountain topped with a cross above the bike. We would follow this path for quite a while. As we labour over the soft sandy tracks south-east of Skarzysko-Kamienna headed towards Wąchock, a huge dark cloud passes overhead, depositing a short sharp shower on us. No lightning, thankfully. We press on, arriving in Wąchock as yet another, even more massive clouds blow over. Below: Wąchock's Cistercian Abbey dates back to the 12th Century. The one restaurant in town is closed for a wedding, so we press on and shelter from the storm by some trees overhanding a roadside embankment. Still no thunder (trees being the worst place to shelter under when the lightning starts to flash). More rain: Just south of Rataje, another heavy rainstorm hits us. Again, we sit it out under a tree by the side of the road (below). Progress is slow; we've not gone far and the afternoon's getting on. Left: We sit out yet another heavy shower in a bus shelter in the village of Rataje. As we did so, we observed this old woman walking through the pouring rain; her baggage (patched rucksack, plastic bags) indicating that she's a vagrant. I wondered what personal tragedies beset her life and caused her to wander the village roads of the Świętokrzyskie hills. Once, she must have had a sweetheart... After Rataje, we entered the Sieradowicki Landscape Park. The road through the park - over 8.5km) was mainly straight, cobbled (hard work, even for front suspension mountainbikes) and undulating. We watched a rather ludicrous cavalcade of 4x4 drivers wasting petrol and a Saturday afternoon driving up and down this road. (Like, guys, don't you have enough of driving during the week?) Out of the forest and into a gorgeous late afternoon. The scene above set something off in me emotionally. That old feeling that I've been here before, except not here, but somewhere identical in 1930s USA. The play of the light on the trees, the clarity of the sky, the greenery, the wooden fence - this is not something from my UK childhood memories. With light fading fast, we make it through Bodzentyn, Św. Katarzyna, Krążno and Porądbki. En route for Bielany Kapitulne, we pass this house fire, lit by a fading sun. Round the corner we see the fire engine racing to the scene.

At Św. Katarzyna, my determination to get to our hotel - the Jodłowy Dwór situated at the foot of Święty Krzyż before nightfall - was challenged by the presence of a large number of agroturystiki (rural B&Bs) in the town. All now have mobile phone numbers advertised, so you can check vacancies from outside. But Eddie's no quitter - he insists on going the distance. So we press on. At Huta Nowa we turn uphill and start winching our way towards Huta Szklana, where our hotel is located. We walk the last kilometer, it's just too steep for Eddie's tired legs (he's done well - we covered 67 km today!) and arrive at the hotel at 21:25. Too late for hot food, but some sandwiches get rustled up in the kitchen. Bikes stowed, we clean up and get some well-earned sleep.

After Sunday breakfast, we set off up Święty Krzyż on foot. The mountain (or rather hill, a mere 594m above sea level) was a place of pagan cult. Note the rock rubble (gołoborze) in the foreground. A little further on, we pass a TV transmission tower (which reminds me that we're at the highest point of Poland north of the Tatras). As it is with these things, along came the Benedictine Monks and turned a place of pagan cult into a place of Christian cult. This monastery reputedly houses a fragment of the cross of Jesus (hence the name of the mountain range). Brought to Poland by Emeric, son of the king of Hungary, the fragment soon had an entire 12th Century monastic infrastructure built up around it. Sadly, the crypt (with non-decomposed bodies of 18th Century monks and local aristocrats) does not open until 12:15 on Sundays (rest of the week 9am), so Eddie missed out on this.

Worth looking at this page and this page (both in Polish) for pics of the monastery interior plus the crypt.

I've been here three times - the first two times popping up during breaks from training seminars held at the Jodłowy Dwór hotel at the foot of the hill. Tourism has come along nicely since my first visit, in 1998, helped by EU pre-accession funds with more on tap. As long a places like this don't turn out as crowded as Zakopane and Kazimierz Dolny.

The monastery is a popular pilgrimage destination (we saw two large groups of pilgrims making their way up the hill, each headed by a priest with a megaphone and a man carrying a huge cross. Above: The east gate. The place attracts tourists from all over Poland and from as far away as the United States of America. The road home was less eventful. The road to Kielce has been improved with EU funds; there are proper cycle paths along the edges and smooth tarmac, so we made good time. Eddie proved to be an excellent cyclist with huge stamina, he kept up a cracking pace, to the extent that we arrived at Kielce station over an hour before our train back to Piaseczno! Eddie took a photo of me at Kielce station, triumphant at our combined feat. Total distance cycled this weekend - 119km, plus another 5km walking to the top of Święty Krzyż and back. What makes Eddie's acheivement all the more impressive is a) his bike weighs a whole lot more than mine and b) he doesn't have pedal clips as I do, which make a huge difference to pedalling efficiency. This time last year: Memorable day out in Lublin

Classic car miscelleny - London and Warsaw

Above: Austin A35, on Weymouth St, London W1. Built in 1957, with a one litre engine, this is pretty much the '50s equivalent of my Nissan. I hope the Micra will soldier on into the 2040s! If so, it should by then have half a million miles on the clock.

Above: A 1921 Ford Model T Touring on Marylebone High Street, London W1. First one I've seen in my life! 15 million built, so few left. It's 87 years old! Interestingly, there's 35 years between the production of the Model T and the two Austins shown, and 35 years between the Austins and my 1993 Nissan Micra.

Above: A 1957 Austin Princess Mk III (as featured in Tessa and Adam's wedding last week) at the Park Łazienkowski. Immaculate inside and out; note yellow Polish 'zabytkowe' (heritage) plates. Who'd have thought, as this vehicle rolled off the same Longbridge, Birmingham production line as the A35 (top) more than half a century ago, that it'd end up doing weddings in Warsaw!

