August 18 – Chopin city

 

Part of the old city walls and mote - much has been rebuild since WWII

We’re in Warsaw and yes we’ve had cabbage and pierogi - although I’m yet to find their best! 5 days to take it all in - a big ask but we’ll do our best!  We did a bit of wandering this morning (with a number of messages flying between us, Bev and the Castle Inn over the mix up with our accommodation which turned out to be something at the booking-hotel interface but really to little avail other than for us to waste yet more time sorting it out and then moving). We were staying just outside the old town which is built around a large open square fronting the Royal Palace. 

Cobbled street - quaint but hard to walk on (or wheel cases!)

a wonderful market square lined with cafes etc including a museum 

Menus were posted up everywhere, most with the same selection

A fascinating lapidarium and old wares shop.

The hotel we were supposed to have stayed in

The hotel we booked and you can see why!

It’s all quaint and well preserved and quite grand - quite the meeting spot for many both locals and tourists. 

It was a very hot day and people were cooling off under the sprinkler

The Royal Palace - which the Germans tried to burn down during WW!!

Trailing clouds of comical and pretty balloons fluttered in the square

Sigismunds Column

Sigismund's Column was originally erected in 1644 and is one of Warsaw's most famous landmarks as well as the first 'secular' monuments in the form of a column in modern history, it seems. The column and statue commemorate King Sigismund III Vasa, who in 1596 moved Poland's capital from Kraków to over Warsaw 300km away. On 1 September 1944, during the Warsaw Uprising, the monument's column was demolished by the Germans, and its bronze statue was badly damaged - and they did so much more damage to Warsaw. After the war, the statue was repaired and in 1949 was set up on a new column a couple of metres from the original site; the new column is made of granite from the Strzegom mine.  We saw pieces of the original broken column lying next to the Royal Castle.

We were also checking out where the Hop-on-off bus left from and its route etc as well as trying to find the concert hall where we had tickets to a Chopin concert later that day - of course we’re in Chopin’s home town.  Strangely no-one seemed to know where the Fryderyk concert hall was. Lots of other places offering concerts but not this particular one. After an hour with only one vague suggested direction to take we found it tucked outside the old city wall - it was totally worth the hunt. 

The concert hall was tucked out of sight through that entrance

A delightfully intimate concert hall filled with light 

Prof Maciej Poliszewski

The pianist was Maciej Poliszewski, Professor of the Fryderyk Chopin Academy of Music (for those Chopin or piano lovers amongst you, you can hear him play on YouTube, just search for his name). After a day or so a little unravelled, his performance lifted us out of ourselves. It was glorious. I was swept away back to the Music room in High School (my favourite room). I could see Bruce Keck banging away on the piano trying to instil in us an appreciation for composition with polonaises and mazurkas etc - it worked. The setting was delightful and the audience small. The program perfect - Maciej captured us first with a delightful ballade and then led us through mazurkas, waltzes, familiar and non-familiar, and finished with a polonaise. Dignified, stately, exuberant, delightful with a bit of fire but it’s Polish after all. A fitting end to a stupendous concert - except we kept bringing him back for encores - his eventual finale was one of the Etudes (probably my favourite Chopin compositions). It was truly a romantic interlude which captured our senses and took us soaring into other realms. Even the short interval was a delight - they served us sparkling wine which I swear tasted of orange blossom. I know I know! Needless to say we enjoyed it. We picked our way back ‘home’ through the gate of the old city wall stopping to buy a bottle of wine and bread on the way. Chopin never tasted so good. 

This little chaos was enticed to hold this snake. He looks excited!?

Then we made our way out through the old walls