Airside at Okęcie's 'new old' terminal

Here's a belated look at how things look once you've got through security at Okęcie after the (re)opening of the (new) old terminal. [See this post about the groundside improvements.]

The airport gets better and better. Smaller and easier to navigate than Heathrow, larger and more relaxed than 'hurry-up-and-wait' Luton, it's my favourite regular airport.

Firstly: if you've no cabin baggage to check in, simply pass through security at whichever terminal and head to your gate as advised. If you do have cabin baggage, your ticket or e-ticket will tell you where to do this. Sector A is in the new old terminal; Sector B is between the new old terminal and the old new terminal; Sectors C, D and E are in the old new terminal.

But I should get out of the habit of 'old' and 'new' terminals. Officially, the whole ensemble should be considered Terminal A. Which implies that at some point in the future, there will be Terminals B through to Z.

Once you've passed through security (on either side), you'll need to find your gate. The choice has suddenly expanded from Gates 1 to 28 (as was) to Gates 1 to 45. Bear in mind that the low numbers are for Non-Schengen destinations, beyond passport control. These are to the left as you pass through security, at the northern end of the 'pirs' or pier. The Schengen destinations (countries where there's no mutual paranoia about gatecrashers from  other parties to the treaty) are the higher-numbered gates along the middle and southern end  of the pirs.

There are now new bar-code scanning gates speeding up the time it takes to get to security. So far they work fine.

Below: as the airport's website has failed to annotate its otherwise useful terminal plan, I've done so for you. Gate numbers are approximate (I cannot be held responsible for someone missing flights if they guide themselves solely by my plan); north is to the left of the pic, south to the right. The light green area is beyond passport control and is for Non-Schengen flights. The 'new old' terminal, opened last month, is the triangular bit above the number 32; the 'old new' terminal is the square bit above the number 25.

Below: photo taken with lens set at 40mm lens (60mm full-frame equivalent). The photo was taken at the southern end of the pirs looking north past all the gates. From where I'm standing to the furthest gates in the distance is a nine-minute walk (I'm assuming a minimal wait at passport control).

The new gates mean more shopping opportunities to cater to your spending needs. There are plentiful shops selling clothes, electronic gadgetry (there's a Samsung shop, for example) and food. Below: an FSM Syrena pick-up forms a eye-catching centrepiece at a Premium Food Gate, a food and drink store which offers a wide range of regional Polish specialities. There are now lots more shops, so if you've got used to Okęcie having nothing to tempt you with other than a Aelia, a Keraniss and a Relay, come a bit earlier next time you fly as there's now plenty more to look at.

There's even a Scottish restaurant airside! (there's one groundside, I mentioned it in my earlier post about the new old terminal, linked top). However, unlike the groundside one, this restaurant has a bizarre method of ordering, collecting and paying for your food. First, you join a queue to get a card-like voucher. Secondly, you join another queue to order your food. Your order is encoded on the card you have recently received. You then join a third queue as you wait for your order to be prepared. Your meal is served, you then have to join a fourth queue to pay for your meal, handing back your card-like voucher, which is decoded and the correct amount displayed. After full financial reconcilliation between you and the Scottish restaurant, your transaction is deemed to be complete, and you can leave to catch your flight. If it's still there.

Quite why the Scottish restaurant, usually a paragon of business efficiency, has chosen to increase the number of queues you have to stand in from the usual one (or two in drive-thrus and station outlets) to four is beyond me. Unless it's a historical re-enactment of PRL-style queuing, giving international flyers a brief taste of life in communist Poland. My guess is that this clunky and user-unfriendly system will soon be replaced by something more streamlined. Sack the management consultants!

Still, I miss a butchery-and-wine style restaurant serving grilled pork and lamb cuts at Terminal A. I'd like to see something like this called Chop In A Lotnisko.

A propos of airside catering: if you're flying through "London" Luton and the place is heaving with nowhere to sit let alone sit down and eat, go to Gate 10 where there's a place called Bar Ten, and it's always empty. Don't worry about missing your flight, for there's a display showing the gate numbers for flight as they are called.

This time four years ago:
Thirty-One and Sixty-Three (short story about 19th C. Polish uprisings)

This time six years ago:
Jeziorki to Jeziorki - the big rail loop

This time seven years ago:
Automotive miscellany

This time eight years ago:
South Warsaw sunsets

Loakes in Warsaw!

