Friday, September 6
Warsaw is the first city on this trip, and Poland is the first country, that i have been to before, although it barely counts. In 2013, Amanda and i ended our trip in Warsaw, but it was really just a layover; we never left the airport. Budapest to Chicago. We barely saw Budapest, either.
I'm happy to finally be able to add it to my list properly.
I was still a little salty when i woke up about the old man in the bunk above mine being kind of a dick to me last night. I had seen him going to bed when i first came into the room at check in, around 9pm. I had then gone out to the patio for a bit, done some exploring, sat in the bathroom for a while, etcetera, before coming back to the bunk to finish writing my log. Apparently, the quiet little click-clack of the keys on my Macbook Pro, with its notoriously loud keyboard{,} must have woken this guy up. Or maybe my use of the lamp, which is in my bunk, behind the pulled curtain, expressly for this purpose, was too much light for him. Either way, when i was folding my laptop up and putting it back in my locker to go to bed, he thought it was reasonable to pop his head out from his own curtain and tell me to go to bed.
"Yeah man, that's...what i'm doing?" i said, and he disappeared without another word.
I kind of wish i had been ruder. Like, what makes you think you have the right to tell people to go to bed? Fuck off, man. I don't know what kind of hostels you've been staying in but from my experience they're usually louder than this. I am a dainty little mouse. We can still hear the karaoke from the bar right now.
I was pleased to see him packing his things and leaving in the morning.
I searched for restaurants in the area and about a thousand pierogi places popped up within a block. I picked one that looked good, and started walking.
I'd gone about 50 meters and turned the first corner when i saw a different pierogi place that had their menu plastered on the walls, as big as their door, with pictures. Everything looked delicious, so i went in. The first employee i saw told me to go have a seat outside, and the server would be right with me. So i did.
The waiter came outside and said, "We're closed. Come back in 30 minutes."
Uh. Okay. You're not closed, your posted hours began an hour and a half ago, and someone inside already told me to have a seat.
So i got up and left. The next restaurant on the block, Pasieka, was the one i had been heading to anyway.
"Are you open?" i asked the waitress.
"Yes," she said. "Sit anywhere."
I ordered the regular pierogis, which have minced meat in them, and a Zagłoba, which is a hot drink with rum and dwójniak. I don't know what dwójniak is, but this beverage was listed under "Polish Specialties."
The pierogis were wonderful, although i was surprised that they were just meat inside. I guess i thought pierogis usually had potato. I might be judging that solely on the ones i get from CostCo, which is obviously unfair. The Zagłoba i was a bit less sure of. I'm not usually a fan of hot beverages anyway, the whole chai latte thing is pretty recent, so hot rum for breakfast is maybe not necessarily the way i should have gone here.
As i ate, i was looking up things to do in Warsaw, as has been my custom on this trip. A lot of the top draws i've been finding are either things i'm not especially interested in (ie, a whole lot of World War II stuff; i'll go see the really interesting things, but i am not interested in WWII tours by default, i am not that type of guy), or things that are on the Atlas Obscura anyway. I think i've said before, it's a little weird to find some of a city's biggest tourist destinations on a web site that's supposed to be about unusual attractions that people usually miss. Hence, "obscura."
I thought i'd start out by heading for Frédéric Chopin's heart, which is a bit of a hike, and then work my way back toward the hostel, rather than starting close and moving outward, as i have been doing.
Soon after i left the restaurant, i accidentally found the remains of Warsaw's city walls, which were not on the Atlas or the other lists i had been looking at. They just suddenly appeared. This stretch is in very good shape, so i couldn't resist changing my plans immediately and climbing around on them for a bit.
As soon as i did, i found one of the Atlas Obscura items i'd planned to come back for later anyway: Mały Powstaniec, The Little Insurrectionist.
