Rysiek and Blanka's wedding, Gdańsk

After the best part of the day sightseeing (see separate post) in Gdańsk, I headed off by tram towards Oliwa and its famous cathedral, for the wedding of Rysiek and Blanka. (Rysiek's another old harcerz from West London's Błękitna Trójka, who I've known for the best part of half a century). As I approach the park situated behind the cathedral, I espy a triple rainbow! (click to enlarge). A double rainbow (ROYGBIVROYGBIV*), the two touching, plus a fragment of a third above and to the right. An auspicious sign!


Left: Oliwa Cathedral, looking towards its famous organ. An impressive place for a wedding. I was last here in 1977 on Montserrat - two coachloads of 15-20 year-old boys and girls of Polish parentage going to the fatherland for a religious pilgrimage organised by the Polish parish in Ealing. How different it all looked back then, the cathedral an oasis of splendour amid the drab shabbiness of everyday communist reality.

Below: bride, groom, family and friends on the cathedral steps. Over 140 guests, including 100 or so who made it all the way from England. Mercifully, it didn't rain on the group photo nor on the greeting of the guests. Interestingly, meeting many old friends of my generation living in Britain or in Poland, I was struck by the diversity of ages of their children - from two to 29.

Below: Bride and groom meeting the guests. Outside the cathedral it was chilly for this time of year; just across the Baltic, Stockholm shivered in temperatures of just +6C, a record for early June.

Below: the wedding reception took place in Stara Cegielnia in Rzucewo, near Puck, some 60km away from Oliwa. This beautifully restored brickworks was next door to Zamek Jan III Sobieski, which I suspect had more to do with the area's former Prussian rulers than with the Polish king who saved Europe's bacon at the Battle of Vienna.

To kick off the night's celebrations, Rysiek dons folk costume and with his bride performs a traditional Polish dance (left) before leading off all the guests in a Polonaise.

I wish Rysiek and Blanka a long and happy marriage, full of love, companionship, shared interests and - a trio of little ones.

Above: the view from Rzucewo. In the distance, the Hel peninsula. The celebrations went on until five in the morning, by which time it's broad daylight.

*The mnemonic Richard Of York Gave Battles In Vain = Red Orange Yellow Green Blue Indigo Violet

This time last year:
Wetlands in late-spring

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

Warsaw's airport served by rail at last

Until half past four this morning, Warsaw was probably the only capital in the developed world whose airport lacked a rail connection to the city centre. As of today, Warsaw has jumped up several notches in urban sophistication with the opening of W-wa Lotnisko Chopina station. The first train pulled into the brand new underground station early today. On my way between meetings, I took a detour and arrived at the airport via W-wa Służewiec around eleven. The new line is very impressive. Once the Euro's out of the way and the timetables have been fine-tuned, it will serve as a huge improvement to public transport in this part of town.

Above: a Koleje Mazowieckie train enters the station (left), while a Szybkie Koleje Miejskie train stands on the opposite platform. Two different operators, two different tickets. SKM is run by the city transport authority, ZTM, and takes standard bus tickets. The one-day, weekly, monthly and quarterly travel cards can be used on both KM and SKM trains.  

Below: the station entrance emerges at street level by the domestic terminal, so there's a 300 metre-walk to the main international terminal.

While Warsaw cheers the opening of its first new line in decades, spare a thought for people passing through W-wa Służewiec, the station at which the airport spur runs off the main Warsaw-Radom line, and an important communications hub for the sprawling office developments of lower Mokotów. The newly-rebuilt tram loop as yet has no passenger access to the station. You must either take a 500m detour via the pedestrian crossing by ul. Taśmowa, or risk a 90m trespass through a muddy building site, then over the railway line, to the platform.

And the temporary ticket booth is still where it was before the new platform was open (below). To get to it, you must either make a long detour, or simply hop across the tracks. Not much fun for mums with prams, babcie with shopping trolleys or the disabled.

To the left, in the distance, a group of people en route to the platform from the tram loop are crossing the line (a tram is visible behind the ticket booth).

Using this station is still massively inconvenient. However, it is now served by three times as many trains an hour from town as was previously the case - in peak hours six up from two, off-peak five up from one.

This is my first blog post on 1 June - nothing from last year, 2010, 2009, 2008 or indeed 2007 on this day.