Hurrah! My favourite shoe brand comes to Warsaw! For 35 years (since April 1980, to be exact) my formal shoe of choice has been Loakes. Over the decades, I've bought no fewer than 13 pairs. The reason? They're hand-made in the traditional way, they last for ages (if well looked after), the style is timelessly elegant and triumphantly British. Not Italian (made from Venezuelan albino bat leather with a silver clasp and tassel, that last one season then fall apart). Or from the Far East (simply fall apart after one season).

Loake is a family business - fourth generation, now led by Andrew Loake. Founded in 1880. History, tradition - things that few footwear brands can emulate. Many of Loake's employees are children or grandchildren of previous generations of Loake employees. This is the antithesis of global corporations exploiting whatever they can get away with exploiting to maximise next quarter's earnings. This is sustainability. I support it.

I was delighted to hear the news that a Loakes shop would be opening in Warsaw - the second in the whole of Continental Europe. So mixing a little bit of business with a whole lot of pleasure, with my son, I set off for the occasion, attended by many Polish fashion journalists.

Below: ul Chmielna 30 - in a courtyard just off the main (pedestrianised) street, not far from ul. Marszałkowska.

Below: Before the store opening, the briefing. Loake's sales director talks us through the product. This shoe, the company's best seller, is the Chester (same name and same colour as our male cat, Czester).

Below: At last, the store opening. Inside, it's beautifully laid out. Up-market, unfussy. The kind of place that makes you want to buy several pairs. Prices from 600 zł to 1,200 zł. For shoes of this quality that last many years, a snip.

Below: Proper. Men's. Shoes. Today. Yesterday. Tomorrow. Not shoes with turned-up pointy toes that will find themselves in sales bins at the end of the season.

Below: My son, in his element.

Below: These will do! A lovely pair of co-respondent brogues.

The best part of the story for me is that Loakes will take their customers' old shoes and fix them back in their Northamptonshire factory with a new long sole and leather lining for 350 zł a pair. I will be bringing them many pairs that I can't get properly fixed in Warsaw. The concept of a szewc (cobbler) who sews soles to uppers has all but disappeared. The guy should call himself a kleik (gluer) who glues bits of rubber to worn-down soles. So if the craft is dying, at least back in Northamptonshire, there's a factory still doing it the way it should be done.

This time last year:
Gdynyer, on the beach, six am

This two years:
Polish doctors in UK offer new healthcare model

This time three years ago:
Football in Warsaw

This time four years ago:
Era becomes T-Mobile

This time five years ago:
Warsaw-Góra Kalwaria-Pilawa rail link closed

This time six years ago:
Marsh harrier, golden airliner over Jeziorki

This time seven years ago:
Bus blaze on way to town

This time eight years ago:
A beautiful, stormy twilight

The day, seized.

'Carpe diem!,' they say - so I did. I woke up at twenty past three in the morning to find it was already getting light outside. "Why not," I asked myself, "why not set out for a long walk right now. So I got dressed and left the house at ten to four. What a marvellous aroma met my nostrils! At this time of day, as plantlife readjusts from the nocturnal to the daytime photosynthesis cycle, there's a unique, refreshing and entirely wonderful smell in the air that disappears with the sunrise. And of course there's hardly any traffic. It occurs to me that in midsummer, with 17-hour long days at this latitude, there's so much more oxygen in the air than in midwinter, where there's a little over seven hours of daylight for plants to photosynthesise. More oxygen, we feel brighter and more energetic. So it's not just the sun...

Follow my footsteps as I head south towards the sun, in search of the Sublime Aesthetic.

Below: it's 03:54, on ul. Karczunkowska, passing Trombity bus stop.

Below: at 04:14, I leave Warsaw. The old, pre-1999 sign is still there, announcing that outside Warsaw's city limits is a unit of territorial self-government called 'Warsaw Voivodship'.

Below: it's 04.27, ten minutes after sunrise, and the first rays are catching the windows of the housing estate across the tracks from Nowa Iwiczna, as seen from Zamienie.

Below: it's 04:35, and I'm looking across the fields to Nowa Wola. It looks like some kind of petrochemical installation at first glance, but this is the neo-modernist housing estate, which I find aesthetically pleasing. Fit for purpose and to me, far nicer than faux dworki.

Other than two delivery vans that pass me, there's no other sign of human life - until 04:39, when I see this farmer tending his crops, below.

Below: at the crossroads at 04:45. "But where's this road leading me? Where? You're thinking 'Where does this road lead? Where? Have I gone too far?' My God!*" Look at the adverts, the wires in the sky. If this didn't put me in mind of 1950s USA, I'd be minded to call this scene ugly.|

Below: it's 05:23. Nice houses, Jazgarzewszczyzna, photo taken from Bobrowiec. This is now on the other side of the main road from Piaseczno to Magdalenka. Rich people live out here, and their lifestyle is not to be envied (assuming they work in central Warsaw). This is over 8km (5 miles) further out of town than Jeziorki; there's no railway station within walking distance, both car and bus have to wait ages at the lights to cross the main road and then again at the level crossing at Jeziorki. No exurb for busy men.

