Getting around Warsaw - a practical guide

If you're thinking of visiting Warsaw this summer, please be aware that the Polish capital is one big building site ahead of next year's Euro2012 football championship. Much will not be finished on time - although many projects are running to time.

Best way to get around is by public transport. By London standards, it's incredibly cheap. A central zone one-day travel card currently* costs 9 zlotys - ₤2. Which you can use before 9:30am if you so wish. An both-zone one-day travel card costs 14 zlotys - ₤3.10. To put this into perspective, a pre-9:30 one day travel card for zones 1-4 (roughly the same radius of travel as Warsaw's central zone) costs ₤10, while zones 1-6 (a similar radius of travel as Warsaw's central and outer zones) costs ₤15. So Warsaw's five times cheaper (while wages are but three times lower). If you buy a quarterly ticket, Warsaw's seven times cheaper.

Here's my quick guide to Warsaw public transport in plain English.

Warsaw's public transport authority is ZTM, which operates buses, trams, the Metro and some local rail services (SKM). ZTM travelcards (from one- to 90-day validity) are also good on Koleje Mazowieckie (Mazowsze Province trains) and WKD (the suburban light rail line heading out to Grodzisk Mazowiecki and Milanówek rather than the alcopop).

There are but two zones; the first zone extends to about a ten-mile (16km) radius from the city centre, the second about 15 miles (25km) from the centre.

The key thing to remember, when visiting Warsaw, is that whatever ticket you choose - from 20 minutes to 90 days - you need to validate it on your first journey using it. As soon as you get on your first bus or tram or SKM train, head for the bright yellow ticket validator. If you have a card ticket (20-minute, one-day, three-day, seven-day or single journey), put it into the slot face-up. The machine will make a whirring sound, then emit a double-beep, and a green light will show and your ticket will re-emerge. When you remove it, you'll see an expiry time and date will have been printed on the reverse.

A travel card for a longer period (30 days, 90 days) has to be acquired from the ZTM office. This can be done on-line (you need to submit a digitised photo of yourself). You can also customise the design of the card as you want it (here, for example, is mine). Sadly, the English version of the web page is so badly translated, I shudder to think how someone not knowing Polish could possibly work out how use it.

Bus stops - ones with a green outline around the number of the bus are request stops - you need to flag down buses to stop them. If your destination stop is 'na żądanie' (request), you'll need to press the red button in good time (green button on the old Ikarus buses). Newer buses will require you to press a blue (sometimes red) button by the door to open it once the bus has come to a halt at a bus stop.

Information given at bus stops and on buses is precise and generally (outside of rush-hour korki or jams) buses run to time. Trams cut through traffic jams, although woe betide tram passengers should one tram break down on a busy line. Tram jams of 10-15 stationary trams are a dramatic sight to behold.

It's been two years since paid parking came to Powiśle and I gave up driving to work on a daily basis. I'm much wealthier for it. A tankful of petrol, which I would use up in a fortnight's commuting, costs as much as a quarterly ZTM travelcard (196 zlotys). The travelcard is so cheap it's no problem when I have a day off or else I use my bike.

Coming back to practical issues to do with getting around Warsaw - many city centre roads are closed. Świętokrzyska and Prosta (building of second line of Metro), Nowowiejska (upgrading tram tracks), Targowa (ditto), Sokola - to do with building the National Stadium.

Above: Most Poniatowskiego, behind it, across the river to the left, the new National Stadium, under construction. Ul. Targowa is being dug up, so trams routes north of Rondo Waszyngtona are being diverted Below: Ul. Nowowiejska (lit. 'Newvillagey Street) also bereft of trams.

And, as I've mentioned, Dworzec Centralny aka W-wa Centralna, the Central Station, is currently being modernised - total chaos - (allow an extra 10-15 minutes to find your way to the platform as passageways and staircases are closed - below).

Dworzec Wschodni aka W-wa Wschodnia, the Eastern Station, is also being refurbished. Ironically, Dworzec Zachodni aka W-wa Zachodnia, the Western Station, seems to be left as it is - a museum letting you the public experience at first hand how the communist system used to humiliate citizens by not offering them information or service.

UPDATE 16 June - ul. Nowowiejska is now re-opened to tram and vehicle traffic.

* Fare rises are due at the end of August.

