A Covid Compromise

 A consistent theme across my last few travel blogs has been that a trip was either previously cancelled or taken in lieu of a different tour, all driven by the Covid 19 pandemic.  This latest blog will be no exception. Katherine and I were booked to take an 11-day tour of Poland with our tour company of choice -- Gate1 Travel -- in September of 2020.  It was only to be the two of us.  I was posted to Warsaw from 1993 to 1995 but, aside from a day trip to western Poland with my extended family 11 years ago, I had not returned.  Katherine, on the other hand, in addition to that day trip in 2012, had been to Krakow for a long weekend with a friend when we lived in Vienna, but almost 20 years had passed since that brief visit.  I recall that we got a really good deal on the originally scheduled trip, which we booked in late 2019, which facilitated our decision to take a tour and see how things had progressed over the years.

I've written before about the other Gate1 trip we booked for 2022, as a gift to Anna for graduating with her bachelors degree.  You'll recall that that trip to Africa was cancelled twice -- both times less than a week before departure -- first because of the exploding Omicron-variant surge (and our fears of being quarantined in either Kenya or Uganda), and then again when I came down with Covid a few days before we were to depart on our rescheduled trip.  We essentially gave up on Africa at the time, and as a far-less-exciting alternative, we asked Anna if she wanted to join us, if we rebooked our Poland trip.  We received an enthusiastic thumbs-up.  You may recall the tour we took of Romania in September 2022.  When we booked that, we ended up choosing between that tour or our cancelled Poland trip.  We so enjoyed that trip, that we decided shortly afterward that we would reschedule Poland, and we were very excited that Anna wanted to join us.  We took a risk at the time, not knowing if Anna could get the time away from work and/or graduate school, or even have the leave in place, as it was so far out, but armed with good travel insurance, we booked and crossed our fingers.

Our "11-Day Classic Tour of Poland"

Planning and Getting Things in Place

When we booked this particular trip, most of the Covid testing requirements for travel were still in place, and the thought of a normal "post-Covid" trip still seemed like an unrealistic aspiration.  Still, while it has been admittedly nice to return to a much more normal course of travel over these past few months, a dose of reality was introduced when I packed Covid tests and an emergency stash of Paxlovid into my suitcase ahead of this trip.

We had a very small window during which we thought the trip would work.  With Anna working full-time and going to grad school at night, we had to work around her work and school schedule.  With only a week between her summer and fall semesters at GW, we knew an 11-day trip was pushing it, especially booking so far in advance.  Despite the bevy of things that could go wrong, all lined up in the end.  We flew out on a Wednesday afternoon.  As it was, she was to have finals for her two classes on that very Wednesday and the following Thursday.  One exam was moved up a week, and the professor for her Wednesday class allowed her to take the exam a day early.  On the other side, one of Anna's fall classes had its first sessions at the very end of our trip, but she was able to advise the professor and -- so far -- there doesn't seem to have been any adverse effects.

We all worked on the day of departure, with both Anna and Katherine beginning work extra early.  Anna came straight to the house from her office, and K logged off at about the same time.  We got an Uber to the airport, which was not as busy as I had feared.  I had traveled for work a couple of weeks prior, at about the same time of day, and the security lines were absolutely insane.  I was very relieved to see that things were relatively sane at Dulles.  

Our tour began in Warsaw and ended in Kraków, which meant our itinerary was a little "inconsistent."  Given all the problems with delays and cancelled flights this year, and to help with jetlag, we also elected to arrive in Warsaw a day early, as both a safety buffer, but also to allow time for me to show K and Anna around my old haunts, which certainly wouldn't be part of our official tour.

Our outbound flight was from Dulles to Berlin on United, and then on to Warsaw on LOT Polish.  We had a three-hour layover, which I thought was plenty, allowing us some cushion and sufficient time to clear Schengen immigration in Germany.  Boarding for our flight to Germany was delayed slightly, but I was relieved when the first few wheelchair passengers were sent down the jet bridge.  About 10 minutes passed with no more activity, and people in line started to become a little restless.  That worsened when we saw all the pre-boarders being rolled back up and out of the jet bridge, back into the gate area.  As I was now worried about our connection, I raced up to the counter, along with several others, but before I got there, my phone pinged with an alert from United.  There was a mechanical problem with our plane and they were getting us a replacement jet.  We had a new gate, too.  Knowing that a gate announcement was imminent, I grabbed K and Anna and we started the hike to the new gate ahead of the throng that eventually followed behind us.