Below: it's 05:55 and I'm approaching Piaseczno from Bobrowiec, having passed Kamionka. I cross the narrow-gauge railway, now nothing more than a tourist attraction, once the mainstay of public transport south of Warsaw. Again, I'm minded of  1950s USA.

I pass Piaseczno, in great need of a coffee, I pop into the Wadex petrol station on the main road. Me: "Do you do coffee?" Petrol station assistant: "I can sell you a packet of ground coffee..."

At once I identify an issue. BP and Shell make grosze per litre on petrol sales. They make their real money on selling snacks, roadmaps, car accessories etc. Pan Heniek trying to compete with the big guys will have an impressive range of alcoholic beverages, but there's nothing for the tired truck driver other than a tin of energy drink. This is another defining urban/rural divide: in the city, every other newspaper kiosk will have an espresso machine; drinking hot coffee early in the morning while seated, reading your paper or tablet is the very essence of civilised urban morning  life. Not achievable (yet) in rural Poland. A tin of Red Bull or some cheaper napój energetyczny and that's it. Sorry - not the same. Gimme gimme hot coffee!

Below: it's 06:12 and I'm in Jazgarzew, St Roch's parish church (from where the Corpus Christi procession I mentioned in my last post came from). Shops  are open.

Beyond Jazgarzew there's Łbiska, and the rural/urban becomes purely rural. I pop into a grocery story, buy a wholemeal roll and 150g of fineft ham and structure myself a sandwich. Then I turn off the main road to follow a track southwestward towards the railway line. I'm glad to be away from the roads now that rural Poland's woken up. Lots of cars, lots of people at the local stores buying bread and szynka for their breakfasts. It's 07:06 and the long grass is still wet. Ahead of me - the forest.

I enter the forest - the Las Chojnowski which stretches in an arc from Prażmów to Konstancin. In the forest, silence.

On the other side is Ustanów; then Ustanówek and its railway station. I carry on southward and cross the Zielona ('Green') river (below) and am minded of Pink Floyd's Grantchester Meadows. It is 09:21.

Back in the forest heading to my destination - Czachówek. Below: a southbound train headed for Radom. The sunlight dapples the forest floor, the smell of the vegetation is a marvel.

Below: ascending the stairs to Czachówek Górny station. It's 10:01, my train's at 10:23. Time for a rest, eat the rest of my sandwich and sunbathe, while reading today's paper.

Below: My train arrives on time at Jeziorki, I'm not unduly tired, so I take the longer way home via ul. Nawłocka. It's 11:03 and I'm back where I started from, seven hours and 13 minutes earlier.

Below: a map of my route - for the sake of convenience I've rotated it through 90 degrees so that north is to the left. Click to enlarge.

Total distance walked 22.3km (plus another 1.4km from station back home - total 23.7km/14.7 miles/ 29,650 paces). Not bad, and though the sun has been wonderful and hot, I did my walking before the rays became too intense.

The day today is 15 minutes shorter than it is a the summer solstice, which falls on 20 June this year.

* See the Fast Show's Garden Party sketch.

This time three years ago:
Classic British cars for British week

This time four years ago:
Cara al Sol - a short story

This time five years ago:
Pumping out the floodwater

This time six years ago:
To Góra Kalwaria and beyond

This time seven years ago:
Developments in Warsaw's exurbs

Corpus Christi in rural Mazovia

Today, a day off work. Each year between late May and late June (depending on the date of Easter Sunday), the Catholic Church celebrates Corpus Christi (Boże Ciało). Processions of the faithful visit specially prepared altars (four - one for each Gospel). Heading south out of Warsaw, I try to catch as many as I can. As it happened, I met two processions on the move and passed by another two that had finished and had returned to their parish church.

Riding through Jazgarzew, south-west of Piaseczno, I came across a vast procession (below). This is the back of the procession, which has halted at the first altar...

And below... this is the head of the procession, on the move to the second altar. Note the ZTM bus stop - this is still commuterland. The procession was properly marshalled with police motorcycle outriders to control traffic.

All over my route there were altars, either awaiting the procession or already visited. One way to tell whether the procession had passed was by seeing whether the asphalt was strewn with petals. This altar (below) was near the parish church of Pieczyska.