This is a statue of a child soldier with a helmet and gun that are too big for him, displayed prominently in front of the city walls. It is meant to honor the child soldiers of the Gray Ranks who fought against the Nazis in the Warsaw Uprising in 1944. Most of the Gray Ranks assisted the soldiers by carrying messages via the city's sewer system, but many would end up stealing weapons and helmets from fallen Nazi soldiers and fighting on the front lines.
It's rumored that the statue is modeled after a boy named Antek, who was killed on August 8, 1944, just a week after the uprising began; he was 13.
I'm going to be talking about the Warsaw Uprising a lot today, so if you missed my previous entry (and, according to the traffic data on my dashboard, statistically, some of you did), and you're not familiar, here's a quick overview: after five years of Nazi occupation, the resistance movement in Warsaw staged an uprising, beginning on August 1, 1944, timed to coincide with a push from the Allied Russian army they believed was coming to Warsaw, which was integral to their battle plan. However, the Russians never showed up, and after 63 days of fighting, the Polish Resistance was forced to surrender. They had killed about 8,000 Nazi soldiers and injured as many, but the Polish losses were catastrophic. 16,000 Polish combatants killed, and civilian deaths between 150,000-200,000. 90% of the city had been razed to the ground.
We are in the 80th anniversary period, through October 2nd, so there are a lot of memorials displayed in the city right now.
I walked along the wall for a while, which is in such pristine condition for its age that somehow the copious amounts of graffiti didn't even register in my brain for a while. Once i noticed it, i realized that it was everywhere. No elaborate spraypaint stuff, just little sharpie inscriptions of love, hope, and fighting the fascists. Thousands upon thousands of these inscriptions. Also, where there were metal bars, there were love locks.
I've documented so many love locks on this trip, and i'm so happy about it.
The wall also contained an installation of informational boards documenting the influence of Slovak culture in Poland, called "Slovak Traces," which contained thirty individual stories of Slovakian people leaving their mark in this country.
After that, i kept moving toward Chopin's heart.
I stopped for ice cream. I just...wanted some. After that disappointing, stale cone at the train station yesterday. A nice, fresh scooped ice cream cone.
I do not know what the two flavors i got were, but they hit the spot.
Somewhere around here-ish, i passed by the Presidential Palace of Poland. Can't get close to it, though. Guards.
Then i stumbled upon another installation of informational boards, this one highlighting the women who played key roles in the Uprising. Roughly 12,000 women participated - fully 20% of the resistance force. Each board highlighted one woman and gave a quick overview of her story and how she contributed. In particular, i was kind of taken by Wanda Gertz, aka "Lena," aka "Kazik." Basically, Polish Mulan. Born in Warsaw in 1896, she joined the Polish Legions in 1916 by disguising herself as a man and giving a fake name; by 1919, she was commanding a unit made entirely of women. Even in the brief blurb on the kiosk, her military career in the early 20th century is just one accolade after another, and in particular, when you get to the Warsaw Uprising, she's listed as integral to several key skirmishes. Most impressively, a month in, she led a two-day evacuation of troops through the sewers even though she was ill and had lost her guide, incurring no casualties.
There was another installation very soon after that, but about a current conflict. This one is called "Faces of the Russian Resistance," and, in the same way, each board highlights a different person who is currently imprisoned in Russia for political dissent; ie, Russians who have spoken out against Putin's regime and/or the war in Ukraine.
Less than ten meters from that, another set of boards; these were entirely in Polish, though, so i couldn't tell you what any of them say. From the pictures, though, i'm betting it's more World War II stuff.
Less than 25 meters after that one, another set of boards, this one highlighting the memories of the few who participated in the Uprising and are still alive today, eighty years later.
Finally, i came to the Church of the Holy Cross, where Chopin's heart is interred.
Just his heart, yeah.
So, i don't have any particular affinity for Chopin, but on the previous Eurotrip, we did visit his grave, where the rest of his body is buried, in Paris; and i did buy two bottles of Frédéric Chopin chocolate vodka. On this trip, i found a musical bench dedicated to him in Tallinn, and i had plans to find more of them here in Warsaw, and there's a monument to him that is on my list of potential destinations. And since i've been to the rest of his body, i may as well visit the heart, right?