With no replacement airplane at the new gate and a departure time that kept being delayed in 15-minute increments, I worried about our connection.  There were no alternative routings through other cities that had availability and which could get us to Warsaw the next day.  If we missed our connection in Berlin, the next flight to Warsaw didn't depart until about seven hours later, which was far from ideal.  As it turned out, we ended up with a two-hour delay, but our captain went above and beyond, filing an altered flight plan, and she made up significant time in the air, so we only arrived about 60 minutes behind schedule.

Ready To Get Going!

Departing Dulles, Over Brambleton

We all slept on the first flight, with each of us getting some solid sleep, which was nice.  I was excited to finally get to see the new Berlin airport, too.  It was originally scheduled to open in 2010, with rolling delays after that.  A "firm" opening was then set for summer of 2012, when my extended family visited Germany.  Our flights were scheduled for the new airport, but again the opening was pushed and we ended up at the old Tegel Airport.  Another DECADE passed before the new airport -- named for former German Chancellor Willy Brandt -- finally opened last year, so I was curious to see if it was worth the wait.

Anna Was FAST Asleep Near Arrival

The New Airport in Berlin

Welcome to Berlin!

The airport seemed nice enough, but I honestly have no idea why it took so long to open.  We had a short time to relax in the lounge before catching our very short flight to Warsaw on LOT Polish Airlines, which was on time.

Arrival, Amnesia, and Astonishment

 As I wrote earlier, I lived in Warsaw from 1993 to 1995.  I arrived about 18 months after our bureau opened up there, which was facilitated by the collapse of the Soviet Union and Poland's exit from the Warsaw Pact.  As a child of the Cold War, I recall sitting in Jordan and hearing about the new office in Warsaw, and how I actively lobbied and sought out an assignment there.  I relished the idea of living in an Eastern Bloc country, particularly one as it "broke free" from totalitarian rule.

When the bureau opened, it was the only such office in my old program that had a language requirement, meaning that you qualified for language immersion training if desired, given the difficulty of living/working in a country without speaking the language.  At the time, I liked this idea and thought I would be sent to the Department of State's Foreign Language Institute or the Monterrey School of Languages to learn Polish BEFORE I left for Warsaw.  Alas, that did not happen.  As I did a lateral transfer from Jordan to Poland, there was no time for either of those programs.  I was, instead, enrolled in a six-week program at the University of Warsaw, which I entered as soon as I arrived in Warsaw in the summer of 1993.  Let's just say that that experience was "less than stellar."  In fact, I recall it was pretty much a nightmare.  The entire program was taught in Polish, with absolutely no English (or any other language) used.  I was the only native English speaker in the class, which included at least two North Koreans, several Syrians, and Africans from assorted countries.  It was extremely challenging and frustrating and I hardly felt confident in the language when I was finished.  I recall it being a very challenging tour in general, given that English was spoken by so few people, and day-to-day living was often a chore.  My German was no help and, at the time, Russian had been the mandatory second language in the schools.  English was not offered; French was, but only as a third language, behind Russian and Polish.

I provide that overly long backstory to help set the stage for the shock I would receive when our flight finally touched down in Warsaw.  The airport looked somewhat familiar from the airplane window, but you could see that they had greatly expanded. I recall going to the airport and literally parking in a grassy field next to the terminal, which was open for diplomats.  The airport was never busy and I could even get into the baggage claim area -- ahead of immigration -- by just flashing my diplomatic passport.  My, how times have changed!

The airport was packed, with flights arriving and departing for points pretty much everywhere around the world.  Every gate was occupied, and we had to bus into the terminal.  I remember two luggage carousels and now there were over 30.  As we'd cleared immigration in Berlin (Poland has been a member of the European Union for 20 years and a Schengen common immigration country since that agreement was signed), we had only to get our suitcases.  I searched the interior of the airport for anything that looked familiar, but I could find nothing.  It was a bright, shiny, cosmopolitan airport that could have been anywhere in Europe.

