Tourist season part 10: Warsaw, Poland

I have just returned from Warsaw, Poland and thought I'd use the format of the "Tourist Season" reviews that I did last year to review this destination as it gives a great framework for me to introduce a destination. It was an interesting place to visit, very cold despite it being only being the second week of December and I did enjoy myself there.

It was snowing heavily in Warsaw when I was there!

First Impressions

Well, Poland is one of those former Eastern bloc communist countries that I read a lot about as a child growing up, studying history. I learnt plenty about how Poland suffered so badly in WW2 and how they further suffered under the Communist regime for so many years until the end of Communism in 1989. There are plenty of films about Poland, such as The Pianist and Defiance which have given English speaking people like me a glimpse into Polish history on the big screen. Here's the trailer for The Pianist - an absolutely brilliant film that I adore!

As I live in England, there is also a substantial Polish minority here who have arrived here since 2004 - I have Polish friends here in England and they do give me the impression that they are a proud, hardworking people who are keen to finally establish their national identity after having suffered so much in the past as a country. I have also traveled widely around Eastern Europe (from Russia to Slovakia to Croatia to Hungary to Slovakia to Estonia to Slovenia to the Czech Republic) so I have a pretty good idea of what these former Communist countries are like. The architecture and the feel of the city was definitely quite brutal - the Communists built functional but not pretty buildings: these huge concrete blocks which were grey and imposing. They are everywhere in Warsaw.

As I arrived in Warsaw-Modlin airport, there were no air bridges between the plane and the terminal (well to be fair, this was the airport for budget airlines as opposed to the main airport Warsaw-Chopin) - we had to walk 5 minutes in the howling wind and heavy snow across the tarmac to the terminal building. I knew it was going to be cold, but goodness me, the windchill did take me by surprise and by the time I stepped into the building, I was shivering. I had my first taste of Polish hospitality when I spoke to the customs officer in Polish and they were like, hey check this out - he speaks Polish and we even had a brief chat, in Polish and English and they were so intrigued that I was able to have a basic conversation in Polish despite this being my first visit to Poland. Oh they were super friendly.

Downtown Warsaw

Getting there

Warsaw is easily accessible via a large number of carriers that serve Warsaw Chopin airport - Ryanair, the budget airline flies to Warsaw Modlin airport but even then, it is still about 75 minutes from Modlin airport to downtown Warsaw via a shuttle bus to Modlin train station and then the train downtown. LOT the national carrier of Poland flies all over the world, including to Singapore. Warsaw is also connected via rail to other cities in central Europe like Berlin, Prague and Vienna - though these journeys can take quite a while as it is a huge country and many people actually prefer to fly. There are also buses that will take you as far as London, but you would have a very sore bum if you attempted such a journey by bus - just fly there, the airline tickets are so cheap anyway if you go with a budget airline like Ryanair.

Public transport

Warsaw is served by a train network, a metro network (think MRT/tube/subway), trams and buses. They are fast, efficient and run on schedule most of the time - the tickets are also very sensibly priced. You could for example, get a 4.40 Zlotys ticket that allows you to travel for an hour within the Warsaw area, within that hour you may switch modes of transport as many times as you like to get to your destination. I am fond of the trams as they are old fashioned, charming but still run very efficiently. You can either buy the tickets from the vending machines which can be found in many bus/tram stops and stations or on board the bus/tram. You can also get a day ticket for 15 Zlotys (or 3 day ticket for 30 Zlotys) which allows you unlimited travel in that period within the Warsaw area. In the main stations, there are signs in English but those disappear once you get out of the downtown area - but I had no problems anyway.

At Srodmiescie train station in Warsaw 

Attractions

You need to understand the history of Warsaw in order to appreciate the attractions of this place. Warsaw was virtually destroyed by the Nazis in WW2 - 85% of the city was completely devastated and about 60% of the population killed. The Nazi brutality was in response to the Warsaw Uprising, as the Nazis wanted to make an example of Warsaw to discourage other territories under Nazi control from rebelling. Nonetheless, one of the most popular attractions in Warsaw is the "old town" - which was in fact completely and utterly flattened by the Nazis in WW2. So what is this old town then, if none of the buildings date back further than the late 1940s?

