'W'-Hour, 67 years on

For my father, Bohdan Dembiński, 88, and mother-in- law, Wanda Lesisz, 86, veterans of the Warsaw Uprising.

Since the 65th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising (post here), the commemorations have become increasingly well-participated. This year, I was pleasantly surprised by the number of flags on display - not just the official ones on public buildings, buses and trams - but on private flats, on t-shirts, and held in children's hands.

The city and its people are taking increasing pride in the Uprising. The old communist line - that it was a provocation needlessly brought about by the Polish Government in Exile in London - is not something most Varsovians would accept today.

It was the product of anger - four years of the most brutal occupation (and don't let's forget the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of April 1943) - and the result was to hold back Stalin's steamroller advance towards Western Europe by at least three months.

Ten minutes or so before the sirens sounded for 'W'-Hour, a Polish Air Force C-130E Hercules flew the length of ul. Marszałkowska dropping leaflets, urging citizens to oddaj hołd ('pay homage', 'pay tribute') to those who gave their lives fighting to free Warsaw.

Above: the side doors are opening; the first batch of leaflets are just coming out. Like the B-24 Liberator that flew supply missions over Warsaw, the C-130 Hercules has four propeller-driven engines and is US-built (its first flight was just ten years after the Uprising started!)

Below: The leaflets filled the sky directly over our heads, but sadly the westerly wind blew them away from Marszałkowska, towards the Vistula. The air drop was a tribute to the Polish, British, South African and American aircrews who gave their lives flying over the burning city dropping supplies to the Home Army insurgents.

Below: At exactly 17:00, the time the Uprising started, all the city's air raid sirens sounded. Traffic came to a halt. People stood at attention. Quite something. And the weather. This morning started wet and dull - like most of July. By the early afternoon, the clouds had parted, the sun shone in a bright blue sky.

At 17:05, seven PZL TS-11 Iskra trainers of the Polish Air Force's Biało-Czerwone Iskry aerobatic team flew overhead, trailing red and white smoke. The Iskra, a purely Polish design, first flew in 1960 and was introduced to the Polish Air Force in 1964 and is still in service today.

Below: around the city, the numerous plaques and monuments to the Uprising were decorated with flowers, garlands and votive candles. At the power station in Powiśle, a plaque explains how 107 Home Army soldiers, employees at the power station, fought a battle lasting several hours to wrest control of the building. They held on to it from 1 August until 7 September, providing electricity to the insurgent-held parts of the city. 25 of their number died in the fighting. (Polish readers can click to enlarge photo to read text of the plaque.)

Was it all worth it? Bear this in mind. In the two months between 22 June and 19 August 1944, the Soviet Army advanced more than 300 miles between Vitebsk and the Vistula, taking Minsk, Vilnius, Lviv, Grodno, Białystok, Brest, Lublin and Przemyśl from the Germans. Between 19 August 1944 and 17 January 1945, when the Red Army captured Warsaw from the Germans, Stalin's tanks hardly budged.

Stalin let Hitler sort out the belligerent Poles, but Stalin did so at the expense of his westward expansion. Maybe the good citizens of West Germany, who lived so much better than their eastern neighbours, should give thanks every year on 1 August that they did not have to suffer 45 years of communism - because of the valiant fighters of the Warsaw Uprising.

This time two years ago:
'W'-Hour - five pm

Jumbo excitement at Okęcie

I've written before (here) how aircraft arrivals that are commonplace in other, larger, airports cause a stir here in Warsaw. This morning while pottering about in my bedroom, I heard the noise of an approaching aircraft that was distinctly unusual, louder than the twin-jets that serve Okęcie. And indeed - it was the arrival from Tel Aviv of an El Al Boeing 747.

Above: the 747 makes its appearance out of low-hanging clouds, water vapour coming off the wings as the air pressure drops causing moisture to condense. For the record, this is 4X-ELH, a Boeing 747-400.

Getting ready for 'W'-hour flypast

Dropping Eddie off at Okęcie today, I spotted this Polish Air Force Hercules C-130E transport plane (serial no. 1501, below) on the military apron. It is being prepared for tomorrow's commemorations of the 67th anniversary of the outbreak of the Warsaw Uprising. If you click to enlarge, you'll see by the front door of the plane, a black and white photograph of some Home Army (AK) soldiers.

According to press reports, at 'W'-hour (17:00), the plane will fly at a height of 600m above Warsaw, parallel to ul. Marszałkowska, from Pl. Konstytucji to the Ogród Krasińskich park, dropping leaflets. The Hercules will be escorted by smaller aircraft.

This time last year:
A century of Polish scouting

This time two years ago:
The Warsaw they fought and died for?

This time four years ago:
Stained glass, rainbows and memory

More about travelling by Polish night trains

The Polish night train experience demands a spirit of adventure from anyone prepared to put up with the hardships, especially during the summer holiday season

There are three forms of night train accommodation. You can (as I did) buy a basic ticket, which entitles you to no more than your seat. If you are unlucky, and you board an overcrowded train - as is standard on Fridays in summer, you won't even have a seat. You will stand all the way, or sit on your suitcases in the corridor. Standing up for nine hours - all night long - is not pleasant. Booking a 1st class ticket gives you six people rather than eight to the compartment, the higher price means that fewer people are likely to go for it, so it's likely that there won't be a full complement of six in your compartment. First class from Warsaw to Międzyzdroje costs 99 złotys as opposed to 66.