Our Approach to Warsaw

Arriving in Warsaw

I had booked a rental car so we could explore the city for our extra day.  I, of course, had a car when I lived there and had no initial qualms about driving or getting around.  Seeing that there was now an entirely separate car rental wing at the airport, with lines at every counter of arriving passengers, quickly told me I was no longer in proverbial Kansas.  

Inside the rental car, which itself was inside one of two massive parking garages -- that obviously weren't there before -- I had a sense of amnesia.  Nothing seemed familiar.  I felt like I should know something, but yet everything appeared new and I'll admit that I was thrown.  I also recall the airport being outside the city proper, with a long dedicated road leading there, with a police checkpoint on the far end.  The airport was now surrounded by shopping malls and suburban developments, and if the billboards lining the road weren't in Polish, I would have been hard pressed to guess I was even in Poland.  Well, certainly not in the Poland that I remember. 

Familiar Haunts That Somehow Don't Seem Familiar

We were on the road in our rental car by around 2:00pm on Thursday, 17 August. Our hotel was in the downtown business district and it was too early to check in, so instead we headed to the town south of Warsaw where my office had been located.  A colleague of mine was working the Political section of the US Embassy in Warsaw in the summer of 1989, when everything was falling apart in the Soviet Bloc.  When Lech Walesa became the first freely elected president of post-war Poland, it was expected he would move into a large villa owned by the Council of Ministers, which had been occupied by the outgoing Community Party Leader and President Wojcieck Jaruzelski, in the toney suburb of Konstancin-Jeziorna, south of Warsaw.  The village was essentially off-limits to most Poles during communism and was full of villas belonging to Party elite.  Walesa did not want to be associated with the property or the village.  As the Communist Party exited and a free press arose, there were expose stories published of the lavish homes, with particular attention paid to Jaruzelski's former villa, which had crystal chandeliers in every room (including the bathrooms) and gaudy golden bathroom fixtures.  My embassy colleage (who was ethnic Polish) was friends with a minister in Walesa's new government.  He was attending the wedding of her daughter and presented them with a gift on behalf of the Embassy, and was able to eventually secure an agreement that we would take over the villa and open a Foreign Broadcast Information Bureau there.  That is how we came in possession of the villa.  Ironically a paper run by the former communists then published an expose about the US Government's "takeover" of the building and alleged that it was being used for "...wild orgies, including one attended by negroes."  That is a quote.  

I lived in Warsaw proper, about 10 miles north of the office in Konstancin-Jeziorna.  I can remember it being a lonely drive down there, as there were so few cars on the road, as I would reach the literal edge of Warsaw a few miles from house, and then drive through countryside to reach Konstancin-Jeziorna.  Well, to say things have changed would be an understatement.  Thank goodness we had WAZE up and running in our rental car, as I was lost the minute we left the airport.  The amount of growth and construction has rendered Warsaw and its environs into what seems like an entirely new city.  I had to trust WAZE that we were going in the right direction, as nothing looked familiar, right up until we made the final turn onto what had been a small country lane leading to the villa, with only a couple of other homes along the way.  No more.  The road was now lined by large walled mansions, most of which could not be seen from the road.  The former bureau -- which closed in 2000 -- could no longer even be seen from the road, thanks to a large and solid fence.  My return visit was therefore underwhelming, as I was not even able to show K and Anna the exterior of the building.  Oh well.  

We then entered the address for my old apartment, which was in fact the first floor of a private home, located the southern end of Lazienki Park.  It was a very exclusive neighborhood, even back in the day, with large villas on a quiet road across from the park's southern gates.  We joked at the time that my landlords were certainly "in" with the communists, as they had been allowed to maintain ownership of the villa for years.  Again, nothing looked familiar, and even when WAZE said we had arrived, everything looked new.  There was major road construction underway and dozens of new apartment and office buildings.  We finally found a way around the closed intersections and were able to get onto my old street.  I found a place to park, but only after walking down the block was I able to confirm that my old house was even there.  Larger buildings had replaced many of the private homes, and my former apartment was now blocked by a lot of additional landscaping, and it took me a few minutes to confirm that it was in fact my old place.  The gate was closed and locked, so we couldn't get closer, but at least we got to see it.

