Written by Lauren
I arrived in Warsaw a day ahead of Sue and started my exploring by going down the main street toward the old and new town. Most of the sights are in one spot, so strolling down the main street you can see a range of churches and presidential palaces. The only bad thing was that they are currently ripping up most of the road to repair it so you are seeing all these really pretty buildings through a haze of dust and with the background music of drilling!
I spent most of the day wandering around old and new town - it has really lovely old and reconstructed buildings packed into small area. Every turn has a lovely building, an interesting looking monument, a picture postcard square or another park. So lots to keep a girl entertained...
After squashing in Main Square, the old and the new town, some of the Jewish Quarter and an unsuccessful search for the Citadel I decided to call it a day.
Sue arrived in a flurry of excitement after being dropped off in the wrong location by a taxi (after getting off at the wrong train station)– there were a couple of txt’s and some locals were accosted for their knowledge of streets in the area before she actually made it to the hostel – but all in one piece at least.
We decided to start the next day b\y going to see the Palace by the Lake, this should have been easy enough but we landed up walking up and down the same road for about 10 minutes only to discover that our bus only runs 3 times a day. We then had to walk miles to find another bus to where we wanted to go and once we were on the right bus we somehow managed to miss our stop and then had to catch a bus going the other way (there was a steep hill involved) before finally making it to the Palace. Let's just say that was the start of our Public Transport excitement for the day and that we used every available means of public transport in one day – getting full value for our 7 PLN travelcard.
The Palace and surrounding building are in a mini forest and the whole complex is like something out of a fairytale – once again really lovely. We did see one interesting monument to Chopin, who looks like his head is being eaten off by a vulture – if anyone knows the story behind that one I would be keen to know…
Then off to the Palace of Science and Culture – it’s the tallest building in Moscow and is very impressive. There is another exciting travel story here but I think I’ll leave it for another day. After first mistaking a movie complex for the entrance (yes – it just seemed to be one of those days) we made it into the building and went up to the 30th floor where you can take in skyline views of the city - that sounds a bit tour guide like - but it's true!
Sue and I then headed to the Old Town for some lunch – where we had one of the nicest meals at a restaurant in the Old Square – although that could have been due to the fact that most of the meals up till then had involved cheese, ham and bread.
After that Sue went off to try and squeeze in some of the things I had done the previous day and I headed off to try and squeeze in everything else there was to see on my tourist map.
The rest of the evening was spent recovering for all the walking, shopping at a Polish supermarket for train snacks, watch a TV movie (in Polish – don’t ask) and surfing the internet before heading off to the train station for our first train marathon – 28 hours to St. Petersburg!