Świdnica - one of Poland's unknown pearls

I've just returned from Świdnica, south-west Poland, going there and back by night train - an institution that's a very effective combination of transport and nocleg (a useful two-syllable word in Polish that needs several English words to convey - 'accommodation for the night'). A one-way journey costs 145 zlótys (about £25), leaving W-wa Wschodnia at 22:18; I wake up in Wrocław eight hours later. The same train carries me on to Jaworzyna Śląska, and on from there to Świdnica, for the Kongres Regionów. This is a major annual local government get-together at which I'll be talking about the UK experience in public-private partnerships. I return the same evening, and arrive in Warsaw's W-wa Wschodnia at seven this morning. In the meantime, W-wa Wschodnia has been reopened (more on that anon).

Travelling around Poland is becoming easier and cheaper. The appearance of a new airline, OLT Express, has forced state carrier LOT to slash its prices on internal routes. The new motorway between Warsaw and Łódź will been deemed 'passable' by the Polish government in time for the football (though the S2 southern Warsaw bypass will not be ready). However, the night train, where available, is for me the ideal way of covering longer journeys across Poland.

Now, Poland is full of noteworthy or even stunning gems, hidden away, unknown to most Poles. I had no idea, for instance, that Świdnica is home to the world's largest wooden church of UNESCO heritage status. It is quite breathtaking.

I suspect that one of the reasons it is not promoted more widely within Poland is because it is so clearly German. From the outside, it looks un-Polish – indeed, from certain angles it would not be out of place in Warwickshire or Kent. The black-and-white timber-framed church sits among greenery at its greenest now, late May. But a quick look at the tombstones – they are all in German. A few names hint at Polish roots, germanised.

Inside, a party of Germans in their early 60s is being conducted around the church, with a German-speaking guide. As I leave, soon after they do, another group enters the church – German teenagers on a school visit.

I am minded of my visit to Lwów/Lviv – seven years ago. There's a constant nagging worry at the back of the mind – Lwów/Lviv was so clearly a Polish city – the pavements, the walls, the squares, the churches – are testament to that. So if it was Polish – shouldn't it be Polish now? And Schwiednitz, in alte Niederschliesen... it was German – shouldn't it be so now? There are the obvious ins-and-out of 20th century history, but in places like this, the dissonance is evident.

The church itself is a clear case. It was – and remains – a Protestant, Lutheran church, in a Catholic country. What amazed me, however, was its interior – it drips with Baroque, in its mitteleuropaische version. I expected dourness and austerity – yet the Baroque is so over-the-top as to feel at home in any counter-reformation Roman Catholic cathedral. And the smell... that unique smell of a centuries-old wooden church.

Wrocław, which I feel I know fairly well, has had is more Germanic edges filed down, softened, over the decades, while Świdnica – not so cosmopolitan, not so knowing, has been left looking as it did in 1939, with the bomb damage filled in, 1960s style.

This time last year:
New lick of paint for W-wa Powiśle station

This time two years ago:
The Ingredients of Success

This time three years ago:
Jeziorki's Spirit of Place

A telling Metro vignette

A scene on the Metro from Politechnika to Wilanowska this evening. It's rush hour, the carriage is packed. Sitting on the seat nearest the door is babcia, in her early 70s. And sitting on her lap is her wnuczek, aged around 11. There's clearly six decades between the two, and yet the strapping grandson and his diminutive grandmother both see it right and fitting that he sits on her lap rather than a) stand, or b) that she sits on his lap (they seemed of equal size and weight).

What happened at the next station - Pole Mokotowskie - was even more remarkable. Many people got off the train - students on their way to an evening lecture at SGH I guess - and the seat next to babcia was vacated. Somehow no one was in a rush to take it. Half way to Racławicka station the seat was still vacant. And yet wnuczek did not get off his grandmother's knees to occupy the seat himself. Somehow, it was more natural for the boy to remain seated on Babcia's lap; he felt more comfortable sitting on her than beside her.

I have seen this scene many a time - on trams and on buses. Always boys, never girls - the oldest (on a number 24 tram on Al. Jerozolimskie) must have been at least 16. It tells me much about the way that Polish grandmothers - a powerful institution, a fundamental wellspring of power in the Polish state - treat their male heirs.

In many of these cases I have observed, I guess that the two live in the same apartment along with the boy's mother and father, who work long hours. The boy has developed a strong bond with his grandmother who still takes him to podstawówka and back. And even when wnuczek moves on to gimnazjum, that bond remains a time-honoured habit.