My Apartment -- I Had the First Floor

I have to note, too, that the drive from Konstancin to my old apartment took at least three times as long as it did before, and the city now essentially stretched uninterrupted between the two locations.  Traffic was intense and there was road construction going on everything.  It was clear from the beginning that Poland had, and still is, investing huge amounts of money into upgrading their infrastructure.  I immediately noticed, too, that all of the cars on the road were newer models.  "Back in the day" all of the cars on the road were one of three Polish-made cars, all of which were awful.  I had shipped my first new car to Poland -- a Subaru Impreza -- back in 1993, and I recall the Embassy GSO telling me that as far as he could tell, I had the only Subaru at the time registered in all of Poland.  My how times have changed.

I had to admit by this point that the Warsaw of my memories was gone.  That is not a bad thing, but any sense of nostalgia was quickly dispensed and -- frankly -- I felt disorientated.  It was now late afternoon and we had traveled all night, so we headed to our hotel, the Warsaw Intercontinental, which was located in the commercial downtown, near the Central Train Station and what had been the only skyscraper in Poland when I lived there, the so-called Palace of Science and Culture -- a monstrocity "gifted" to Warsaw by Josef Stalin.  I was a little worried before we arrived, as I remember the Central Train Station being an essentially off-limits area.  It was notorious for crime and we were effectively cautioned against going there, and certainly never alone.  In fact, we were encouraged to not use trains unless we absolutely had to.  I've said it before, so I'll say it again.  My, how times have changed.  This area of town is now spotless, and the skyline of Warsaw is now dotted by dozens of skyscrapers.  The train station is now linked to a huge class-encased high-end shopping mall, and right-next door is the tallest apartment building in Europe.  Our hotel was right next to that building, it has the highest pool in Europe, on the 53rd floor.  If it weren't for the unchanged exterior of the train station and the always-ugly Palace of Science and Culture, I would not have known I was in Warsaw.  

After parking the car in the garage, we checked into our room and had a short while to freshen up.  There had been very few memorable restaurants in Warsaw when I lived there, so we had read ahead and booked a Michelin-starred restaurant for dinner.  The fact that there are now multiple Michelin-rated restaurants in Warsaw should have been as stronger signal to me as to how much had changed over 28 years.  It was a short walk over on a very pleasant evening.  I had read ahead, too, that Poland now has the lowest crime rate in Europe, which certainly wasn't the case before, and it was evident out walking that this was the case.  

The Intercontinental Hotel Warsaw

View From Our Room

Flower in the Lobby

We essentially had the restaurant to ourselves and our meal was simply fantastic.  We all agreed, in fact, at the end of our trip that this was our favorite meal by far.  They had a sommelier, too, who matched wine to each of our meals and courses.  The price was incredibly reasonable, too.  Prices were by no means as low as we'd encountered in Romania last year, but certainly reasonable.  In fact, and I may write about this later, but I had expected things to be more in line pricewise with Romania throughout the trip, but in fact Poland prices were only slightly lower than at home.  Their economy is absolutely booming and the standard of living has risen accordingly; all in a good sense, too.

Our Restaurant -- Kieliszki Na Próżnej

Given how far north we were, the sun would not set until after 11:00pm, so it was still very light during our walk back to the hotel, where all collapsed after a very long -- and for me -- disorienting but enjoyable day. 

What's Old Is New Again

We all surprisingly slept pretty well this first night, despite the time change.  There were very strong thunderstorms that rolled through during the night, which woke us all up at various times, as the lightning flashed through the drapes and the thunder rolled.  I remember worrying that the rain would persist and ruin our upcoming "free" day in Warsaw, but by morning everything had passed.  In fact, we were in for one of our warmest days of the trip.  We had inadvertently arrived at the beginning of a short heat wave in Poland, and temps would reach into the high 80's with no clouds for relief.  Coming from Washington this actually felt okay, but we were outside much of the day, and it did zap a lot of our energy.