The weather was perfect today; brilliant sunshine but not too hot; after 31C yesterday, today's temperature at noon was 21C. Comfortable for processions. Below: three more altars. Texts on them from left to right: 'God loves you,' 'Christ the Lord feeds us with his Holy Flesh', and 'Follow Christ'.

Do not confuse altars with shrines. The latter are permanent structures, very common in rural Poland. Many villages have more than one. Below left, a Marian shrine, still decorated for the celebration of the Marian month of May; below right, a traditional wayside crucifix.

I came across my second procession near the village of Stromiec. This one was on a main road, the DK48, which links Tomaszów Mazowieckie with Dęblin taking in Białobrzegi and Kozienice. It was between the last two towns that this truck, which had mercifully slowed down as it entered a built-up area, came head-on with a procession as it rounded a bend. No police escort, just one volunteer fireman in charge of safety. Had the driver been going faster, or drunk, the consequences could have been tragic.

Worth noting the the role of the OSP (voluntary fire service) in rural Poland. After the church, this is the second-most powerful institution across Poland's villages. The remiza strażacka  (fire station) is where christenings and weddings are celebrated; the OSP gives people the chance to wear a uniform and play an instrument in a brass band. In both processions I saw today, there was a sizeable OSP contingent.

This is the rural Poland that voted Duda on 24 May. Here, in the run-up to the second round of the presidential elections, I didn't see one Komorowski poster. Socially conservative Catholic Poland is alive and well in the countryside. While churchgoing might be in decline in the cities, here it is tradition, it is what you do.

The question in my mind as I returned home via Nowa Wola and Zamienie, where entire housing estates are emerging from the arable fields, is whether these new communities will ever become part of the local congregation, or does the spread of the Warsaw agglomeration threaten traditional ways at the metropolis's edges?

This time last year:
25th anniversary of Poland's transition

This time three years ago: This time two years ago:
Poland's infrastructure progress

This time four years ago:
Wetlands in late-spring

This time five years ago:
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 six years ago:
Another time, another place

London vs. Warsaw: Part II - demographics.

I see this post has attracted huge amounts of readers (though not as many as my recent review of With Blood and Scars). I'd like to look this time of life at when it makes sense to live in London, and when it makes sense to live in Warsaw. Addressing the point made by Sigismundo in the comments on the previous post, I'll focus less on economics and more on quality of life.

18-33: LONDON. Let's say you are fortunate enough to have the whole of your life ahead of you. Warsaw or London? Without a shadow of a doubt, London. Life here is more intense. Sure, it's more expensive, whether you're a student or a first-jobber; the trick is to work hard and play hard. London offers you the opportunities to do both. But focus on building social capital, on those aspects which will serve you well in future. London is for 24-hour party people; but you have to be able to afford it, which means you work when you're not playing. No space for slacking. London attracts the best young talents from around the world, academically or in any area of professional or artistic endeavour. There are huge opportunities - but they must be grasped. If you have a tendency to be lazy - London's not for you - it will push you to the margins.

33-45: WARSAW. You've settled down. You want to raise children. Let's face it - London's not the best place for doing this. London schools are either expensive or poor. Warsaw schools are internationally recognised as being better (see PISA results) and cheaper. There's less knife crime and less drugs in Warsaw schools. If you've got this far in life on a successful roll, you'll find that quality housing in Warsaw is cheaper too, compared to what you're earning. You're not hemmed in by urban sprawl. The experience you gained in London will get you a premium on the Warsaw job market (I'm assuming you're a professional here.) And these are no longer the years where you're running around from club to club, so Warsaw's quieter (though nonetheless rapidly developing) nightlife is no longer an issue.

45-67: WARSAW: "When does life start? Priest - at conception. Pastor - at birth. Rabbi - when the kids leave home." Old joke, but this time of life is predicated by whether your children will go to study away from home (when I was 18, the further away, the better), or end up like statistical Italians, living with mamma until the age of 38. This is the time for enjoying the finer things in life - the arts, good food, walks in the country. Unless you are a millionaire, in pounds sterling, not zlotys, London is too expensive. A night at the opera for two will cost you around £500 (2,875 złotys) for tickets and a meal. And Warsaw is more easy-going for folk this age; in London, you feel you're past it, swimming in a sea of youth.

67+: WHEREVER YOUR PENSION ENTITLEMENT IS: Don't move back to Poland if you've been paying into the National Insurance system all your working life. The NHS is rightly treasured by Britons. Your medicines and treatments are free. But if you've been living in Poland until this age, it's no time to move. Travel by all means, visit friends and relatives regularly. But stay close to your pension pot, to your doctor. Poland may be no country for old men right now, but in future it will have to adapt to its demographics. Unless populist politicians screw it up with economic policies that win elections today, sending the bill to coming generations, Poland will be forced to be more old-folk friendly in future.