The Soviets knew that the Polish resented their control after WW2, so in order to divert their energies away from a rebellion, they started an ambitious campaign to painstaking rebuild the capital city of Warsaw, to put it back to the way it was before WW2. This gave the locals a focus for their energies and there was plenty of propaganda to depict Soviet and Polish builders working side by side to rebuild this city in the post-war years. So the "old town" that you see today in Warsaw was in fact a late 1940s and early 1950s reconstruction made from old photos of the "old town". So all these lovely quaint buildings I saw were in fact about 65 years old rather than hundreds of years old.

In the not so old "old town"

An example of this is Chopin's family parlour - one of the attractions near the old town area. Of course, the original building was totally bombed to bits and destroyed by the Germans in WW2 - as was everything in the area! That building was completely and lovingly rebuilt to what it was before and it houses an art college today, but the room which was Chopin's family parlour has been put together as a museum piece to show tourists how Chopin's family would have lived. But of course, you have to realize - this is but a reconstruction for tourists, rather than the original. Mind you, that Chopin family parlour was a bit of a waste of time, just head on to the Chopin Museum instead if you're into Chopin. There is an element of "suspend your disbelief" when it comes to so many of these attractions which are reconstructions, rather than the original. So with that in mind, the old town of Warsaw is pretty enough to rival the old town of most European cities - as long as you don't mind the fact that it really isn't that old at all, but probably one of the most ambitious reconstruction projects ever undertaken in the world to rebuild an old town.

You need to take an interest in WW2 in order to really appreciate Warsaw - I totally recommend the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which chronicles the ill-fated Warsaw Uprising and the suffering of the city in WW2. There are numerous monuments commemorating the Warsaw Uprising around the city. There's also of course, the Jewish history of Warsaw - before WW2, about 30% of Warsaw was Jewish and the Nazis first forced them to live within the Jewish Ghetto in Warsaw before sending most of them to extermination camps like Auschwitz. Further antisemitism in the 1960s and 1970s forced any remaining Jews to move to Israel and today, only approximately 1000 Jews live in Warsaw. I did a walking tour with a guide who took us around places in the former Jewish Ghetto and he told us sobering stories about what the Jews went through in WW2 at places like Umschlagplatz and various monuments around the city.

The memorial at Umschlagplatz

Then of course there is the Palace of Culture and Science, which dominates the Warsaw skyline. You either love it or hate it - I love it. Completed in 1955, it was a symbol of post-WW2 Soviet domination in Poland. You can pay 18 zlotys to go to the 30th floor and have a view of the Warsaw skyline and there is a joke that it offers the best view of Warsaw because from the top of that building, you can't see the Palace of Culture and Science. There are various museums and theaters inside the building, but really, it's far more interesting from the outside than inside.

Otherwise, there are plenty of parks like the very pretty Łazienki Park, Saxon Gardens, Ujazdów Park and Praga Park which would be lovely when the weather was good - but when I was there, it was so cold the water in the lakes were frozen and the trees were bare. If you are after shopping, there are many big, modern shopping malls both in the downtown area and further out of town where you may snag a bargain or two, given how cheap things are in Poland.

In Lazienki Park

Weather

It was very cold when I was there (second week of December) with plenty of snow on the ground, but the weather does vary. One morning, I woke up and it was +5 degrees and all the snow had melted overnight just like that. Then hours later, the temperature plunged back down to -6 degrees and the puddles of melted snow had turned into big sheets of ice. It can get bitterly cold in the winter with temperatures plummeting to -20 and beyond, but the most depressing part of winter is probably the short days as it starts to get dark at about 3:30 pm in the afternoon. Please check out my recent pieces on how to dress for the winter weather and the effect of cold winter weather on our bodies.

Summers on the other hand, can be baking hot in Warsaw with temperatures exceeding 30 degrees regularly. On the other hand, the days are very long and it gets dark close to 10 pm at night - so that makes it really convenient for the tourists who need just a few more hours of sunlight to do their sightseeing. The lack of air-conditioning in Warsaw however, can be a pain in the hottest summer months. With this in mind, a good compromise would be to visit Warsaw in the spring or autumn - the day light hours are sufficiently long and the weather is neither too hot nor too cold.

By the Palace of Culture

Food

I'm afraid Polish cuisine is nothing to write home about. The national dish pierogi is disappointing to say the least. It is a form of dumpling that has gone badly wrong - think of a Japanese gyoza but the skin is too thick. Think of a Singaporean curry puff but a lot smaller and filled with cheese, vegetables or sausage meat instead. Think of a Cantonese wantan but far heavier with the pastry. Then they usually boil the dumpling like it was an Italian ravioli and serve it drizzled with oil - but it doesn't have the lightness of a ravioli. The first time I had it I thought, maybe it was just my bad luck to have had a bad pierogi - but by my second attempt I realized, okay, this is why there are no Polish restaurants all over England despite us having a big Polish minority there.