Our tour did not official begin until this night and we had the day on our own.  I booked us a "Communist Warsaw" tour, which was given in a vintage Nysa 522 van.  The Nysa was a clear East Bloc ripoff of the VW bus, and it was produced in Poland almost unchanged from 1959 into the early 90's.  The bus which picked us up from the hotel was built in 1973.  There were seven of us on the tour, which was to show us the "highlights" of Communist Warsaw.  I was surprised by the sheer number and variety of day tours now available in Warsaw, as this certainly wasn't the case when I lived there.  We ended up choosing between a World War II and Communist tour, and you have already read which one won out.  We toured various sights associated with the communist era, beginning at the already mentioned and mutually disdained Palace of Culture and Science.  It was a "gift" from Josef Stalin after the war and supposed to reflect the might and architectural achievements of the USSR.  The debate which was ongoing back in the early 90's, as to whether the building should be demolished, is evidently still raging.  Some folks want to blow it up, others want it to remain unchanged, and others want to renovate it and remove the communist imagery that still surrounds the building.  Probably by sheer inertia, the building remains pretty much unchanged, and the statues surrounding the building, idolizing images of proletariat idealism, now serve pretty much as an open air museum.  I recall it being commonly referred to as "the Wedding Cake," whereas our guide said it was more often than not called "Stalin's Penis."  Names aside, as it sits unchanged, the skyline of Warsaw has literally grown up around it, and the building is now dwarfed by taller buildings, which accentuate its ugliness.

We continued on to visit several large political buildings built in an idealized, brutalist style, to include the former Communist Party headquarters, which now ironically houses the Warsaw stock exchange and a huge disco.  As almost 90 percent of Warsaw was completely destroyed during World War II -- mostly at the end of the war, when Polish partisans were fighting to secure the city from the Germans as Soviet troops approached -- most of the city was rebuilt with bland concrete-block heavy buildings, aside from the historic Old Town, which was rebuilt to match it's pre-war glory.  Anyway, we visited a small section of the city which survived the war, and we were able to see some surviving older architecture, which we really wouldn't see again until we reached Kraków more than a week later, as it escaped heavy damage during the war.  We ended at Constitution Square, which is where the old May Day parades would be held, with all the pomp and ceremony.  On the square, we visited the small but very interesting Museum of Life Under Communism. I think Anna found this particularly interesting, given that the Cold War ended almost a decade before she was born.

Former Communist Party Headquarters -- Now the Warsaw Stock Exchange

Polish Parliament

Poland Has a Large Arms Industry, and Sends A Lot to Ukraine

Inside the Museum of Life Under Communism

Famous picture from 1981, right after Marshall Law was declared.  Poland allowed "Apocalypse Now" to be screened, as it showed the US in a poor light.   This picture, though, of Polish tanks in the street created quite the juxtaposition. 

So-Called Maly Fiat (or Tiny Fiat).  These Were Everywhere When I Liver Here...Now They're In a Museum

We quickly cooled off back at the hotel, retrieved our rental car from the garage, and headed down to the Old Town which, as I mentioned, was meticulously rebuilt to exactly resemble its pre-war state.  I have fond memories of the Old Town and remain impressed that the former regime devoted the resources for the reconstruction.  Of course, much of the funding came from donations from Polish-Americans.  We would be visiting here again the next day, with our tour, but we decided to visit a Milk Bar for lunch and get a preview of the area.  Milk Bars started back in the 50's and remain a staple of Polish life.  They are essentially cafeterias which during the communist era provided government-subsidized traditional Polish cuisine at a low cost.  The name comes from the cheese cutlets that were often served, as meat was scarce. The menus have since grown, but the food is still basic, very fresh, vegetarian heavy, and relatively cheap.  We had our first meal of many this day which included the ubiquitous pierogi.  

View From Hotel, Toward Old Town in Distance

Cold Beet Soup From our Milk Bar Lunch

We spent another hour or so exploring the old city before we fetched the car and return to our hotel.  We were, luckily, able to return the car at our hotel, which saved me a trip back to the airport.  That left us with just enough time to wash up ahead of the welcome meeting and dinner with our tour director and fellow travelers, there in the hotel.