This time last year:
Lessons for local policy-makers

This time three years ago:
Recycling for fun and profit

This time four years ago:
Giant dandelion clocks

Cara al Sol - Part II

[Part I here]

The rage within Ramón would not abate as he thought about Capitán Jesús Méndez; that fat human cockroach, that evil piece of excrement. He, Ramón must slay him. Yet was that not a mortal sin? Would his soul not be condemned to everlasting damnation? It did not take Ramón long to overcome that objection. Captain Méndez was not a human being. He was a beast in human form - an oily rat walking upright on two legs, devoid of any human feeling, lacking a conscience, lacking the slightest breath of divine spirit... it would be best to destroy that beast. A single bullet to despatch this incarnation of evil. A swift act, like stamping on an earwig; a bold act, like the estocada in the bullring, a quick, clean death, devoid of gloating or triumph or revenge...

The wine swirled in Ramón's head. He was aware that he was not thinking clearly. The consequences would be clear - murdering an officer of the Guardia Civil - sentence - death by garotte. Extenuating circumstances - he was only defending the honour of his daughters - might mean a life of penal labour. And besides, no one could call him, a devout Catholic, a Republican sympathiser, despite his brother living in exile.

Ramón wrestled with his conscience. "Is it, or is it not, God's will that I should assassinate Captain Méndez?" he asked himself as he dipped his face into a enamelled bowl full of cool water. He fancied that the voice of the Holy Ghost had visited upon him, bearing the simple message "No." And then he boiled up with rage and self-hatred again, slamming both fists on the table. "I - I am the runt of my mother's litter, impotent in the face of evil and injustice!" The torment continued within. "Shall I fight this intolerable weakness of mine? Or should I think of my family, without me, a husband and father behind bars..."

He stood up, still wracked with indecision. Another glass of wine. Too many. He'd go for a walk in the night air, to clear his head. The Guardia Civil patrol would be on the streets. Maybe Captain Méndez. But there'd be two of them. Even if he slayed Méndez, the other one would identify him... He could not kill another. He was beyond caring, beyond thinking it through. No plan - just go for a walk on the empty streets, gun in the front pocket of his glazier's overalls. See what would happen. Probably - he thought - nothing. A short walk, he told himself, and to bed.

In the empty cobbled street, the anger flared up within him again. He pictured himself in court, defending himself on a charge of premeditated murder, and imagined what he'd be telling the judge. He'd denounce Méndez as inhuman, fitting in with society's rules simply so that he could be top dog, to bully, to strut about, to belittle - a man not at one with the life of Jesus - his namesake; a man neither meek nor caring about his fellow man - indeed, not a man at all. Above all, he, Ramón, was a father defending his daughters from the bestial attentions of this monster.

Crazy. Conflicting thoughts clashed in his head. Even as he sobered up in the cool autumn air, Ramón was still unable to think clearly, to decide, to plan. "Méndez has won the ultimate victory - he has rendered me impotent! Without even thinking about me! Without even willing it!" Ranting to himself, he headed up the Calle General Franco towards the bullring, angrily kicking an empty beer bottle in his way. A back door was open; he made his way up to the top tier, where 20 years earlier he'd witnessed the slaughter of the Republican prisoners. The moonless night contrasted with that sunny afternoon.

He pulled out the gun and pointed it at the spot where Captain Méndez had orchestrated the massacre. "Life will go on," he reasoned. "Good and evil will continue to co-exist, whatever." He was not happy. There was no outcome. So often, such was life. No great dramatic gesture, no sacrifice, no clarity - just an impure compromise. He put away the gun, went home and hid it, and suffered.

This time last year:
Still struggling with the floodwaters

This time two years ago:
European elections

This time three years ago:
To the Vistula, by bike

This time four years ago:
Poppy profusion

Cara al sol - a short story

Ramón picked the revolver off the kitchen table and felt its weight in has hand. He broke it open, examining it in the candlelight. The six bullets were still there, as they were on the day he found it, discarded on the battlefield, abandoned by some Republican officer nearly 20 years ago. He'd kept that gun, kept it hidden, all those years - not even his mother nor his wife knew about it. It was a big revolver. A British-made Webley, firing big bullets. This gun was the final argument. With it in his hand, he had power of life or death.