Grandparents are an essential source of wisdom for children wherever they are growing up; parents shout at their children; grandparents rarely do. Grandparents are less stressed by the exigencies of the workplace and have the benefit of an extra few decades' experience to pass on to their vnooks. But then grandparents also have a tendency to spoil their male grandchildren, as the scene I witnessed today seems to show.

I get off the Metro at Wilanowska and make my way to the bus stop. I see babcia and wnuczek behind me. They are both running and laughing. I can see that the relationship between the old lady and her grandson keeps her fit and happy.

This time last year:
How I almost saved the life of Barack Obama

This time three years ago:
Ansel Adams, Count Basie, Sir John Betjeman

This time five years ago:
The hissing of the summer lawns

A walk down Gogolińska

Inspired by the previous post, I set off for a walk along ul. Gogolińska, a Warsaw street with purely rural charm. Once past W-wa Jeziorki station, this thoroughfare takes you to somewhere with a quiet enchantment, a spirit of place, that's quite specific.

So then - here they are - this afternoon's haul of rus in suburbe.

Below: just south of the platform's end. A southbound train is departing for Piaseczno, Czachówek and Góra Kalwaria. The colours of Koleje Mazowieckie's livery are ideally matched to late May in our beloved province.

The area between Gogolińska and the village of Zgorzała beyond has an air of abandonment; large tracts of land that seem to belong to no one and yet evidently do, neglected, uncared for - and here, Zone-like, is the charm. Below: who built these gates? Are they no longer needed to keep the intruder out? Whatever lies beyond, impenetrable nature now guards the way.

Below: I can't tell if this was a junction box for electricity or telephone; it's been ransacked for its cables; the flora is swallowing it up. Infrastructure from the Zone.

According to the map, ul. Kurantów is an 'L' shaped road that runs parallel to Gogolińska from Karczunkowska before swinging sharp left to join Gogolińska. But there are no road signs to that effect. Below: ul. Kurantów, looking towards Gogolińska and the railway line beyond. Cobblestones peer out through the dirt track.

Below: Are we in KwaZulu? Is this Natal? No - this is still Jeziorki. Just before asphalt runs out on ul. Gogolińska, signalling the south-westerly border of Poland's capital, we come across an abandoned building by the railway line.

Below: A quarter of a kilometre further south of the road that the maps claim is ul. Kurantów, there is another road leading off Gogolińska, which proclaims itself with a sign to be the street in question. At the end of this thoroughfare is a patisserie, Olsza - address, ul. Kurantów 1. It seems that Warsaw's comprehensive street-naming system, MSI, does not extend to these far-flung outposts. Two parallel streets, 250m apart, both claiming the same name.


Left: the sign says "MUD 300m -> Tractor 50 złotys - no VAT". We are now outside Warsaw, in Gmina Lesznowola. The dirt track becomes treacherous in autumn and spring, and the temptation for residents of the new housing estate (below) to use this track as a short-cut - saving 3km of bunged-up roads through Nowa Wola, Zgorzała and Dawidy Bankowe - must be irresistible. The field between Gogolińska and the new estate is still being farmed. How long before it too fills up with houses?

Below: the tree stumps mark the unofficial level crossing between Zgorzała and Mysiadło; a Koleje Mazowieckie train rumbles south towards Radom. Gogolińska zig-zags on southwards to Nowa Iwiczna; I head east across the tracks and then back to Jeziorki.

A worthy Sunday afternoon walk. I feel Kurantów beckoning for some further exploration.

Work starts on Gogolińska

Thanks to 'a Neighbour' (as opposed to 'Neighbour') for the tip-off about construction work that's getting going on ul. Gogolińska, and for pics. This is a little-known part of Jeziorki, tucked into the extreme south-west corner of Ursynów and indeed Warsaw, across the railway tracks from the station. Gogolińska runs down towards Nowa Iwiczna; as it reaches Warsaw's border, the asphalt stops and a dirt track carries on southwards.

Below: from the junction with ul. Karczunkowska, the proto-Park+Ride by W-wa Jeziorki station (now used by about 50 cars a day, parking along ul Gogolińska). In the distance, a digger.

Below: a dumper truck delivers soil to the site, which has suffered from flooding the past. The plot has been advertised as being up for sale, with planning permission.