Given just how cold it can get in the winter here, one gets the impression that Polish cuisine is designed to fill you up with energy, so your body will have fuel to burn when you have to go out into the cold in the most bitterly cold winter nights - so we're talking a lot of starchy, stodgy puddings and dumplings, cheese, cream and fatty meats as well as potatoes and bread. It suffices to say there was an element of 'been there done that' when it comes to Polish cuisine, it was a novelty whilst on holiday but I am not going to try to track down any Polish restaurants in London.

Having a pan fried pierogi

However, the saving grace of eating out in Poland is that it is so cheap - you can walk into quite a respectable looking joint in downtown Warsaw and spend as little as 30 Zlotys (approximately £6 or S$12) for dinner. It is possible to get lunch for as little as 6 to 10 Zlotys (say a hotdog or a kebab) and even though it was freezing cold, I couldn't resist getting a delicious tub of peach and raspberry sorbet for just 2 Zlotys (£0.40 or S$0.80) from the supermarket. The equivalent tub of sorbet (360 ml)  in London would cost about £1.50 to £2 at least.  I did also go to a stunningly good Vietnamese restaurant where I had a starter, a main course and drink for 32 Zlotys - that's about half of what one would pay in London. By that token, if you're not keen on Polish cuisine, there are plenty of other kinds of restaurants in Warsaw: Indian, Chinese, Thai, Arab, Spanish, Greek, Vietnamese, French, Italian, American style fast food etc - however, I doubt you will have such a wide selection once you venture out of the capital city. Of course, if you wish to push the boat out and dine in style, there are no shortages of expensive high end restaurants in Warsaw as well.

Prices

Actually Warsaw is surprisingly cheap! Let me give you an example. I brought the wrong gloves for Warsaw - I brought my city gloves which are made of black leather and look gorgeous, but really I needed my skiing gloves as there was so much snow. So I went into a shop and bought me a brand new pair of padded gloves for 14 Zlotys = £2.80 (about S$5.60) and that was about a third or a quarter of what I would have paid for those gloves in London! For the same price of a modest hotel room in London, I chose to get a whole apartment instead.

In downtown Warsaw

Here's the thing about Poland - you can get the same stuff but at less than half the price. Another example: I walked into a food court and saw that you could get a Whopper Junior for 5 Zlotys  (£1  or S$2) - the price in the UK for a Whopper Junior is £2.19 - that's almost double. You get the idea, everything is practically half price when compared to London. The rent is cheaper for the shop, the shop assistant and cashier are probably paid a fraction of their London counterparts and thus it all adds up even if you're buying the same product (like a Whopper Junior). Of course, these discounts would be significant when buying a pair of gloves but when you're buying a new laptop - well, a MacBook Air is a MacBook Air, the amount of discount you can get as a result of the cheaper rent/salaries becomes insignificant.

Language

The language of Poland is Polish - as it is pretty much a homogeneous country, people there don't really need a foreign language unless they're dealing with foreigners. Ironic of course, as back in the Communist days, Russian was a compulsory language in school and practically everyone who was educated before 1989 would have knowledge of some Russian. However, for obvious reasons, I avoided using my Russian and defaulted to English instead. Anyone educated after 1989 would probably have learnt English as a second language at school. Unlike Russian, Polish is written with the Latin Alphabet (and not Cyrillic) though English speakers must be aware that Polish pronunciation is very complex - there are a whole different set of rules and the rules of English cannot be applied in Polish.

Take for example the word for excuse me/sorry, "przepraszam" - it's pronounced shay-pra-shahm. Yup, the first P is practically silent and the RZ becomes an SH sound. I have seen foreigners actually say "prez-zep-pras-zam" in Warsaw - much to the amusement of the locals. Do spend a few hours studying the rules as it would really make life much easier for you. Take for example, the name of the city Łódź - it's not pronounced "Lodz", but more like Wuujch. So if you were asking for directions to Lodz rather than Wuujch, you may end up in the wrong place!

English rating: 2 out of 5

I was actually surprised - it was far worse than I thought! You see, my Polish friends in London all speak English very well, but in Poland, the level of English comprehension was far lower. I would usually start any conversation with, "Przepraszam, czy mowiscz po Angielsku prosze?" (Excuse me, could you speak English please?) And rarely was the answer ever Tak/Yes. The answer would usually be troche (a little), mawo (a tiny amount) or just plain nie (no). I would then struggle on with them in my very limited Polish and they soon realize that their English is far better than my Polish. That's when we switch to English and I am astounded at just how much English they actually do speak!