So there we have it. Mr Dembinski's recepta for a happy and fulfilled life across the two countries he knows and loves best.

This time two years ago:
Warsaw wealthier than most of UK shock!

This time three years ago:
Rail link to Okęcie airport opened

London vs. Warsaw - where's it better to live?

Big thanks to regular commentator Dr Marcin from around the corner, who as well as providing me with tip-offs regarding local development, also acts as a warning klaxon in the ideology department.

When I said a few days ago that I much preferred living in Warsaw to London, here is his riposte:

"London v. Warsaw: 

• Substantially well developed public transport network
• Better town-planning order
• Cleaner
• Not-destroyed pavements
• Lack of stand-out ramshackle houses
• Much more polite public services workers (for instance bus drivers)
• A better information system
• Greater ethnic/cultural diversity
• Fewer gated residential estates
• More theatres/cinemas/museums/art galleries
• More airports
• More sport/recreational facilities
• More recreational green fields
• More universities/higher schools/colleges
• Substantially younger population
• Substantially higher average salary
• Much lower level of corruption
• 38th v. 84th place in Mercer's 2015 Quality of Living Survey
• Lower VAT "

So here's mine.

First things first: Warsaw is a much smaller city than London. Even if you question the official population statistics (1.8 million) and look upon Warsaw as an agglomeration rather than a city artificially constrained by its city limits, it's still around four times smaller in terms of population and three times smaller in terms of area than London. Therefore it has lower population density. So we'll not be comparing like with like - size wise, Warsaw's more akin to Birmingham or Manchester, the two urban areas competing for the role of England's second city. In London, you are lost, a minnow. In Warsaw, the chances of bumping into someone familiar is much higher.

But the key thing is economy. Let's get right to the point: London is an immeasurably richer city than Warsaw because of the accumulation of capital. Not being invaded or partitioned has its benefits. You can find yourself living in a £6m Kensington town house for no other reason than because your great-grandfather had the gumption to buy it for £3,000 back in 1910. Wages in London are artificially pumped up by City bonuses, which distort the housing market, an effect magnified by the endless demand for London property from the world's rich.

At the heart of the 'where's best to live' debate is a comparison of how much you can earn in both cities. The figure to bear in mind is this: the average salary in London, after tax, is a little over two and half times higher than average salary in Warsaw. Two and half. (Well, 2.65 to be precise.)

Sources: Gross average salary for London, £27,999, May 2015, after-tax pay calculated via the Salary Calculator. Gross average salary for Warsaw, 5624.89 zł, March 2015, after-tax pay calculated via Kalkulator Wynagrodzeń.

Average after-tax salaries compared
	London	Warsaw
£/month	£1,844	£695
£/year	£22,126	£8,316
zl/month	14,835 zl	3,985 zl

Right. Let's now look at living costs.

If you want to buy a family house of average size in Zones Four or Five - a three-bedroom terraced house with some 150m2 of useable space - you will need to budget for around £400,000 (over two million zlotys). To be able to put down a deposit on said house, you'd need around a 10% deposit, or £40,000. According to the Guardian (4 May 2015), quoting a KPMG report, you need to be earning £77,000 a year gross in order to be able to be a first-time property buyer in London. So a couple each earning £38,500 could afford to buy a place in London. And the average wage there is £27,999.

[One question I constantly have about the sustainability of Central London's economy is how in God's name does the service sector manages to find people to work in it. There are people working in cafes, restaurants, pubs, hotels, shops, earning £12,000 to £15,000 a year. How do they do it? Where do they live? Do they commute in from Zone Six, where you can still rent a small one-bedroom flat for £500 a month? Or do they live four to a room in Zone One, living on Tesco Value Sliced White Bread and baked beans?]

On the edges of Warsaw you'll find 150m2 houses selling for less than 800,000 zlotys (£140,000). According to this 2015 report, the median salary in Warsaw is 6,000 zlotys/month or 50,000 zlotys a year after tax. So a similar situation to that in London... BUT the killer is the transport.

A quarterly Warsaw central zone public transport pass costs 250 zlotys (at today's exchange rate, that's £43). This gives you a bit more geographic coverage than London Zones 1-3, a bit less than 1-4. Now, a weekly Zone 1-3 travelcard costs £37.70, a weekly Zone 1-4 travelcard costs £46.10. So public transport is 13 times more expensive in London than in Warsaw. And remember, folks, that median take-home pay in London is just two-and-half times higher than in London.