To ensure you get a seat in a TLK train (TLK does not do 2nd class seat reservations, unlike InterCity), you need to board at the station from which the train departs. West- and southbound trains start at W-wa Wschodnia, while east- and northbound trains start at W-wa Zachodnia. So for example, the train that took Moni to Gdańsk this morning started from Zachodnia, while my train for Międzyzdroje started from Wschodnia. If you don't get on at the first station, your chances of a seat diminish. Fridays are the worst day to travel; almost all the seats are taken. My Thursday night train was looser; three other passengers in my compartment (for eight); at Poznań one got off so I could stretch out across all four seats. On long journeys, however, you can expect to be woken up several times by ticket inspectors.

Next up from a seat is the kuszetka (couchette). In a compartment, there are six bunk beds, three on one side, three on the other side, of a narrow passage, and a step ladder to reach the middle and top bunks. For a 25.50 złotys supplement, you are assured a lie-down and you'll not be bothered by the guard once you're in your compartment (he'll wake you up ten minutes before reaching your destination). There are no sheets or blankets; you are expected to take off your shoes and lie down in your clothes, covered with a jacket or coat. The couchette and sleeper carriages are sealed off from the rest of the train, for the passengers' security. And the toilets are cleaner than in the normal carriages, especially after nine hours of travel.

The most luxurious form is the sleeper carriage (wagon sypialny). The compartments are for two or three people; bedding is provided. You need a second class ticket plus an supplementary payment of 70 złotys (three-person compartment) or 130 złotys (two-person compartment) per person for the wagon sypialny. This pushes up the price of a return trip to the seaside quite considerably; I think the kuszetka is the optimal price/comfort trade-off.

Above: waiting for the night train to Warsaw at Międzyzdroje, Friday evening. The 20:56 to Warsaw is the last train of the day from this station; the platform is crammed with people heading home. It is not going to be a comfortable night.

Międzyzdroje impressions

The weather was indeed er... bracing; everything that New.Meteo.pl had led me to expect. Being new to the Polish seaside, one thing that struck me was the architecture - which led to the immediate reflection that before 1939, Poland's Baltic coastline was a mere 140km (85 miles) of which the Hel peninsula was a large portion. The rest was German (plus of course the Free City of Danzig/Gdańsk); hence the Germanic architecture.

Above: Looking up ul. Pomorska from Promenada Gwiazd. Does this not remind readers familiar with England of the bay-windowed gentility of Torquay, Eastbourne or Bournemouth? Before the war, Międzyzdroje was German Misdroy.

The recently built pier extends 350m into the sea; entrance is free, but you must pass an arcade full of fast food and machines that go 'ding'. The beach is admirably sandy and stretches on for ever in both directions. I can recommend two places to eat, the Hotel Slavia (soup, main course and a glass of wine for 15 zlotys - around £3.30) and the Café Melba (coffee, cakes, excellent music - James Brown, Duke Ellington, Gladys Knight, tasteful décor).

Above: no rush for the sun loungers today. Międzyzdroje's Hotel Amber Baltic attracts many German tourists from just across the border. Accommodation ranges from a few posh hotels via some communist-era domy wypoczynkowe such as the Slavia that offer good value for money to a vast number of privately-let rooms and guest houses. However, at this time of year, it's very hard to find something last minute.

No problem in finding somewhere decent to eat - plenty of competition, so shop around before sitting down to lunch or coffee to avoid paying too much. Above: A patisserie (cukiernia) that would not look out of place in Cornwall or North Wales.

Returning to the weather - there are no guarantees of sunshine on the Baltic just because it happens to be summer. Take a warm sweatshirt or two and some waterproofs. And - if you have small children in tow, Plans 'B', 'C' and 'D' are needed in case of prolonged and heavy rainfall during which lazing on the beach is not an option. Kite-surfing is popular on the Polish Baltic when the waves are rough and the wind's high.

Poland's Baltic coast as a holiday destination

In my 14 years living in Poland, I've been to the Polish seaside just twice. The first time was in 2006. Kołobrzeg. It was 26 September; 26C in the late afternoon. I'd just been to a business seminar we'd organised in Koszalin, and with two colleagues from the office, we decided to go to the beach before heading back to Warsaw. Late September and the weather was gorgeous. Not a cloud in the sky; the beach was almost devoid of tourists. We were walking along the water's edge wearing our suits with shoes and socks off and rolled-up trousers; people who passed us took us for Jehovah's Witnesses and gave us wide birth.

Yesterday, I turned up off the night train in Międzyzdroje; it's late July and as it turned out, it would be raining heavily for Most of the day.

Lesson 1 about the Polish Baltic - you cannot be sure about the weather. Unlike the Med.