I look fat because I am wearing so many layers of winter clothing!

I did tell this Polish lady that her English was very good and she said (in near perfect English), "I studied it at school years ago, but I don't speak it everyday, I don't use it. I forget a lot... and so when I have to speak to you, I got scared and worried that I couldn't remember what the right words are." I concluded that they are just shy and not very confident when it comes to dealing with foreigners in English - after all, this is a very homogeneous society where practically everyone is Polish. Even American TV programmes like CSI are dubbed in Polish, so unless the Polish person worked in say a hotel or airport where they deal with foreigners all the time, they don't have any need to use English. So even if they have spent years studying it at school, they lack the confidence to speak it.

So really, if you are going to make the most of your holiday in Poland, you need to learn at least the basics of Polish if you want to communicate with the locals. In Poland, the Polish probably do speak a reasonable amount of English but refuse to speak it with foreigners because they simply lack the confidence to do so. In the popular programme "Amazing Race" (series 11, episode 7), Mirna and Charla were running around Warsaw shouting, "do you speak English? Do you speak English? Does anyone here speak any English?" The locals were running away in fear! Well, think about it - loud Americans, TV cameras filming everything and Polish people who are not that confident with English. What do you think was going to happen? Try my more gentle approach when in Poland, please.

Beware

Always be prepared for the weather if you are visiting in the winter as it can be bitterly cold. Beware of slipping on the ice if the temperature falls below zero. Also, the currency is useless once you leave Poland, so I found myself desperately trying to budget myself on the last day there, trying to make sure that I have enough to get to the airport but I didn't want to be stuck with any left over Zlotys when I boarded the plane. I nearly succeeded - I even up buying three pieces of cake (not the best cake I admit) at the Warszawa Centralna train station and got 1.17 Zlotys in change (about £0.22). As I didn't want to miss my train, I didn't get to spend that last 1.17 Zlotys! They really should have at least some kind of charity donation box at the airport for tourists like me looking to get rid of their left over spare change, but there wasn't such a facility at the airport. I don't mind holding on to Euros as it is used in so many countries - but Polish Zlotys? I have no idea when I am going to be next in Poland.

Racism and sexism?

This is such a big issue for me that I have decided to turn this section into a separate post, look out for it shortly! Mind you, Poland and Ukraine have already been in trouble over this issue during the the Euro 2012 season, this is nothing new. More on this rather controversial topic in my next post, coming very soon.

By the national library in Warsaw

Safety

Warsaw itself felt relatively safe - I did notice the presence of the police everywhere and there was the noticeable absence of beggars or homeless people. Maybe it was because they were hiding somewhere as it was so bitterly cold whilst I was there. Nonetheless, the usual caution about pickpockets apply - as with any big city, you have to be careful with your wallet and valuables especially in crowded places like buses, trams, train stations and shopping malls.

Comparisons

Warsaw did remind me of many other Eastern European cities I have visited over the years - the center of the city is vibrant and exciting but the suburbs can be rather dull, grey and dreary.

At the entrance to Wilanow Palace

Do I need a guide?

No you don't. There is the obvious language barrier, but public transport is so efficient and reasonably priced. Most of the main attractions are within the downtown and the old town areas - the only main attraction that you need to get out of town for is Wilanow Palace (35 minutes by bus from the old town). At major tourist attractions, there will always be signs in English - so for example, at the Chopin Museum and at the Warsaw Uprising Museum, everything is bilingual: Polish and English, even the staff there spoke English very well, so I had no problems enjoying those museums.

So that's it from me for now on Warsaw - look out for part two on racism and sexism in Poland coming soon. I did enjoy my visit to Poland and will probably return one day to visit Southern Poland (Krakow, Auschwitz, Zakapone, Katowice, Bielsko-Biala amongst other places there which are of interest to me) but I would not have any credibility as a travel writer if I were to ignore the racism and sexism I witnessed whilst I was in Poland. My aim as a writer is to share with my readers my experiences (good or bad - such as the very bad experiences I've had in Indonesia earlier this year), rather than just tell you "hey the world is beautiful, go take a holiday and travel loads."

As usual, if you have any questions or comments, please let me know what you think below. Thanks, dziękuję bardzo!

In a very snowy Warsaw Street