If you're dumb enough to drive to work (unless you have a company car), with cars and petrol costing pretty much the same in both cities, more fool you.

How much UK house will your salary buy? Have a look at this handy calculator.

Finally, my Warsaw vs. London arguments

• Lower crime rate (burglaries, assault, car theft etc)
• Far fewer knife-murders and stabbings in schools
• Far less drugs in schools
• Far fewer people wanting to blow you up for religious reasons
• Safer to walk the streets at night
• Faster rate of improvement in many areas of life
• Proximity to countryside (my bedroom, 9 miles from the city centre, looks out over farmland)
• Lower population density
• No poncy class system
• Ability to buy fresh seasonal produce from farmers' stalls on street corners all over town
• Better climate (although this is changing)
• Sense of pride in, and direct connect with, Warsaw's history
• Sense of pride that I'm living in the city that my father is from

[Compare crime concerns here.]

So, I'm happy to be here, no plans of going back to London. I już!

This time last year:
Jeziorki, magic hour
[Read this post, you'll see why I love where I live]

This time three years ago:
Świdnica, one of Poland's lesser-known pearls

This time six years ago:
Spirit of place
[Another 'why I love Jeziorki so' post. Walking around for an hour without bumping into a single soul? Try doing that within a nine-mile radius of Hyde Park Corner!]

Rural Mazovian toponyms on the way to the Pilica

Riding south out of Warsaw, I pass Nowa Wola, Jaroszowa Wola, Wola Prażmowska, Wola Wągrodzka, Wola Kukalska, Łychowska Wola, Wola Boglewska, Dobra Wola, Wola Palczewska, Biejkowska Wola, Stromiecka Wola or Brzeska Wola. Why so many Wolas? (Wola is pronounced 'VOH-luh')

From Wikipedia: Wola in Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth, (in Latin libera villa, libertas ) a name given to agricultural villages, appearing from the 13th Century, historically constituting a separate category of settlements in Poland. Settlers were given plots of land and exemption from all rents, fees, and taxes for a number of years. In exchange, feudal landlords, granting these rights, would expect forests to be cleared and cultivation to take place.

Another toponymic suffix that pops up here and there in rural Mazovia is Kolonia (as in Kolonia Brzeźce, Bobrek-Kolonia, Promnia-Kolonia, Częstoniew-Kolonia) - simply 'colony'. People from one village would set up an outlying colony in nearby woods. And then there's Parcela (plural Parcele) as in Michałów-Parcele, Palczew-Parcela, Falęcice-Parcela. Also easy to translate - literally, a parcel of land.

You'll also find plenty of Budy, a word that means huts, shacks, kennels even. Not a complimentary term for your village, should you live in one. (Budy Brankowskie, Budy Michałowskie, Budy Sułkowskie, Budy Opożdżewskie)

Settlements named after Christian names with the suffix 'ów' are extremely common across Poland, every other village in southern Mazowsze seems to have such a name: Michałów, Stefanków, Franciszków, Bronisławów, Edwardów, Henryków, Janów, Józefów.

Other suffixes passed along the way: '-ówka' (as in Kędzierzówka, Jesiówka)  '-izna' or 'yzna' (as in Jakubowizna, or Jazgarzewszczyzna*, down the road from Jazgarzew); '-izna' denotes the gift of land. The suffixes serve to turn an adjective (which ends in an '-ski') into a noun. So 'Dembinski's gift of land' would be 'Dembińszczyzna'; while Michał's gift of land would be 'Michałowizna'.

The suffix denoting a diminutive, '-ek' (as in Czachówek, or in Budziszynek, down the road from Budziszyn) is common. Another very common suffix is '-wice' as in Drwalewice, near Drwalew, Staniszewice or Sułkowice).

Less common in the south of Mazowsze are '-in' suffixes; these are more often to seen in the west of the province, as in Gostynin, Gąbin, Krubin, Dobrzelin, Żychlin, Kornelin.

Other 'easy ones' that translate perfectly from English: Nowy-something (New + name ) and, occasionally, as if to make the point, Stary- something (Old+name); Something Dolny and Something Górny (Lower + name and Upper + name). Duży-something, Mały-something (Large + name and Small + name). However, these are not just prefixes; they can be suffixes too. (Lekarcice Nowe and Lekarcice Stare).

Like in Britain, where toponyms are clues to history (-chester suffixes indicate Roman settlements, while -by indicate Danish ones). I'm sure some Polish local historian has carried out such a survey.