(Above) A 2-door Volvo 122 Amazon, parked around the corner from the Polish parliament. A lovely design, quite timeless. This car was in production for 14 years, from 1956 to 1970. This model would be from the mid '60s, judging from the grille design and wheel trim.

Sublime skies Jeziorki twilight

Today's evening walk resulted in some sublime moments, witnessing the dusk sky, those colours, the mood, the summer scents of a million sweet flowers exhaling. A happy-sad mood, the temporary nature of beauty, a singular moment in an endless cycle of light and dark, as the world turns at the edge of night - the colour of the summer sky half an hour after sunset. The soul must yearn.

Above right: the view along ul. Trombity. Below: the view along ul. Achillesa towards the railway tracks.

Here's looking at you, kid

The UK is the most closely monitored country on earth. London is the UK's most closely monitored city. London Underground is London's most closely monitored real estate. I counted eight CCTV cameras in the short tunnel from the concourse on Piccadilly Circus station to Regents Street South.

Why? Because social trust is breaking down. Freedom is being traded for security. Since leaving London 11 years ago, this is one of those "I no longer recognise the land where I was born" moments; these robotic eyes and arms keeping vigilant watch on knife-wielding teenagers, terrorists, paedophiles and religious fanatics - and on you, and I; members of law-abiding society that the Government no longer seems to trust.

Ironically, today Poland feels freer than the UK. Funny that, eh? Who'd have said that 20 years ago?

Mapa mundi, Piccadilly Circus

In the circular underground concourse of Piccadilly tube station (serving the Piccadilly and Bakerloo lines), I came across this lovely period piece; a map of the world showing the time as the planet spins. Looking at the borders, this is a post-war work, fascinating for cartographers, geographers and political historians. In the photograph below, I've just focused on Europe - from the Atlantic to the Urals (and yes, there's Chelyabinsk!). Click to enlarge image. "Gdansk" is also "Danzig", though "Wrocław" is just that. Germany is represented by just Hamburg, Berlin and Munich (no Frankfurt, Dusseldorf, Dresden, Leipzig or Stuttgart). But then just look at Russia! Places that were no more than glorified Gulags - Syktyvkar, Vologda or Ukhta - getting namechecks, while Glasgow or Manchester don't. Says something about filling blank spaces on maps, it also says something about the Soviet sympathies abounding in post-war Britain.

Remember "L" is for "Labour", "L" is for "Lice".

Towers of London

When in London, look up. The city is a chronological onion, with layers of history covered by subsequent layers of history covered my modern tat. Look at it at ground level and all you see are T-shirt vendors, fast food outlets, bus stops, rucksacked crowds, free newspaper distributors and shoe shops. Look up and you can see London in its majesty. Right: The Rising Sun pub on Tottenham Court Road. 'What flights of Victorian fancy', wrote Sir John Betjeman (my favourite poet); this ornate pub frontage was built in 1897. The pub window today advertises Czech and Belgian beers to passers-by. London's become Europe, but Queen Victoria's Empire is still visible, a few floors up.

London's Underground is also a multi-layered spectacle. From the early 'cut-and-cover' lines (Metropolitan - the world's first underground railway, 1863), through the early deep tube lines, privately built and operated before being nationalised, the 1930s extentions into the far suburbs, to the latest projects - the Jubilee Line, Docklands Light Railway, the whole system is aesthetically held together by corporate design of the highest order. Left: Goodge Street Station (Northern Line) with its red tiled arched facade. The station dates back to 1907; the flats above it were built later (compare to this photo from 1925). London is certainly a city shaped by the railways running through it, under it and into it.

Sir John Betjeman is often credited as the man who saved St Pancras from the fate that befell Euston Station; a great Victorian terminus that 1960s developers tore down and replaced with rubbish. St Pancras survived that ignominy and has since been reborn as the rail gateway to Europe. From St Pancras one can catch trains to Paris, Brussels, and yes, Luton Airport (more on this anon). Above: The facade of the Midlands Grand Hotel, undergoing refurbishment. Thank God it's still here. This is the essence of Victorian London, the view of Sir John's "pigeon-haunted turrets" from the Pentonville Road in John O'Connor's 1884 painting is one that's stayed with me since childhood.

A propos of Sir John; while en route from Luton Airport via St Pancras for a meeting at the Polish Embassy on Monday morning, I passed this blackboard advertising the Betjeman Arms pub on the station premises. Time prevented a visit, but surely, Sir John, who "loathed beer and liked wine", and never a fan of corporate pubs, would not have approved.

And what of Euston? All that's left is the pair of entrance gates, reminescent of Warsaw's Rogatki. The famous old arch was torn down in an act of mindless architectural vandalism. Hopefully, when the ghastly 1960s replacement is itself replaced, the Euston Arch will return. If you click to enlarge, you'll see the destinations of the London and North West Railway carved into the panels on the corners.

Two more London towers; one is BT Tower (left), formerly Telecom Tower, originally the Post Office (GPO) Tower. This building was opened in the late 1960s; I visited it as a schoolboy shortly after it opened, and a great impression it made on me too. Much later (in 1994), I attended a press conference given by British Telecom about a new technology that would revolutionise the then-nascent Internet - the World-Wide Web (www), driven by hyper-text mark-up language (HTML). How the world has changed as a result.

And finally, below, the building where I worked for 16 years before leaving London for Warsaw - Centre Point. Infamous for being left empty as a wrongly-timed speculation while homelessness was rising dramatically, the tower was designed by Sir Richard Seiffert (yes, he also did the 1960s Euston development) for a property tycoon called Harry Hyams. In the end, the squatters were moved out, the CBI moved in, and a year later, I was working on the ninth floor.


This time last year:
Cockchafers out in force
High summer in Jeziorki
Stormy night
Wild deer in Las Kabacki forest