Over another glass of red table wine, he contemplated what he'd do with it, as he'd contemplated so many times before. Yet now, there was even more reason to do so. His family were fast asleep in the back room - his wife and his two daughters. His mind wandered, oh, it wandered. So often if would wander, bidden or unbidden, to that summer afternoon in 1939, a few months after then end of the Civil War, to the town's dusty bullring. Ramón, then a young glazier's apprentice, had been working that day under a glaring sun up in the top tier of the bullring, replacing some stained glass windows that had been missing since the war passed briefly through the town two years earlier.

There was a clamour outside; the puertas de los toriles were open and a large group of local Republican sympathisers were herded in by the Guardia Civil at rifle point. Behind them trooped in a shabby brass band. A lorry drove in. Out jumped Capitán Jesús María Méndez y Castrejon, who Ramón had long known - the classmate of his oldest brother, Raúl. The Guardia Civil captain was renowned in the district as a ruthless man of extreme cruelty, a man who Ramón's brother had hated since childhood. Captain Méndez stood amid the prisoners, haughty in his polished tricorn hat, a look of disdain on his face. He drew a pistol from his holster, and holding it high, started shouting angry commands at his men. The musicians, who had positioned themselves up in the grandstands, took up their instruments, and struck up a discordant version of the Falangist anthem, Cara al sol.

As they did so, Captain Méndez aimed his pistol at a prisoner's head. And he pulled the trigger - a loud retort, the man toppled over into the sand. His gunshot was the signal to his men to open fire into the prisoners, seemingly at random; staccato rifle fire burst out all around, a dirty, untidy slaughter, a comedic massacre... Looking down, Ramón crossed himself instinctively. He watched men fall - men he knew - from school, from Saturday afternoons at the bullring, from the bar; he watched the blood pouring out onto the arena, like bulls' blood, yet not. Their piteous calls for mercy were met with jagged, halting laughter, foul curses and more gun fire. Rifles would jam, then the bullets began running out; many wounded men writhed around in the sand. Their piteous cries mingled with the ragged march of the brass band... "Formaré junto a mis compañeros/ que hacen guardia sobre los luceros..."

Ramón looked around the arena for his middle brother, Rafael. He hoped that the one child who had defied their God-fearing mother and had committed to the Republican cause, had escaped the round-up. Down in the ring, Méndez gesticulated wildly, shouting angrily at his men to finish the job ; bayonets were fixed and half-heartedly plunged into fallen bodies. This obscene spectacle of inhuman butchery went on for maybe half an hour.

Ramón prayed for their souls. He prayed that God would receive them, even those who had desecrated the Cross and had supported anti-clericalism during the Republican period.

And so, over those bleak post-war years, that image of Captain Méndez, strutting around the blood-soaked bullring in his black tricorn hat, crouching down to put a bullet into a wounded men pleading for his life - would stay with him in his waking nightmares for the next two decades. They were local men, family men - how could he have done such a thing! That very same Captain Méndez, now a portly middle-aged man, would patrol their small Extremaduran town, strutting with that same arrogance; his haughty gaze demanding subservience from all but the mayor, the parish priest and the wealthiest of landowners.

Ramón had hated Captain Méndez for as long as he could remember. Rafael had managed to escaped to exile in France, but the fact that Ramón had a godless Republican brother abroad, remitting French francs to his family back home, marked him down for particular harassment from the authorities. His small glazing business would be subject to all sorts of controls and tax inspections.

But Ramón had a new reason for reaching for that revolver that autumn night in 1957, and imagining what it would do to the innards or brain of Captain Méndez; the vile man had taken a shine to his two teenage daughters. The filthy man would sit close to Ramón's family during Holy Mass, leering at the girls. What depraved thoughts were going through his head? The Captain would observe the girls walking up and down the main street, watching them... watching them... Ramón knocked back another glass of wine, chased back with a handful of olives, and, raising his revolver, considered his options.

[Part II of Cara al sol here]

This time last year:
Of pumps and film crews

This time two years ago:
To Góra Kalwaria and beyond

This time three years ago:
Unbridled development

Beauty at the end of the day

Warsaw's weather has settled into entirely agreeable (if maybe a tad too hot) summer pattern; skies with thin clouds that presage gorgeous sunsets. And where better to shoot me some mood-enhancing photos but from the end of the road, across the tracks - flat fields, trees.