Amber, and More Amber

Old Town Square

Tomb of Stanisław August Poniatowski, the Only Polish King Not Buried on Wawel Hill in Kraków. He Moved the Capital From Kraków to Warsaw and Was Duly Snubbed.

Cathedral of St. John. Oldest church in Warsaw, with foundations back to 1390.  Rebuilt, of course, after the war.

Our Little Rental Car for the Day

Our guide was a lovely young woman, Joanna, who is in her late 30's.  A former school teacher, she has been working as a guide for the past 15 years or so.  We liked her immediately.  We learned that we were to be a group of 33 people in total, which was among the largest we're had on any of our Gate1 tours. Given that it was August, I shouldn't have been surprised, but I nonetheless was.  There were only about 20 people in the conference room when we entered, and we soon learned that quite of few of our group had missed connections or had delayed flights.  Hearing that made me all the happier that we had built in our extra day at the beginning.  We did our obligatory introductions and went over the itinerary, before going up to the restaurant for a pleasant welcome meal.  We were pleasantly surprised to meet a fellow traveler from Sterling, who lives very close to our old house in Cascades.  We hit it off with her immediately and enjoyed her company.

Many people at dinner, who had only arrived that day, were very tired by the time we finished, and  were happy to break and head up to our respective rooms for welcome rest -- ourselves included.

 

Seeing Warsaw as a Tourist

We all felt pretty adjusted to the time change by the time we had our breakfast and met up with our group for one full day in Warsaw.  We met our driver Wojtiek, who would be with us all week, and we had a local guide with us all day, in addition to Joanna.  We hit all of the major sights during the morning, which included the famous statue of Polish native son Frédéric Chopin, which is located in the famous Lazienki (waw-shen-ki) Park, close to which I used to live.  A lot of people don't realize that Chopin was Polish, or at least that his mother was from Warsaw.  Much of that has to do with the fact that Poland didn't exist as a stand-alone country from 1795 until 1918, when the Treaty of Versailles reinstated modern Poland, under the watch of Marshall Jozef Pilsudski.  We heard the story of how the historic capital of Poland was moved to Warsaw from Kraków by King Sigismund III Vasa in 1596.  Poland was unified with Lithuania at the time, and Warsaw was chosen for its central location between Kraków and Vilnius.  Sigismund to this day is disparaged in Kraków for making the move, and he is the only Polish king to not be buried there, on Wawel Hill.  Of course we also heard all about the Warsaw Uprising of late 1944, when Polish partisans rose up against the occupying Nazi forces, as Soviet troops neared the city.  Their goal had been to secure the city before the Soviets arrived, in a vain hope of securing Polish independence after the war.  In retaliation, Himmler ordered the city to be leveled and all its citizens killed. Soviet troops did arrive, but they famously camped out on the eastern shores of the Vistula River and essentially watched as the destruction took place.  German bombarded the city non-stop, day and night, for 63 days and deported over 650,000 remaining citizens to concentration camps and military gulags.  As the Soviets waited, they ensured that any independent-minded leaders were killed, and allowed them to walk into the destroyed city once the Germans ultimately retreated.  We saw a picture later of General Eisenhower visiting the city as Allied Military commander in 1945, where he remarked that it was the greatest devastation he had seen at any time during the entire war.

The U.S. Embassy Warsaw -- the One Thing That Didn't Change

Marshall Jozef Pilsudski, father of "reborn" Poland in 1918.

Chopin Memorial in Lazenski Park 

We continued on to the area of town which used to be the infamous Warsaw Jewish ghetto, which was completely destroyed during both World War II uprisings.  We saw the Umschalag Platz memorial, which marks where the old train depot used to sit, from which Jews were sent to death camps.  We also visited the formal ghetto memorial, which went up way back in 1948 to mark the 1943 ghetto uprising.  It was partially built with material Hilter's architect Albert Speer had sent to the city earlier for unbuilt Nazi memorials.  Behind it is the new Museum of History of Polish Jews, which opened in 2014.  We only visited the atrium, but it tracks the 1,000-year history of Jewish life in Poland, spanning from 1098, when King Bolesław III invited Jews to settle there.  From that time they thrived in Poland and grew into the largest concentration of Jewish people anywhere in the world.  Today, there are fewer than 2,000 Jews in all of Poland, and there were an estimated 3.3 million before WWII.  It was, of course, a sobering visit.

