Godoy in Poland. Return to Warsaw

Fourth and last delivery

<<Saturday, 6^th October 2018

I'm going to Warsaw via Bialystok. I catch the bus at 9:00.

Sunny day and 8º. Pleasant trip, I do not know why but today I´ve paid 8 PLN.

For pretty village, Trzescianka. The houses have their shutters and windows decorated. Even the bus stop is wonderful. I would not mind spending a couple of weeks or three here next autumn.

Klezmer music on the bus. I thought I was going to leave Poland without hearing it at least once.

Mary, you know that half the road is under construction and we have to wait for the portable traffic lights to turn green.

I have no rush to get there.

64 km. One hour and forty minutes.

Bialystok train station. TOALETA PLATNA 2PLN. Bathroom really clean.

The train to Warsaw has the planned departure at 13:32. I have two hours ahead.

I'm on my back on the train again; but this one is at least cleaner and has screens that speak to you in Polish and English. Some people carry their dogs in the car. What I do not know is how much they will pay for it.

After leaving the suitcase in the hotel I am about to wander through the part of the city where I had not been.

Saski Garden

On the plane, I choose the Saski Garden, with an immense fountain and the Tomb to the Unknown Soldier.

Many tourists at this time coming back from the Old Town. Maybe I'll postpone this part (Stare Miasto) for Monday, because I'm afraid that tomorrow, Sunday... There is already very little light so I go back to the hostel. I will talk a little with my family and I will go to bed soon.>>

<<Sunday, 7^th October 2018

It's seven in the morning and I cannot resist waiting until Monday for my visit to the old town.

I am heading to the Stare Miasto through Saski's gardens. There are already people picking up papers and plastics. Definitely, Warsaw is a clean city.

Walk near the Basilica Archicathedral of Sw. Jana Chrzciciela, but I leave the entrance for the return because I want to take advantage of these first hours to get to the Market Square.

Wall and part of Zamkowy Square

Rynek Starego Miasta. Today has nothing to do, I imagine that by the time, with respect yesterday. Very few people. Tranquility. It's 9:00.

I am near the Marie Curie Museum where I intend to have a good time observing objects related to this great woman. But first I take a detour around the wall and where I meet spontaneous exhibitors of paintings made by amateur artists, I imagine. Mary, surely some of these little works of art you can do.

As you know, I do not like to take pictures of statues except for rare exceptions as you have already checked.

Old Town Market Square

St. Hyacinth's Church dazzles, not only for its walls of white immaculate but for the simplicity of its forms and despite countless reconstructions. It has interesting paintings; among them Our Lady of the Rosary, which attracts many faithful and non-believers. The tombstones of Anna by Dobrzykowskis of 1616 and Katarzyna by Kosinski 1607 stand out, but I add  —following my notes— Sw Roza z Limy dominikanko and a kind of arcosolium of Jana Zbigniewa, if I have not copied it badly from the Polish. Brief moments of meditation.

Street in Stare Miasto

Located at number 16 on Freta Street, the Maria Skłodowska-Curie´s Museum in Warsaw is mainly focused on Marie's personal belongings and documents. If we want to know more about his scientific achievements we should visit the one in Paris. I loved it. Family, small intimate...

Nothing else you go up to the first floor there is a modern clock, with an inscription (Polpora) that I cannot understand. Now I could use a volunteer like Ewa at the Chopin Museum.

Among other things:

Laboratory notes of Maria Skłodowska-Curie, 1921.

Pipettes, electrolyzer, the equipment utilized for measurement of radiation, conical flask, a black dress and a handkerchief on the floor, next to a window, dosimeter, books, a cookbook “365 dinners” from 1907, property of M.C. — I wonder this woman with all the work she did, did she have time to cook?—. Amazing. A lot of pictures, letters, blowpipes…

I left the hostel this morning without having had breakfast; the cafes were closed, but here, near the Museum I enter one that is not very cheap.

Atomic Number 84. Po Symbol

While I drink coffee and a piece of Beza cake, a band sounds in the square in front of me. First a march, then a waltz, then a lambada! It sounds different. A hot rhythm in a city so far north.

The morning, therefore, I have dedicated to this incredible woman. Now I continue my walk.

Today must be a special day because in addition to the band and the women dressed in regional costumes, there are some people, men and women, who look like soldiers, or wear military uniforms that are gathering next to the church of the Virgin Mary. I would have to look at the date, 7^th October. At home I search the internet and I get the date of October 7, 1944 as the day of the uprising of more than 200 Jewish women prisoners held in the extermination camp of Auschwitz. They would be executed.

Access bridge

Marry, what I have just done is part of any trip for me. When I return home I keep looking for information about what caught my attention. It is a way to prolong the experience.

Magic Trick

Now I'm going in the direction of the Ogrod Krasińskich. I miss parks like this (every kilometre or kilometre and a half) in Seville. How thoughtful are the TOI TOI, with their little heart and everything! I just “unloaded” half of the American that I took a while ago.