The story goes that Chopin, on his deathbed, knew that his body would never leave Paris, though he desired to be buried in his native Warsaw. So he convinced his eldest sister, Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, to literally steal the heart out of his chest and smuggle it back to Poland for burial. She actually complied with this request.
I don't know how she got the heart out of his body, but she hid it in a bottle of cognac concealed under her cloak, to avoid security officers asking too many questions. She managed to get it to the Church of the Holy Cross and have it buried within its walls. A monument was erected to mark the spot.
The Church also has a second Atlas Obscura article, for the Shrine of Saint Thaddaeus, the Patron Saint of Lost Causes. There's a kneeler in front of the shrine where people may pray to the Saint about their own lost causes. If they feel their prayers have been answered, they usually make a small donation to the church; some larger donations of jewelry have also been given. This corner of the church is covered in small plaques, maybe a couple inches each, recognizing these donations. The jewels are displayed near Saint Thaddaeus's portrait.
The rest of the church is pretty magnificent, as well. This is not really my thing. There's so much gold-plated stuff, so much wealth on display, i just can't. I feel like, if a god exists, it probably wouldn't stand for the useless consolidation of riches in a house of worship when there is so much hardship abound. But, that's just me. I don't subscribe to the "suffering is divine" train of thought.
Practically right outside the church, there's a statue to Nicolaus Copernicus, the Polish mathematician, astronomer, and Catholic canon who created the heliocentric model of the solar system. A bronze interpretation of his model is inlaid to the ground around his statue.
And just outside Saturn's orbit, there sits one of the Chopin benches.
I couldn't get close to this one, there was an elderly couple resting on it. I tried to wait them out, but eventually hit my balking point, and started to move on to the next point of interest.
I crossed back in front of the church, and found yet another Chopin bench on the other side. This one was also occupied, so i wasn't sure i was going to get to check this one out either, but i took up a position on the next bench and waited.
This time, i got lucky. Within a few minutes, i was on that bench. I pushed the button.
I heard Chopin.
Alright, i'm happy.
There are a total of fifteen Chopin benches scattered around Warsaw, each denoting an area that was important to the composer. It's said that if you can visit all fifteen, you'll get a pretty good tour of the highlights of the city.
I am not going to do that. I would be delighted to run across more of them, but now that i've found one that serenaded me, i'm done actively searching.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier was close. I feel like every country has one of these. In Warsaw, it's a young soldier who was killed in the Defence of Lwów during World War I. It was originally part of the Saxon Palace that stood in this place, and is the only part of that compound which survived World War II. It is constantly lit by an eternal flame, and guarded by three soldiers of the 1st Guards Battalion. The guard changes every hour on the hour, an event that tends to draw tourists.
Like me.
The tomb was an eight minute walk away. It was 2:53.
Yeah i can probably make that.
I hustled across town, almost to the Presidential Palace. I came around a building, and saw three soldiers with rifles, marching in a formation, across the street and heading into a huge cobblestone square. This must be the new guard, i thought. I can probably follow them right to the tomb.
I turned out to be correct.
Following the soldiers in was actually kind of cooler than if i'd been in position to watch ahead of time.
The changing of the guard is pretty simple, actually. Not much ceremony to it. It's not like watching the Buckingham Palace Changing of the Guard or anything. Just, well, here's some new guys. Okay now the old guys are marching away.
Still. It's a ceremony and i was present for it.
Man i'm a little worried that some of the things i've made time to go see and write about today make it seem like i'm pro-military. I'm not, i just like to observe, experience, and learn things. In my ideal world, none of this would exist.
The Tomb sits on the edge of a beautiful, green park. I wandered in there, walked around a bit, took a seat near a beautiful fountain with...dolphins, maybe?...that spit water ten feet in the air to a large bowl, which then runs back down.