So then - late May, Mazovian country roads, south of Warsaw, to the Pilica (the first major river crossing the main southbound routes from Warsaw). Below: bucolic scene, Brzeźce. In Poland, fields tend not to be enclosed, so to stop cattle from straying, they are chained to the spot. This one, being led from field to dairy for milking, is dragging its chain along the asphalt.

Below: the Pilica at Biejków, looking east. A lovely river, paths on either banks and eminently suitable for boating or canoeing.

Below: the Pilica at Biejków, looking west. The river rises in Silesia, heads north towards Piotrków Trybunalski, then swings east and heads that way until it meets the Vistula north-east of Warka.

 

Below: the lure of the open road, somewhere north of the Pilica.

* Jazgarzewszczyzna, the second longest single-element placename in Poland - 17 letters long.  Siemieniakowszczyzna, at 20, is the champ.

This time last year:
Carrying the weight on both shoulders

This time two years ago:
Railway history - the big picture

This time four years ago:
A new lick of paint form W-wa Powiśle

This time five years ago:
The ingredients of success

Making sense of Andrzej Duda's win

The pundits, the pollsters, Warsaw's chattering classes (which by definition includes me) got it wrong. The first-round shock victory of Andrzej Duda in the first round of the presidential elections on 10 May were merely to serve as a wake-up call to the idle PO-voting elite who couldn't be bothered to get back from their działki to vote because in any case, Komorowski would win the second round.

And why not? In the first round Mr Duda might have beaten the incumbent by less than one percentage point on a turnout of less than half of Poland's registered voters. In other words, less than one in six of all Poles voted for Mr Duda in the first round. Clearly, thought President Komorowski's advisors and supporters, in the second round, as long as enough of the remaining five-sixths who didn't vote Duda in round one turned up to vote rationally, the right result would be assured.

Bearing in mind that third place in the first round was taken by some pop singer, and supporters of pop singers tend not to see eye-to-eye with religious conservatives, it was assumed [by whom? by the chattering classes] that this element of the disgruntled youth would come to its senses and support the status quo.

But it was not to be. As we now know, Mr Duda beat President Komorowski by two percentage points, the closest result in the history of post-1989 presidential elections.

Why?

On the part of Bronisław Komorowski and his team - complacency. The pollsters got it totally wrong. Far more wrong than the British pollsters telling the nation that Labour would beat the Tories on 7 May. So wrong in fact that their wiarygodność had evaporated totally.

Not a single poll - not one - expected Mr Duda to win the first round. Polling during the last week of the campaign showed a comfortable eight to 12 points lead for Mr Komorowski from most pollsters, with only one outlier predicting a dead heat. [Yet on a ride in southern Mazowsze, between Białobrzegi and Warka, the weekend between the first and second round, I could only see posters for Duda. Not a single one for Komorowski.]

What could possibly go wrong? Back in February, pollsters were showing 65% support for the incumbent and a 40+ percentage point lead over the second-placed Mr Duda.

So - what did go wrong? Too few PO activists and supporters considered the possibility than in a second round run-off (which was looking increasingly likely from late-March onwards, since when pollsters began suggesting that the president was unlikely to win in the first round), the young and disgruntled would cast their votes for a religious conservative candidate.

Why did the young and the left-wing decided to throw in their lot with Mr Duda?

They took the bait, so sweetly laid. It was explained to them that the reason they were jobless or poorly-paid was because a callous, greedy elite was doing them down. The answer, suggested candidate Duda, is to redistribute. But not from rich to poor.

Reducing retirement age from 67 (for men and women) to 60 (for women) and 65 (for men). Despite the fact that Poles on average live six years longer than they did in 1989. Who's going to pay for this? Those Poles who are still working. And now they complain about low wages and high taxes.

In all honesty, the Polish state pension system will be unable to pay its obligations, and if the whole thing were to stick together, we'd need to be working to 72, not 67. So Mr Duda's promises are a case of kicking the can down the street, for our children's generation to pick up the tab. Big time.

No mention among Mr Duda's shiny promises of slimming down a bloated and inefficient public administration (which lazy, complacent PO have failed to do over the past seven and half year in offices).

No mention of spurring on Polish innovation by getting universities to focus on commercialising the brilliant ideas of their talented students (who have been tending to commercialise them abroad).

No mention of streamlining the red tape that holds back entrepreneurs from growing their businesses by taking on more employees.

So, to my shame, last Sunday Polish voters have followed those in Greece and Spain who've believed the Pied Piper politicians who promise them a painless road to a brighter tomorrow.