Above: Still half an hour to go, but the sun has descended behind a meagre bank of cloud casting a golden light on the surrounding fields. This - as I've mentioned many times before - is the Magic Hour, beloved of film makers; that golden time of day. The effect it has on the human spirit is entirely mellow; a sublime frame of mind ensues.

As the earth spins from west to east, so the sun appears to settle towards the western horizon. Well, at this time of year, the north-western horizon. In the distance, roof tops of Dawidy.

Through the elderflower trees, the setting sun sets the sky afire; the end of the day wreathed in beauty and the weather set fair for tomorrow. The night now is less than eight hours long; the sun will rise at 4:30.

On weekend days like this, when nothing else is going on, it is a waste not to take time out to witness the setting of the sun and to participate in that majestic sense of spiritual wellness that doing so engenders.

I'd be interested to know what neurobiology ascribes this particular feeling of euphoria brought on about by nature's light show at the end of the day, an explanation for the sublime nature of a summer dusk.

This time last year:
Jeziorki's flood of floods slowly subsides

This time two years ago:
Black-and-white homage to Ansel Adams

Wetlands in late spring

After the floods, the snow, the hard frost - the sun shines hard and bright upon the reed beds at the end of ul. Trombity. Below: The water level is sinking slowly, it's noticeable now (the browny-yellow line below the fresh greenery).


The frogs and bullfrogs are back and enjoying life. And above them in the food chain, the grey heron. The herons have moved back into the wetlands between ul. Trombity and Dumki in recent years and are readily identifiable in flight by the way they pull their long necks into a tight 'S' shape. This individual was perched on a broken concrete post, looking for signs of froggy movement below. When bored of this activity, he'd take off and lazily fly around the wetlands, soaring above the treetops in circuits.

While not as immediately charismatic as the stork - the very essence of summer in the Polish countryside - the heron is still an exciting neighbour with whom to share one's street.

This time last year:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time two years ago:
Another time, another place

Łódź Widzew

Łódź is the sort of place one only goes to on business. Sure, it has Manufaktura, one of the world's largest post-industrial retail and entertainment centres, and ul. Piotrkowska, one of the world's longest shopping streets. And then what? For a city of almost 800,000 inhabitants, occupying an area two-thirds that of Warsaw, it is surprisingly... er... uninteresting compared to other Polish cities of similar size. Today, I was in Łódź Widzew, a district to the west of the city centre which seemed to be notable for wide boulevards and blocks of flats. So then... here we are, Łódź Widzew. Along the main drag, ul. Rokicińska.

Above: having alighted at Łódź Widzew station and made my way to ul. Rokocińska, this is my first impression: garishly coloured blocks of flats set among greenery.

Above: as there are no street numbers prominently displayed on the blocks of flats, navigation along this 17km wylotówka (a road heading out of town) is not easy. I assumed, on the basis of studying Google Maps, that my journey from the station to Tulipan Park, a newly-opened industrial estate at ul. Rokicińska 168 would be a short walk. It turned out to be 40 minutes.

Sprayed on a flower shop on ul. Rokicińska - an anglophone alternative to HWDP. (For my Polish readers not in the know, it means 'all coppers are bastards'. Meanwhile the road goes on forever. And it was hot - about a thousand degrees. And me in a suit.

Widzew is thinning out (it's the largest district of Łódź by area, the least densely-populated) and I'm still walking.

I finally arrive to the official opening of Tulipan Park; among the more interesting discussions I had was one with two local real estate agents who were talking about the concept mooted to join Warsaw and Łódź into one mega-agglomeration of five million people. A key part of this idea would be a new airport, midway between the two cities; this was the lead story in today's Warsaw section of Gazeta Wyborcza.

Given that (as I wrote last week) trains from Warsaw to Łódź currently take over two hours to cover the measly 83 miles (130km) between the two cities, I think that such grands projets should be promptly forgotten. Below: map of the proposed locations of a Warsaw-Łódź airport

[Source: Gazeta Wyborcza article cited above. Link to artwork here.]