I walked past the Presidential Palace for the final time as i headed toward the University of Warsaw Library. The library building itself is fascinating from the outside, it's very green, i assume because the wall panels are made of copper which has oxidized. Each four-ish story panel has text on it in a different language. The first one i came up to is the language of music, with notes transcribed on a staff all the way down the building. It's not labeled, but if i know anything about Warsaw, this is probably a Chopin composition. The panel next to it is in the language of math. I think the next one was something in Arabic script.
I didn't continue any further down this side of the building, though; i'd come for the gardens. The library's grounds are an impressive park and botanical garden in their own right. i walked around for a while before going to see what i'd really come for; the gardens stretch up to the roof of the building. There's two tall staircases in the back which will take you straight up there. There's also an elevator inside the building.
It's really impressive up there. There was a formally-dressed couple with a professional photographer up there taking what i assume were engagement photos. It's a good spot for it.
There are also several large windows where you can look down into the library, and see the vast collection of books and the students studying them. The inside of the building looks pretty impressive, too. I thought about going in once i came down, but ultimately did not.
On my way out, i did find a weird standing stone, a little taller than me, with a partial face carved in it at about face-height. What really caught my eye, though, was at about crotch level, the design of the dedication plaque of Pioneer 10 has been engraved into the stone.
i do not know what the significance of this face and space plaque rock is. It had no plaque of its own. Just a random thing that i found in a botanical garden on a college campus.
Effervescent.
I didn't feel like i should be hungry again already, but i was. So i plotted a course to the next thing i wanted to see, and looked up restaurants that might be somewhat along my route.
My selection was, ehhh, more or less random, actually, and i don't know that it was particularly "on the route" per se, but i ended up at Gościniec Polskie Pierogi, thinking i was going to have more pierogis. They had a much wider selection of them at this place than my breakfast spot this morning, including FRUIT PIEROGIS??? I did not know that was a thing!! And i can say with some confidence that if Amanda were here, that's what she would have ordered. But i ended up getting the potato pancakes.
I had potato pancakes once when i was a child, and i f u c k i n g . h a t e d . them. I knew they were a traditional Polish food, but i've been kind of avoiding getting them. I wasn't sure i ever would. I can still taste those pancakes in my memories from thirty-odd years ago.
But the ones in the pictures in this menu looked so good, so different from what they looked like in my memories. I went ahead and ordered potato pancakes with pork and mushrooms.
And they were.
Quite good.
These potato pancakes were really more like a hash brown patty, and i do fucking love me some hash browns. They paired incredibly well with the pork, and especially the sauce, and were also served with sour cream and chives. Delectable.
I was a child and it's been decades, so i could be wrong here, but in my memories, the potato pancakes i had back then were literally pancakes that had slices of potatoes put in them, served with butter and syrup. This is not at all what a genuine Polish potato pancake is.
I would absolutely eat these again.
There was a cluster of several Obscura locations a little north of the restaurant. On the way, i passed through another open cobblestoned square i'd been through before, and saw someone in a mascot suit of a bear, just milling around, waving at children. No idea what the mascot was for, but i took a shot of it with the R6m2 quick, then shifted my attention to shooting the historic buildings in the area, and then to the scenic overlook just behind the bear.
As i was redirecting to the overlook, the bear was now on my right, and i saw it hugging a little girl. I gazed toward the skyline, then heard the noise of shoes quickly hitting the stone, and glanced back toward the bear. That little girl was now sprinting as fast as she could away from the bear, the opposite direction of me. The bear stood there, staring as she ran, its shoulders slumped. It was a full mascot suit and i was looking at it from the back, but from its posture, it looked so dejected and hurt that this child had run away from it. It was just so funny to me. Part of me had wanted to get a clandestine shot of the bear hugging that girl, it was cute on its own and would have been a nice little 2-second insert shot for whatever form this video takes. Now i really wish i had, i probably could have caught that entire saga.
