Off to Warsaw

Friday, July 17, 2015

Leisurely morning and off to breakfast ….  The same lovely plate with ham, salami, tomato, and sliced cheese, one of which is American, still in its wrapper! The “side dish” though is scrambled eggs!  And if you add enough milk and sugar to the coffee you get delicious café con leche!

Quickie for yesterday!  Jadwiga sang us a song to the tune of “Bridge Over the River Kwai” about Hitler and his cronies and their testicles!  And told us a joke about the Hitler salute and Viagara!  She’s a hoot!

This is one of those clever windows.  See the hinge on the
side, yet it is tipped open from the top.

As we’re walking back from breakfast we see our intrepid guide and she has a “top secret” envelope for each of us with a photocopy of a German newspaper from the day after the assassination attempt and a DVD of a movie about Wolf’s Lair that she says has only a very few discrepancies!  What a sweetheart!

We spend a few minutes checking the map and blogging and then we’re off to the shooting range!  We each get to shoot a Schmeisser machine gun, which is an MP 40!  The young man makes sure we wear our safety goggles and shows us how to hold it and aim at the array of plastic bottles at the other end of the range.  I know I hit some because I can see them bouncing around.  With as many as there are, it would be pretty hard to miss!

Back we come, being quite proud of finding our way around so well, a last-minute email check and we’re off.

Those magnificent birds we saw everywhere are Polish
storks and there is an active conservation
movement to protect them.

We’re going to fool the BIOB by asking her to take us to each city on our route one by one, instead of asking for a route all the way to Warsaw.  This works for the first couple, then SHE decides we’re going to Warsaw on her own!  Her route looks pretty good, so we just go with it. 

Interesting sights outside our car window...

Mistletoe?

Lots of windmills

These ribbon-bedecked shrines are along all the roads.

Most of the way down we pull into a little restaurant that seems like a good choice.  When we speak English the poor little girl behind the counter all but rolls her eyes!  We blindly pick two different kinds of pierogies and hope for the best.  They both turn out to be dessert ones (pierogi domowe).  One is filled with black currants and the other with cottage cheese and, maybe, apples.  Well, it’s something in our tummies and we aren’t that far from Warsaw. 

We do fine with our Tomtom lady unless there is construction she doesn’t know about.  That requires some guess work and patience but we survive and are now in the city.  She brings us to the intersection where our hostel is supposed to be located and we don’t see it, so we call. (Yea for the phone plan!) The lady at the other end says we are really close but doesn’t quite know how to get us there!  More patience and perseverance and there we are, City Hostel Warsaw.

Our room is on the third floor, which in Europe means the fourth floor and it’s a good thing there is a strapping young man to bring up our luggage.  Had we known before hand we would have only brought our backpacks and stopped by the car as necessary.  Ah well, we only have to bring our stuff down once!  We move the car to a legal parking spot and find that it is free from six o’clock tonight ( which it is) until eight o’clock Monday morning.  What with all the stairs and the closest shower being on the next floor down, we decide to only stay three nights instead of four.  That should be plenty of time to hit the high points.

Once established in our room, we set out to explore the neighborhood.  We are in Old Town and all the streets are lined with the wonderfully restored buildings that make this a UNESCO Heritage Site.  It is the only restored site on their list and is there because the restoration is so authentic.  There are also lots of cafes with outdoor seating and after some window shopping we settle on the Kuchina Warszawska, mostly because the “maître d’ “ is so darn cute!  He tells us all about the salads, since that’s what we want, and we’d follow him anywhere!

Madame Curie's house

Mormons!

Trying to beat his rent!

See what I mean?

When we’re seated he comes and tells us the story of the mermaid in the square.  It seems there were two mermaids and one settled in Copenhagen but the other was more adventurous and came to Warsaw.  She was captured by two fishermen, who were going to exhibit her for money; but one of them took pity on her. He said he would free her if she would promise to defend the city and that’s how Warsaw go its Warrior Mermaid!  He also stops by and brings us maps and pamphlets about the sights in the city.

Our waiter shows me the list of cocktails especially created by the café and I choose a Sweet and Bitter, made with Polish honey liqueur, Martini Rosso, Campari and orange juice.  For dinner I have the smoked fish and egg salad and the fish is spectacular!  Marilyn has a chicken salad and the chicken looks delicious.

Unusual presentation!

As we’re leaving we ask out guy where to buy men’s hats, since he is wearing a cap to die for.  He circles two spots on the map and suggests that we try the Belweder for dinner tomorrow night.  He says their service (white linens, three forks, etc) is so superb that they are considered the finest restaurant in town and others refer to fine dining as “Belweder service”.  He also tells us not to miss the 9:30 light show.

The reconstruction continues.

Ethiopian restaurant right across from our hostel

We head home and our hostel lady, too, tells us not to miss the multimedia fountain and light show at 9:30.  It is down the stairs right behind the hostel, and on the river.  We decide to leave now so as to get a good location and not be part of the herd.  It isn’t even nine o’clock and the fountains are already dancing, with ever-changing lights and patterns. 

It’s a lot like Disney with children everywhere and vendors selling things that light up.  There’s a hillside that gradually fills up with people as the sun sets and then there’s an announcement in Polish and then English saying the show will begin in then minutes.  I was pretty happy with what we’d already seen!  There’s a five-minute warning, and then we’re on!  There is music and a laser show that plays against a screen created by the fountain’s water. It’s pretty cool but we figure after ten or fifteen minutes we’ve seen what there is to see and we decide to beat the crowds up the wooden stairs back up to road level.  I don’t think it would be fun to get caught in that moving river of humanity.

There’s a fan in our room and with it going full blast it might be cool enough to sleep.  (Good thing there’s no global warming or this would be a really warm vacation!)