writebrained, rightbrained

Warsaw sneaker diaries

Here are a few more photos from our afternoon walk in Warsaw yesterday.  We saw a bear in the zoo, numerous street musicians, some of the Warsaw jazz festival, many beautiful public squares, and stumbled into a private performance of a singer at an interesting ice cream shop / gallery / restaurant which was displaying a Solidarity-themed political painting show.

My impression of Warsaw is that it has a lot in common with other European cities: mix of old and new, same modern conveniences, different language but otherwise very similar to other places.  The notable difference is that Warsaw was completely flattened in World War II after the brave, ultimately doomed Warsaw Uprising.  The Old Town area has since been recontructed and presently feels very Disney-like: quaint squares, buildings with medieval details but that are obviously not very old — perhaps because they often use a lot of faux paint techniques to achieve their older look.  Perhaps you could say, more kindly, that Disneyland resembles some of these neighborhoods.  The city sadly doesn’t, architecturally or aesthetically, have a lot of charm, but I suppose you do have to give this town credit for their bravery in the face of harsh occupation, and consider their Disneyification as perhaps the cost of that bravery.

We were also struck by the lack of young faces in the neighborhoods we walked through; with a few exceptions, most of the Poles we saw looked rather old to us.  Where do the younger Poles go (if not the capital city?)  It’s possible that we were in the wrong neighborhoods.  So our overall sense of Warsaw is that it’s lovely, quite modern, but doesn’t have that much inspiring energy: of youth, of art, or of architecture.  We loved how comfortable we instantly felt here though and how easy it was to get around.  We’re also grateful not to have gotten arrested on the tram!  (We later learned to get tickets at the kiosks in the train station.) 

We’re very much looking forward to our early morning train to Krakow tomorrow, as all the Poles we know have praised the city very warmly.

The bears are in a special exhibit facing the main road, so they get a lot of visitors

Old town in Warsaw is full of cute pubs

The Old town square, where a jazz concert is going on

Polish tuba players have some special tricks up their sleeve

Sunset in the square on our first night in Warsaw

Sunset near the Vistula River