A few days later, while waiting for a train to town, I snapped the pic below showing the whole site from the platform. Ah! the wonders of a lens that zooms out to 10mm (15mm full-frame equivalent) and a polarising filter! Soon, this field will start to fill up with brickwork; I guess there will be people living here within 24 months.

And I also noticed some more construction work under way along ul. Karczunkowska, closer to home. The sign says this will be a single-family house (budynek mieszkalny jednorodzinny).

Let's hope the city authorities connect this house to the station and to Puławska by pavement!

More from Gogolińska very soon.

This time last year:
Waiting for The Man

This time two years ago:
The Flavour of Parallel reviewed

This time four years ago:
Twilight in the garden

This time five years ago:
Late May reflections

Late evening, Śródmieście

After a night on the town, beer and curry with fellow Polish scouts from 3. Drużyna Harcerska, West London's Błękitna Trójka*, time to get the 22:17 from W-wa Śródmieście back home to Jeziorki.

Before descending into the underground station, I notice the poster welcoming football fans for the Euro 2012 championships which start in two weeks' time. The wording in English is controversial; "Feel like at home". Now, some voices are saying it should be simply "Feel at home". The "like" is superfluous. I must say it's not the most glaring of errors, as the word 'like' is inserted in, like, every other sentence by today's teenagers, like. Although it doesn't sound 100% right, it sounds, er, like an attempt to coin a marketing slogan like (no avoiding the word!) McDonald's "I'm lovin' it" or KFC's "So Good". At least there's no article, definite or indefinite, squeezed in there - "Feel like at the home" would suggest Czuj się jak w domu wariatów.

Actually, I think the slogan should have been given to a Polish law firm, government ministry or urząd to translate into English. This would have resulted in "Experience the sensation of the verisimilitude of residence within your own place of abode"**.

With the evening's rush over, time to see about those leaky ceilings. Both Śródmieście and Centralna (as I pointed out last week) have pools of water on the platform floors, even when it's not raining upstairs. Above: some strong-smelling chemicals were being applied to the ceiling on Platform 1 by workmen dressed in sinister NBC suits. Picture slightly blurred (1/10th sec, which shows the need for vibration reduction even in an ultrawide lens).

W-wa Śródmieście, which will soon be welcoming thousands of visitors, has not had any pre-Euro 2012 remont work done to it, unlike all the other Warsaw stations from W-wa Wschodnia to Zachodnia except W-wa Ochota.

I'm delighted to see a vast amount of work (at long last!) at W-wa Zachodnia, primarily focused on the provision of proper information and signage. Whether the work will be ready in two weeks' time remains to be seen.

Representatives of Warsaw's youth today; the cultured, sophisticated end of the spectrum (above) and a young representative of the city's somnolent community (below) .

What kind of impression will Warsaw make on the largest influx of foreign visitors ever to descend upon the city since 1939?

* Along with other expats, last night's gathering brought together four of us old harcerze from Błekitna Trójka. I reckon there's around ten of us who were in this West London Polish scout troop in the 1970s living and working in Poland, plus more from Czarna Dwójka from Ealing.

** A little family favourite here... "Circumnavigate repeatedly the cultivated enclosure/in the manner of a diminutive ursine" = "Round and round the garden/like a teddy bear"

Wide angle at Pl. Wilsona

Award-winning* Pl. Wilsona Metro station has been illustrated here before, and again here, but an ultra-wide lens is needed to really do justice to its splendid interiors.

Above: entry from the concourse, on level -1. The dominating feature is this iridescent oval, lit to shimmer like mother-of-pearl, which hangs over the barriers and stairway.

Above: looking up from platform level. One appreciates just how important lighting is to the aesthetics and to the functioning of public transport.

Left: Just one escalator, going up, a broad staircase for passengers descending to platform level. And - as at every station on Warsaw's Metro system, lifts for wheelchairs and prams.

Below: the station is more conventional in appearance at the other end of the platform, but notice the wavy roof-line, distorting the reflections from the neon strip light along the platform's edge.

Below: a group of nuns about to board a southbound train. The wavy roof-line is shown to good effect.

Below: Escalators to street level, emerging onto the ul. Krasińskiego side of Pl. Wilsona. The functionalist monitoring point looks like a WWII bunker

*Winner of the award for Best Station at the 2008 MetroRail convention in Copenhagen.

This time last year:
Ranking a better life

This time two years ago:
Questions about our biology and spirituality

This time three years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time four years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time