The concept of taking a night train there and back, allowing a full day to explore a portion of coast is a particularly fruitful one for the curious traveller. You can gain a vast amount by travelling this way. The train becomes both a means of travel and a place to stay the night in one inexpensive ticket; you concentrate your time on experiencing the destination. [I will post separately about Polish night trains.]

So then. I arrive at Międzyzdroje on Friday morning off the night train from Warsaw (departs W-wa Wschodnia 22:28), and the first thing I must do is to go down to the sea again - that atavist urge of the aquatic ape to smell the tang of the salt spray.

Above: the beach, looking towards the pier (molo). The weather is sufficiently bad to keep the holidaymakers off the sands. One thing that struck me was that the amplitude of the tide here on the southern shores of the Baltic is very small - only a few dozen metres between high tide and low tide. Not the hundreds of metres you'd get around the British Isles. [Incidentally, there's no Polish word for 'tide'. Stanisławski and Getionary both give the word pływ, but that's the first time I've ever heard of it. There's przypływ ('tide coming in') and odpływ ('tide going out'), but how would you say 'the tide's turning'?

Above: juvenile gulls in the surf, an adult gull in the foreground. 

Above: looking east from the end of the pier. The heights above the town, Kawcza Góra, reaching over 60 metres above sea level, are a part of the Woliński national park. Below: view from the top of Kawcza Góra; through the trees you can just make out the sandy beach; on the horizon to the left, former East Germany (click to enlarge image).

Up here, you can smell smoke from the fish-smoking sheds down at beach level. The trawlers (Polish: kutry) bring in the catch; it is gutted and smoked in situ; a plethora of beach-side kiosks and bars offer smoked fish to eat on the spot or to take away. Below: a fish smoking enterprise. At beach-level, the smoke is overpowering. Even up on Kawcza Góra, the smell of the smoke is still strong, like standing in close proximity to a bonfire.

The fish are brought in by trawlers; there are far fewer of them today than when Poland joined the EU. Brussels has been buying the fishermen off, scrapping the trawlers and implementing quotas to ensure that the Baltic retains sustainable fishing. Below: a Polish trawler that brings the fish that supply the restaurants that feed the holidaymaker. Note: at this stage, the weather is so bad that I'm unable to clear the lens of raindrops and condensation before the next shot.

Below: the old communist-era trawler infrastructure is still there, resting and rusting.

Where there are trawlers and trawlermen, there are those in peril on the sea. In the old days, there was a lifeboat station here. This old place (below) is now a bar; the Germanic architecture strikes me and puts me in mind of a favourite old novel of mine that I've read several times - Erskine Childers' Riddle of the Sands. Imagine if you will a building like this on one of the Friesian Islands, sometime very early in the 20th Century...

And here. Gothic-on-Sea; look at the brickwork and copper roofing. A close-up view betrays electrics and electronics; transponders, satellite TV and mobile phone aerials, lightning conductors, burglar alarms and Christmas lights, as well as weather vanes and ornamental finials.

The commercial side of Międzyzdroje - tomorrow (and more on Polish night trains).

This time four years ago:
Stained glass, rainbows and floods

March of the Hipsters

This is PKP W-Wa Powiśle station, designed by Arseniusz Romanowicz in 1954 - a splendid and iconically Warsaw piece of architecture. This being my local station for work, I've blogged it before (notably here). The old low-level ticket office is now the hippest place in Warsaw, when the capital's hipsters meet up before taking on the town. Above: here's a long-exposure photo taken of a group of hipsters who've just got off an east-bound train on their way down the platform towards the klubokawiarnia.

Moni (a hipster herself - for only true hipsters deny their hipsterness) points out that there's a Facebook page called Polska hipsterem narodów (Poland, hipster among nations). Quite right. An antidote to Państwo Smoleńskie.

I must go down to the sea again - by night train

Here's the crazy idea. What's the lowest possible price for which in can dip my toes in the sea? Tanie Linie Kolejowe (Cheap Railway Lines) will take you from Warsaw to anywhere in Poland by night train for a mere 66 zł. To make the most of this offer, I've bought a return ticket to Międzyzdroje, just ten miles from the German border.

Two nights on a train and one entire day by the seaside. My train leaves Warsaw this evening at half past ten and arrives at Międzyzdroje at half past seven in the morning and departs for Warsaw tomorrow just before nine pm, to arrive in Warsaw at around six am. So I spend 132 zł (less than thirty quid) to get to the seaside and back, and nothing for accommodation. This is not a gig for light sleepers, dear reader! (Click here to read about my most recent night train excursion.)

After having bought the tickets, I discover that the weather by the seaside will be less than clement (click image above for detailed forecast for tomorrow in Międzyzdroje). Still, the idea is not to sunbathe but to feel the bracing sea wind and spray, and to commune with a maritime environment, something I've not done since August 2007 (details here and here).

This time last year:
Accounting for the past - 20 years on from PRL's fall

This time two years ago:
Some news for lovers of fine British cheefef

This time four years ago:
Over the Peaks by bus