I reached the Old Town Wishing Bell first, which is not what i was aiming for. The Bell has a "tragic fairytale" background, involving love, jealousy, and murder. Supposedly, the ghosts of the characters involved visit the bell at midnight on Halloween. Also, according to legend, any prayers said to the bell go straight to Heaven, and if you walk all the way around the bell while touching it, your wishes will be granted.
There was a walking tour group gathered around the bell when i arrived. They were taking turns making rings around the thing and, i assume, wishing.
Close to the bell is Gnojna Góra, the Dung Hill Lookout Point. It's called that because that's literally what the hill was used for centuries ago, and quite likely is mostly made of. Though the smell was pungent and it attracted rats, burying yourself up to the neck in the dump was once considered a cure for syphilis. I suppose if you have syphilis and it's the 1800s, this seems reasonable.
The dump was closed in 1844 and covered with soil, so it's had nearly two centuries to detoxify. Now, it's another overlook with a beautiful view of the Vistula river. There's an iron fence around the entire edge of the overlook. Just below the handrail, love locks are attached to every bar of the fence.
Then there's The Warsaw Basilisk, because they have a legend about that cryptid too. This one has a whole restaurant named after it and sits atop their street sign, right in the Old Town Market Square. I guess if i'd realized that this was gonna be a restaurant, i might've just eaten there. Atlas Obscura says it's traditional Polish and "their food is worth a try." Which is. I guess one way you could've phrased that.
I saw a street performer doing the human statue thing on my way to the next stop. Some small kids were debating whether she was real or a sculpture, and then she moved and scared the hell out of them. She had to hug one little girl to tell her it was alright.
Mieszko the Stone Bear is a monument that seems a little out of place on the step of the Church of Our Lady of Grace. I didn't really see it from the pictures online, but in person, he is a very sad-looking bear. The legend says that he's a prince who was turned into a statue, and is waiting for true love's kiss to turn him back into a human.
It turns out i am not his true love, he remains a bear statue.
I did pass through those strange, surreal doors. Beyond them, you end up in a very small room, like three feet deep and eight or so across, which is covered by a stage curtain. I pulled the curtain aside enough to peek through, and found i was in a glass box. Through the glass, i could see the church proper, but it was dark. It was a tremendously bizarre experience. I didn't stick around for more than a minute.
A different church, St. John's Arch Cathedral, is next door. This one is also on the Atlas, and is one of the oldest in Warsaw. It was almost completely destroyed in WWII, but rather than use the opportunity to modernize, they rebuilt it almost exactly as it had been, but a little more gothic.
Like many prominent, ancient churches, St. John's Arch Cathedral is home to the remains of several important figures in Polish history. Most notably, the last King of the Polish and Lithuanian Commonwealth, Stanisław August Poniatowski, lies in the crypt below. Entry to the church is free, but the crypts bear a small fee to enter. I was fully primed to pay the price and go see them, but unfortunately, the crypts closed an hour before i got there.
A couple doors down from the church was a large open window that ice cream was being sold out of. I got something that was literally called a "Sweet Tube," which was a cigar-shaped ice cream cone that was filled with...whipped cream. Not the cream i was hoping for. No wonder it only cost five zloty (US $1.29).
Back in the Old Town Market Square, i visited the Mermaid of Warsaw. Said to be the twin sister of the Little Mermaid of Copenhagen (hey, i've heard this one before, girl's got a lot of sisters), the Warsaw mermaid, Syrenka, came from the Baltic Sea, swimming up the Vistula River, until she got to Warsaw's Old Town. She saw a fishing net with a full catch, and broke the net to set the fish free. This angered the fishermen, but she won them over with the power of love. Later, she was captured by a wealthy merchant, and the fishermen came to her rescue. Ever since then, she has used her mermaid powers to protect the city as the Guardian of Warsaw, for nearly a millennium now.
I've done a lot today, but the truth is, all day i've been kind of off and tired. I've rested at many benches, i've grabbed more snacks than usual, i've felt hungrier than i feel i should have. So while it was only about 7:00, i felt like it was a good time to head back to the hostel and chill.
