Warsaw

WARSAW

No bears until we got to Warsaw and then there were lots! We have photos of the British bear, the Zambian bear and the Zimbabwe bear.

We had a van problem so went first to the Laika agent and met Piotr, Piotr and Anna, who arranged to fix it if they could.
Our camping site was good and convenient and had a nightingale that sang most nights.

Warsaw has an excellent tram and bus grid – fast, cheap and easy to use. Most buildings are dull post-war Stalinist blocks but the old town has been rebuilt as it used to be before the war and it is now very attractive, and largely pedestrianised. Warsavians bring their families down to enjoy it on weekends and it has a great atmosphere.

It is hard to believe that Warsaw was completely flattened during WW2. First the Jewish Ghetto was razed after the Ghetto uprising – then Warsaw itself after the Warsaw Uprising. We spent hours in the Warsaw Uprising Exhibition and then went on to the Ghetto exhibition. They are very interesting but very sobering. Don’t miss out on either if you visit Warsaw. The emphasis is on the courage and the resistance of both Poles and Jews. It is good not to see people just as victims but nothing reduces the appalling fact of the barbarity of those times. We did feel depressed by what we saw but felt that it isn’t possible to understand Poland and Eastern Europe without knowing their history. Poles themselves have only been able to reclaim their national identity since they became independent of Russia. I have been left with two shocking realisations. The first is the way that Nazi Germany sited all its Death Camps outside Germany, mostly in Poland and Eastern Europe. The second is the 100s of Ghettos created in Polish and East European towns to aid this process – so many people lived there and now there is nothing and no one left. No buildings, no synagogues, no Jews. It feels impossible as one person to have this knowledge and at the same time to say without hesitation how much we enjoyed Krakow, Warsaw and Poland. I don’t know how Poles and Lithuanians survive their history.