OK - let's step back. What does this really mean? What did last year's European Parliamentary elections mean to the UK? The largest party representing British voters, with one-third of all UK seats in Brussels, is UKIP. Which was slaughtered in the general election earlier this month. Why did Brits vote for UKIP in the Euro-elections? Because 'it's a protest vote'. And because 'the European Parliamentary elections don't matter'.

Do the Polish presidential elections matter? In terms of how the outcome affects the nation, nowhere near the same extent as the American or French presidential elections. More akin to the German or Italian ones.

Does this election mean that PiS can win an outright victory in the parliamentary election this autumn? PO has suddenly and violently been woken up from its lethargic complacency. For years it has been winning elections by saying 'if not us - that lot', pointing at Messrs Kaczyński, Macierewicz and Ziobro. This worked as long as Jarosław Kaczyński was the public face of PiS. But by fielding a man one generation younger, the spell was broken.

The generational issue is crucial. The IPSOS exit poll, which proved to be very accurate, broke down the electorate by age and place of residence. It's no surprise that rural Poland tended to vote Duda while urban Poland tended to vote Komorowski. But what was a huge surprise is that the youngest cohort of voters (under the age of 30) were the strongest supporters of Mr Duda. While the next-youngest age-group in the electorate, the 30 to 40 year-olds,  proved to be the staunchest supporters of Mr Komorowski. Once young Poles have their feet on the property ladder, once they start worrying about prospects for their children, once they have some appreciation of how the economy works, they're inclined to vote for stability, not airy-fairy promises. But the youngest voters see Poland as a country of high youth unemployment, low wages and low job security. So they voted to smash the system responsible. Without a credible idea for a better system.

Mr Duda's victory is a like a window opening and letting in a sharp, icy gust of wind into a stuffy, airless room full of the same stale breath.

The big unknown unknown between now and the autumn is whether a new party, akin to the now largely defunct Ruch Palikota, will emerge to occupy the economic and socially liberal quarter. (We must learn to stop talking about 'left' and 'right' and look at politics in a two-axis way).

Mr Duda and PiS occupy the socially conservative but economically socialist quarter. The old communists, the SLD, socially liberal but economically socialist, were annihilated in this election. PSL, the 'peasants' party' is an old-school jobs-for-the-boys who'd join any coalition just to keep its placemen in jobs.

PO have held the centre ground, with a large measure of success compared to other countries in the EU, none of which can boast the same economic record from 2008 to today.

So - there's a vacancy in the top-right quadrant. Will Mr Pop-singer be in time to set up a party to occupy this ground? Or will former finance minister and reformation hero, Prof. Leszek Balcerowicz and economist Ryszard Petru ride to the rescue of fiscal prudence and financial rectitude?

The next six months will be extremely interesting - not to say fraught. Everything is at stake. The progress that Poland has made in rebuilding its economy can come spluttering to a halt if a redistributionist government pull all the wrong macroeconomic levers.

What can the ruling PO party do to hang onto power? Less and less. Summer holidays are looming, a credible legislative programme that sets out to answer the issues faced by the youngest voters is unlikely to take shape in time for the autumn parliamentary elections.

The key to the result of the parliamentary elections will be the shape of the coalition that takes power some time after the votes have been counted. Of the four parties in Sejm, PiS would never form a coalition with fellow economic redistributionists, the SLD, because of their history and PiS's social conservatism. PiS wouldn't in the current situation form a coalition with PO. PSL would form a coalition with Beelzebub if it would help its rank and file gets jobs in the public administration. But PSL may not make the 5% threshold to get back into Sejm. PiS has - until Sunday's election - failed to break through the glass barrier to reach for the levers of power. Last Sunday showed that with a change of leader who can appeal to the disgruntled young, PiS has the chance to get elected as the majority party in government.

The current government has five months to get its act together and to play, as David Cameron did so successfully, on the economic arguments. OK, there are major issues about how widely Poland's economic success has been spread. But the urban 30-40 year-olds who've painstakingly started putting a life together on the basis of economic and political stability will not take kindly to seeing their prospects dashed by crass economic mismanagement.

Populism is a real threat to growth. This argument needs to be brought to the fore and shouted from the rooftops between now and the parliamentary elections,

If there's one thing worse than outright liars at the helm, it's amateurs.

This time last year:
Call it what it is: Okęcie

This time two years ago:
Three stations in need of repair

This time three years ago
Late evening, Śródmieście

This time four years ago:
Ranking a better life

This time six years ago:
Paysages de Varsovie

This time seven years ago:
Spring walk, twilight time