There's one more Obscura item i wanted to chase today, but it was very close to the hostel, so i went for it.
On my way to this final destination, i passed by a marker that i thought looked familiar. I was pretty sure i'd seen a picture of this on the Atlas earlier, though i shouldn't be anywhere near another point on that map right now. I looked it up, though, and yeah, this is what i think it is. I'd found one of the Tchorek Plaques.
The reason it's not marked on the map is because the Atlas article is a general one for the whole series of these, like the Chopin benches. Since an article can only bear one set of GPS coordinates, only one of the plaques will have its exact spot marked.
The Tchorek Plaques commemorate places where battles, executions, or other notable events happened across Warsaw during the German occupation. Named for their designer, sculptor Karol Tchorek, these were installed throughout the 1950s and 60s, and are designed after the Maltese Cross. Most of them have an inscription in the middle which translates to “this place is sanctified by the blood of Poles fighting for the freedom of their homeland.”
Since their inception, it has been discovered that some of them contain factual errors; dates may be slightly off, casualty numbers misreported, that sort of thing. More interestingly, a few of them denote events which there are no other existing historical records of.
No one knows how many Tchorek Plaques were originally made. In 1983, it was estimated that 200 of them survived; by 2013, it was 160.
So it's surprising that this was my first Tchorek Plaque, but i'd found three Chopin benches; there's only fifteen of those!
I found a second Tchorek Plaque less than a block down the road. I guess i haven't really been looking for them, i've probably passed several.
My actual destination was the Warsaw Pegasus Sculptures. These are just beyond the Warsaw Uprising Monument, which i took a moment on the flyby to appreciate in the daylight. The pegasuses were erected in 2008 to commemorate the writings of Zbigniew Herbert. Initially intended to be temporary, the public loved them so much, they were left up.
They're gone now.
I got to the site where they're supposed to be, and there was nothing. I took photos from all the same angles as those on Atlas Obscura, just to prove that they are gone, and i submitted my first correction.
This is the third time this has happened. The other two, i found notes in the articles indicating that the item was temporarily relocated or inaccessible. This one, there is nothing on the page. As far as anyone reading the web site knows, they are still there.
Finally, my annoyance is justified on one of these!
At least i didn't go too far out of my way for this one, like i did for the bullet holes in the museum in...oh god. Which city was that? I've already forgotten where and when that happened.
Helsinki, it was Helsinki, Finland.
I stopped at a grocery store to grab a soda. I was packing myself up for the night, but i still felt i needed a caffeine fix. Before bed. You know, ADHD shit. I also picked up yet another snack, a medium-sized bag of chips that were like Cheetos, but peanut butter. They were okay.
This hostel has a coin-operated laundry facility! Pretty excited about that, actually. I needed to at least wash shirts, but this presented an opportunity for something greater. I know this is a pretty gross thing to admit, but here goes: i am twenty-four days into this trip, and this is the first time i've washed my pants and vest. They were both sporting some pretty gnarly sweat stains by now. I just haven't washed them because i've been too afraid they'll take so long to dry that i'll have to put them on wet the next day.
I am. So. So unreasonably excited. To put on a clean vest and pair of pants tomorrow.
After finishing my laundry, i came back to the room. It was 11pm. The main overhead lights were still on.
Quite a difference from having that crabby old guy go to bed at 9 yesterday.
It's 12:35am now and they're still on. I don't think there's even been anyone else in the room but me until this very moment. I was about to go turn them off myself when two people just came into the room chatting.
They'll probably get the light.
So, that's today. What about tomorrow? I've got essentially another full day in Warsaw. I did some Chopin stuff today, maybe tomorrow i'll do Marie Curie stuff. She's got a museum and a statue and some other things i can track down.
Oh yeah, i guess i also never made it to the Chopin museum, that's an option too.
Tomorrow will be my first actual night train. I really hope it doesn't suck. At least i know i won't be kicked out of a train station in the middle of the night and have to find refuge at a kebab shop again.
Oh good, they got the light.
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