Journey to the past part I: Warsawa

Warsaw welcomed us with this eye-catching Palace of Culture and Science, just like bundaran HI Jakarta, Indonesia. Easter holiday it was! 18-20 April 2019 at Warsaw and 20-22 at Krakow. My original plan with my friend, Fatima was actually to go to Italy, but... the price was insane (3x the normal price) during this Easter week so not now, Venice... 

So then suddenly two boys from my class (Dharmjeet and Irfan) agreed to join this trip and in a click of finger we decided to go to Poland because it seems that holiday season did not affect anything on Poland prices and I simply was not interested in going to Germany at all. 

We took a bus from Florenc, Prague at 20:20 and will arrive the following day at 6 AM. We had dinner at Mustek interesting Indian buffet before going that night. I will definitely go back there, the pricing system is based on your tray weight. The bus company was Ecolines which was not very familiar and I got suspicious. But guess what, as soon as we entered the bus, I felt like we were inside an aeroplane! This is the 1st long-distance bus that has superb movie screen with interesting programs. I watched "Danish Girl" during the night and it was nice. You should watch it, especially you who are interested in gender matters. I had good sleep maybe because I am now getting used to low-budget bus travel. And yes, I would recommend Ecolines a lot! Sorry, Ecolines for my false pre-judgement.

First thing to do in the morning was to find breakfast place. Nothing was really opened around 7AM except big brand cafes,  so we ran to Subway. It has been 5 months after my last subway, but really despite all the bad things about it, I really like their sweet onion sauce. I will surely buy it if they sell them in a bottle. 

After we put our stuff in the hostel (Oki Doki hostel 15 euro/night.person) we went to the 1st destination on the map which was the furthest. Well, I could not say this was a super amazing hostel. But it was not bad either. We got 1 room for 4 of us. It was just that we got this room with "The Sea Shadow" theme so they painted it in dark gradation of blue so it felt dark. Luckily the shower room was not that bad. 

Łazienki Park

We took bus to arrive here and the 1st place we saw is this Myslewiki Palace. It served mostly as an elite mansion in the past.  I have to admit that this park is enormous. I don’t  how many hectares but it is indeed so big. We only saw what we passed through which is this beautiful Lazienki Castle. There were some spanish tour groups all over the place. It was freaking sunny and it matches the castle atmosphere. We spent hours here simply because we could not easily find the exit. But it was a nice place to spend spring. 

It also has an amphiteatre but the stage is across a little part of the lake. While randomly sitting near a lake, we got a beautiful view of Palace Belwederski... and I just realized now that it was not the 1st palace we stepped into. They look similarly white. This place is used for presidential ceremonial purposes and no longer for presidential residence. That's why it seems that there was nothing happening when we reached there. 

Even we walked there for 2 days maybe we could not finish figuring its hidden palace and statues. After this place, we took bus back to city center to the New and Old town. We ate at this lovely Barbican gate to try Polish dish. Their specialities are dumplings, which is totally different from the Chinese ones. It is more like stuffed pasta. I ordered another dish which was grilled pork with local sauce. 

Warsaw's Fountain Park

Fatima tried to rent and activate this electric city scooter via app and it worked. It was actually super fun to go around with it! We felt like kids again! We reached a fountain park which had beautiful red old building I don’t know what behind it. Lots of people were just chilling and laying down along the fountain. It was truly a beautiful and vivid afternoon.

During the bus trip I accidentally spotted a place called Chopin's Point and I said to myself to see the concert tonight. We went back to check in to the hostel. 

Palace of Culture and Science 

I had this plan to watch the concert so I went out alone at 17pm starting at the Palace of Culture and Sciences which turned out to be just a symbolic statue for me because maybe there is no open exhibition at the moment. Actually this place also has theaters, libraries, universities, sport clubs..... I liked it but I don’t know why it feels that there is something missing with this building. But it has a very nice park with interesting designs of fountains. I have to admit that European has tremendous love for parks. I found a lot of youngsters just simply chilling and chatting around the fountain which breaks my old thinking that parks were only designed for seniors or walking babies. 

Royal castle of warsaw and Chopin Point

I found this place by taking metro and tram. Well... this place has been through a lot of things during World War and Nazi occupation, I can feel it there. This place just felt different from the whole old towns I have visited and gave me strange feeling. Actually the worst thing of traveling alone is when you have to take selfies. This place are also full of people just sitting on the top of the wall or the tower.                                                                                                                                           

I walked along the way and.... surprisingly I re-found Chopin Point. It was like that it was already my destiny to go there. I asked the lady if there was still a place, and she made a place for me. It was around 10 euros-concert and this place was the place that teenage Chopin played. They have small apperitifs for the guests which is Polish alcohol but at that time I didn’t feel to take any. 

Well, the pianist was not bad but she seemed to be in rush. Also, there was lot of noises from outside because of people trying to get in. But really, this concert made my trip perfect. My favourite is still the last piece: Polonaise.

Listening to Chopin's repertoire in his birthplace: Checked. I regret not having enough time to go to the museum. I guess it used to be the house he lived in at his early age. Definitely a must go to for romantic era lovers. 

After the concert, I just walked around the old town and they have so many churches. But, some of them are scary, really. It has different energy. I don’t know why. They also have fancy hotels around this way. It was Hotel Bristol and opposite of it was Raffles Europejski, which has luxurious bar and real rich family having dinner. One thing I love about trips is to directly see contrast lives can co-existent in a thin layer of fate and walls. 

I ate at this Polish restaurant and suddenly a huge mass of Polish people (maybe thousands) had this Easter march. I was like, how could I find my way home through this massive crowd? I was literally trapped there. But luckily it only lasted 1 hour and the crowded went away. I was lucky enough not to lose my last tram back.

There was this old lady in the tram might be almost 100 y.o. and everybody is talking to her.  I feel like seniors are respected a lot here maybe because they have been through so many horrible time. 

To conclude, I like Warsaw. It is... strangely beautiful. Like an old soul. 

When I got home, my friends were still out. I slept peacefully to pay my sleeping debt because of our long bus trip the night before. We will leave the next morning with bus to Krakow. Another 6 hours of bus! 

do zobaczenia warszawa!

PS: By the way, I felt like polish language is way more complicated than Czech, it has so many -wski endings. 

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