Krsinski Garden

The church of Saint Anthony of Padua (1676) has a U-shaped entrance courtyard and on the sides there are arcades with niches and tombstones. It is a church that exhales something that I am not able to write. My wife would not last here for five minutes. But it is not my case.

Right porch in Saint Anthony

Going down the Marszalkowska street came to the Nozyk Synagogue. For 10 PLN, and covered with the kipá that the door guard has given me, I enter a sacred place for the Jews for the first time. It seems it is the only remaining synagogue in Warsaw.

At the Bobby Burger I have a hamburger —which I also give myself these caprices in my travels— in front of the Pałac Kultury i Nauki. Take tomato and mustard. Very delicious.

Mary, I know that you like Mariza a lot and when I enter the Palace of Culture and Science, a fado is being heard. At first I do not recognize the singer. Could it be her? Del Caffè Nero, a nice waitress gives me the solution; in a small paper he writes: Mariza and Caravelas.

Tanto tenho aprendido e não sei nada.

E as torres de marfim que construí

Em trágica loucura as destruí

Por minhas própias mãos malfadada!      

Caravelas doiradas a bailar…

Ai quem me dera as que eu deitei ao mar!

As que eu lancei à vida, e não voltaram!

There is a huge row to climb to the Palace terrace. After buying the ticket back to Modlin airport I stop a few minutes to see an exhibition that there is of the athlete Irena Szewinska. Appears as a young woman, at her best (Tokyo, 1964), World Championship (Dusseldorf, 1977) and with figures such as Pele. Also with politicians (Kissinger) and kings (Gustavo of Sweden); but this building, without doubt, houses rooms to devote many visits.>>

<<Monday, 8^th October 2018

Mondays are a bad day for museums. The National Museum is closed, so I will spend my time looking for gifts. As I read, in Ulica Nowy Swiat there are many shops.

It is a street with wide sidewalks and although there are traffics, it is a pleasant street to walk. I look and I look at the windows thinking about each member of my family, but from Aleja Jerozolimskie to the Copernicus Monument I cannot find anything that serves me. This of the gifts becomes a sea of doubts. It is a profound exercise in calculation that tires me greatly; that is why whenever I can, I leave it to my wife's choice.

Centrum

By the way, Nicolaus Copernicus —another great Polish scientist— I collected a curious fact. Well, it was not Copernicus in person but his statue. It seems that the Nazis removed a plaque that had his monument and changed it to another saying he was German, before which a clandestine group was responsible for withdrawing it, before which the governor of the Warsaw district ordered to remove a monument dedicated to a shoemaker who led the Polish resistance against the Russians at the end of the 18th century. This shoemaker was called Kilinski. The reaction of the Polish resistance was immediate and on the walls of the Museum, days later, a large graffiti appeared:

Warsaw Town, here I am. Jan Kilinski

Not content with this, a few days later they appeared some lampoons around the city that said:

For having removed the monument to Kilinski, I have ordered the prolongation of the winter on the Russian Eastern front two more months. Nicolaus Copernicus

I enter the Rectorate. They are downloading pictures; I imagine that for an exhibition.

The temptation to enter the Visitationist Church is irrepressible. This church has cream and gold colors everywhere, typical of a Rococo form of construction in the 17th century. Pile with holy water at the entrance, I repeat, with water. Tombstones and busts of civilians within the church. This is another thing that I have noticed in the churches around here. It is not only religious people who have reserved their places in the sacred site. If I am not wrong, the Constitution of Poland —and first in Europe, it is said— was signed at the Cathedral.

I also find a God Father with an angry face, full of anger, threatening. The pulpit reminds me of the prow of a ship, with a pelican and an anchor.

An ossuary on one of the side altars.

Calling

I'm in Zamkowy Square again. In a small wall that goes from the Royal Palace to the bell tower attached to the St. Anne´s church, a girl is waxing a man. Those hairs that come out of our cheeks, where there is no beard.

Now I enter the Cathedral of Sw. Jana Chrzciciela. I admit that I did not spend a lot of time on a building that has very interesting corners. Still, I have to highlight the beauty of its red brick arches that contrast with the white walls and ceilings. There, in a red marble sepulchre, rest the remains of the Dukes of Mazovia. Dukes Stanislaw and Janusz, around 1527… The context of their death (both died 24) caused suspicious…

 

Wisła

Pomidorowa z makaronem and Piers w chrupiacej panierce z jajkiem… As we say here: the dead to the hole and the living to the bun. It´s the lunch time.

After lunch I stand in front of the Radziwill Palace, and on a panel I read an anecdote of the first public performance of Chopin on 24th February 1818 (eight year-old) that took place in this palace. When he finished the performance he said to his mother: Everyone admired my beautiful collar.

I went back to the Plaza de la Sirena to buy the gift that I needed for my grandson. A Polish ambulance! How do you like public service vehicles: buses, firemen, police, cranes...

I make the last pictures of this trip and I leave saying goodbye to the places. It gets dark. Tomorrow morning I will go to the airport. Then an airplane and Seville. A young violinist plays a nostalgic melody  with great mastery.

Do widzenia, Polska.>>

         Y. a.

     Mary