Palace of Culture and Science, Next to Tallest Apartment Building in Europe, and our Hotel (far Right)

Memorial to the Smolensk Plane Tragedy of 2010,  Which Killed the President and Many Senior Officials

Umschlagplatz in Former Ghetto, From Where Jews Were Deported by Train

POLIN -- Museum of the History of Polish Jews

Inside POLIN

Memorial to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising of 1943

Material Shipped to Warsaw by Albert Speer for Nazi Memorials Was Used To Construct This

Memorial to the Warsaw Uprising of 1944

We ended the morning tour back at the Old Town, and heard details of the meticulous restoration work that took place from the 1950's until the 1970's.  The city was reconstructed to exactly match -- at least the facades -- how it looked in 1939.  It was a very warm Saturday and there were a lot of people in the old town area.  We had lunch at a very nice traditional restaurant, off the Market Square, and enjoyed the first of several meals with so-called Ukrainian dumplings.  I distinctly remember Pierogi Russkie from before, and sure enough, it was confirmed that these cheese-laden dumplings have been commonly renamed Ukrainian vice Russian Pierogi, since the 2022 invasion.

Speaking of Ukraine, it was a very frequent topic of conversation during our trip, for a variety of reasons.  Ukrainian flags were, literally, everywhere.  We all saw the images of Ukrainian refugees pouring into Poland after the Russian invasion, and I know some people worried about what we might see on our tour.  Our guide Joanna, who speaks Ukrainian, was a volunteer at the beginning of the way, and continues to help as she can.  She explained that there were already 1 Million Ukrainian "economic refugees" before the war, who came over for work.  After the Russian invasion, a further 2 Million women and children crossed over.  Many settled with Ukrainians already in Poland, while the others were hosted on peoples' homes.  Joanna explained that she hears Ukrainian more often than Polish on the streets on Warsaw, as there are so many refugees.  That said, they are settled and integrating, and they are allowed to work.  Poland needs the labor, so they have been welcome.  She also cited the historic ties between Ukraine and Poland, which have made integration and hosting easier.

On Our Way into the Old City

Part of the Rebuilt Old City of Warsaw

St. Anne's Church

Central Market Square

Our Lunch Joint

General Eisenhower Viewed Destroyed Warsaw. He Said It Was the Worst Destruction He Saw Anywhere During the War.

For the afternoon, we took an optional tour to the famed Wilanów Palace, at the southern end of Warsaw.  It is a former royal palace built in the late 1600's for King John III Sobieski. Wilanów Palace survived all of Poland's partitions and both World Wars undamaged and is one of the best examples of Baroque architecture in the country.  It has been a museum since the early 19th Century and ranks as one of the most visited palaces in the world, which surprised me.  

While we were inside the building on our tour, a thunder storm rolled through, which caught us all off guard.  We all got a little wet on the walk back to the bus, but at least the rain cooled everything off.

Willanow Palace

Statue to Jan Sobieski, the Hero of the Battle of Vienna

The Battle of Vienna, Against the Turks

Willanow Gardens

This was to be our last dinner in Warsaw, so we tried to choose our restaurant carefully, so as to not waste an opportunity.  We almost returned to our Michelin place from our first night, but instead opted for a new place, based on on-line recommendations.  The rain was long gone and had left the air nice and cool, so it was a pleasant walk to the restaurant.  We walked through neighborhoods that I would never have considered even parking my car in before, all of which had been transformed.  That pleasantness aside, our meal was average at best, and we collectively wished we'd played it safe and returned to the other restaurant.  Oh well -- nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Tallest Apartment in Europe, Next to Our Hotel and Central Train Station

View From Our Hotel Spa

Our Hotel's Pool -- the Tallest in Europe, with a View Stalin Would Hate

Some of the Unchanged Communist Idolatry on the Museum of Science & Culture

At Dinner