Szmulowizna

To right-thinking, left-bank-dwelling Varsovians, Szmulowizna (Praga Północ) is that stereotypical place across the river where respectable folk do not stray (especially after dark); it is a place of urban legend - of dingy drinking dens, three-card tricksters, pickpockets, gypsy beggars, burglars' hidey-holes, assorted ne'er-do-wells and muggers on dark street corners waiting for frajerzy from the more respectable parts of town.

Most Varsovians will only visit Szmulowizna - and then unwittingly - when changing to public transport while passing through W-wa Wschodnia railway station.

Above: The view of Szmulowizna that meets the eye when alighting at W-wa Wschodnia. A communist-era landscape that takes me back to the late 1970s.

The central feature here is the half kilometre-long block of flats built in the early '70s, a type of architectural style generically nicknamed Jamnik ('dachshund'), Tasiemiec ('tapeworm') or Mrówkowiec ('antheap'). It looks out over the approaches to the station - car park, tram loop and bus stops - and the station beyond. The entire block (all 430 flats) has one address; ul. Kijowska 11.


Of a sunny Friday morning, Szmulowizna itself does not seem a threatening place. The name comes from Shmuel Jacobovich Sonnenberg a.k.a Zbytkover, an 18th C. Jewish banker and protégé of King Stanislaus August Poniatowski, who was granted these lands by the King.

On westwards from Szmulowizna to Stara Praga, where the architecture is more traditional, more like the stereotype image that left-bank Varsovians have of Praga. Below: fragment of brick tenement building on ul. Brzeska.

A visit on a sleeting, windy night in late November would cast Szmulowizna and Stara Praga in a different complexion, a different klimat.

This time last year:
Jeziorki's Storm of Storms

This time three years ago:
How to tell you're flying over Poland

This time four years ago:
Poppy fields

Rail travel chaos hits Warsaw

We had been warned. Yesterday, the suburban line between W-wa Śródmieście and W-wa Wschodnia was shut while the new station at W-wa Stadion is completed. The line should re-open on 24 July. Until then - what? I have just acquired a new corporate client for English on ul. Kijowska, corner of ul. Targowa. Three times a week. The ideal way to get there is by train from Powiśle to Wschodnia. OK - no train. Alternatives? Tram? Sorry - the whole of Targowa is being dug up, no trams right now. Bus? 138 from the office... runs infrequently, will now be overcrowded. Bicycle seems to be the only way. But what a way - a round trip of 50km looks likely.

With the suburban line cut, one rail commuting option is to get to W-wa Centralna and take the double-decker Radom train. I tried this one last night. Centralna is changing quickly - in mid-remont - and still many inconveniences for travellers. I'm trying to get to Platform 4. I'm informed by the new, blue indicators that my train will depart at 19:07. But the main staircase is shut off. So I make my way along the re-opened passage along the northern side of the station to the stairs at the end of the platform. Below: the re-opened transversal passage at the east end of the station. The staircase is open, though the escalators are not working - and there's no signage.

No working signage at the platform either. Will the train (which the online timetable claims will depart at 19:00) arrive according to the displayed time, or the internet time? It leaves at 19:07. But then it waits at signals, makes a long stop at W-wa Al. Jerozolimskie, and finally arrives at W-wa Jeziorki 15 minutes later than the advertised time. Essentially - if you're going to be travelling from Centralna, give yourself plenty of time to get to the platform and take the online timetable with a pinch of salt.

What else is new at W-wa Centralna? Officially sanctioned graffiti. I mentioned what was going on earlier this week at W-wa Powiśle, the day before the station closed for eight weeks. Here at Centralna, a similar story. To spruce up the drab walls, selected graffiti artists have been given free rein on the basis that if not them, less-gifted individuals will cover the surface with something, well, less arty.

So then - what have we got here? "Przestrzeń jest tym co powstrzymuje wszystko od bycia w tym samym miejscu." "Space is that which stops everything being in the same place?" Good God Almighty! The spirit of the Master of Paddington is alive and well! He who painted "Far away is close at hand in images of elsewhere", that enduring slogan painted on a wall outside Paddington station, beloved of the Daily Telegraph's Way of the World column.

Above: New platform, new carriages, old engine. The Radom-bound train enters Centralna's refurbished Platform 4. According to Gazeta Wyborcza, the jury is still out regarding the graffiti. 'It's a scandal!' the headline cries.

This time last year:
Hurting and healing

This time three years ago:
The land where I was born

This time four years ago:
Night moves