On the Road to Bratislava Slovakia...25th June

I left Krakow later than expected but wanted to finish the post of my visit to Auschwitz before I left.. now missing from the blog.. I will re-write it; time will make it better..

I did notice before; I know there are national speed limits in eastern Europe but on the roads 90% drive on the speed limit and the other 10% drive as fast as possible. You are prepared in Germany for cars to drive fast.. some autobahns still have no speed limits but I assume the 10% wish to bring the German rules to their countries. A car coming up from behind at 110, arrives fast; you just have to be very aware and move back into the slow lane as soon as possible before they remove the paint from your rear bumper...As I said before, I'm in no rush so get out of the lane as soon as possible.. 

Passing into Slovakia, air socks appeared in the central reservation.. concerned that not only do I have to be on the look out over fast cars but also planes landing on the road as well.....

In the UK we all complain about the miles of motorway road works with no-one working... well, the Slovakian motorways come close to us... 

Arrived in Bratislava six hours after starting out.. with a few breaks along the way. Arrived in the centre and for the first time I had a close shave with a local car driving between me and the car in the next lane.. not sure how the side of my car wasn't removed...

Auschwitz...24th June


My original post has gone missing... I will re-write it..

Krakow...23rd June

Within the old town and a little away from the central throng of people a few places made me stop and look...

Plac Szczepanski...

This square is a short walk from the central square where the Cloth Hall and Town Hall are located, but there are few tourists here and each side of the square have different era architecture;

The more I studied this building, the more I liked it. Slightly let down by the new windows.. but well detailed.

The Performing Arts Theatre;a late Art Nouveau inspired building

The Palace of Fine Arts..

St Andrew's Church..

This Romanesque church dating from the 11th century, one of the oldest buildings in Krakow, a sanctuary for people of Krakow, twice, in the 13th century when the Mongals attacked Krakow and then given to the poor sisters of Claire in the 14th century. The interiors were completely re-modelled later in the Baroque period.. 

The really odd thing though is that Saint Claire was declared the patron saint of television in 1958... What did she do to deserve this?...

The Cloth Hall...

In the centre of the central square...... is the Cloth Hall. The name gives its original purpose.. now a large cavern selling what tourists obviously want.. Amber, nic-naks and cuddly toys.....

Oh... and an original Multipla....

Krakow...23rd June

Moved hotels.. or changed a hotel to a managed apartment. 
The difference is in the detail, the manager/owners of this apartment understand this and everything works! 

The only frustration is the wasted time re-locating and not seeing Krakow.

Anyway... 'Julie' is banished to the basement car park so walking in Krakow.....

I went back to where I went wrong when I had my brush with 'the law' yesterday and missed this sign...

A no through way... I missed it during a busy Saturday night.. Sunday is much quieter... 

I decided to walk around the outside of the original wall line.. not quite sure why I thought this was a good way of seeing the city but the walk was in tree shaded gardens that hug the walls. Hat on, shirt on to protect arms and neck.. all good.. 

The overall meander is about 4km so easy on my broken foot and there was much to see..

This is a map of the old town... the walk is along the perimeter.. I started by the university...centre west of the map...

At the start of the walk the wall is only an imprint in the ground.. much later can you see the main walls..

An oddity on the route.. An extreme brutalist building inserted into the 19c city fabric...

As usual.. it is closed..they seem to know when I'm coming....

Sometime in the past, traditional terracotta tiles were added to the window cills... 

Leading onto the Barbican..

closely followed by the Juliusz Stowacki Threatre..

I think cities that have trams epitomise city life.. Warsaw, Krakow, Riga, Tallinn have trams.. Lithuania have trolley buses.. nearly the same...

The gardens are full of people, walking, cycling or on the motorised scooters... Pedestrians take precedence, even when walking across roads; trams stop for them too. If only London was the same...

The wall walk for me ends at the castle.. an amazing sequence of spaces...

On the upper rampart.. looking over the Vistula...

An sharp bend in the river..

All the available space would have been built on

Krakow...23rd June

In an earlier blog..I mentioned that a comparison of places that I have stayed in would be worthwhile. but before I get to this I want to explain where I am staying now.

It's called The Loft Hotel and is probably new... The pictures on the booking website looked fine and its close to the old town and has a parking space.. all good. 

Style over Substance....

On arrival you are handed a iPhone, which you are told, operates the door to your room, the lighting and the air-conditioning. unfortunately when you get to your room you can't access either of these two. but no worries, there is an iPad on the wall.. I was able to set the temperature at 21.35 degrees... the sliding scale so sensitive 21 it wasn't possible to just set a simple temperature.

Fairly quickly it apparent that the hotel had been designed by an 'artist'.. the concept must come first over practical issues like storage, hanging space, a functioning worktop (desk), places to put toiletries in the bathroom.. The whole black look completely sucks the lighting out of the room..

When I returned from the old town last night and put the lights on it was so dark, I kept walking into the stuff I had to leave on the floor.. . 

Moving off the coffee machine and kettle from the worktop allowed enough space to place my laptop  but the 'poof' masquerading as a seat left my chin at the worktop height..rather like the simple cartoon of two hands and a face appearing over a wall...

Music is a big thing here too.. loud dub music in the room corridor, R&B in the pizza restaurant that serves as the morning restaurant.. The food is laid out on a trestle table; no cooling of food laid out and a feast for the flies tucking into the food... I decided to miss this... and had a tea instead. 

The moral of the story.. This is a place for short weekend breaks, where you only bring a small bag. Never design rooms where all finishes are black.. Even concept hotels need some practicality. I guess the hotel realises certain shortcomings as the towel rail has been used as a place for the tissues and their own toiletries. The towels occupy a small shelf under the basin. 

Room at night...

Room in the morning....

 I have checked out to stay elsewhere...

One other thing.. who actually thinks that anyone will sit on a stair half landing.....

Krakow...23rd June

I've decided, for now, to call my satnav voice Julie, after Julie Walters. I can just see Julie rolling her eyes and tutting when I haven't followed her directions.. 

Yesterday driving into Krakow, she got her own back by taking me right into the city centre, among the thousands of tourists.. Panicking a little.. I ended up driving through a small park and my illicit drive finished in front of two police cars. 
Resigned, I turned off the engine while the big policeman ambled over and took my passport and drivers licence. I did my best 'puss in boots' impression from Shrek; he looked disgusted and handed me over to one of his colleagues. She spoke English and i explained that Julie was the culprit.... 

Luckily for me, they left me off, I think, with a warning, and told me not to listen to Julie all the time....

Warsaw...21st June

A slow start.. It looked as though a thunderstorm was about to unleash a torrent of water, but the storm moved on. 

Walking towards the centre I re-took photos of the new development mentioned in the last blog and re-aligned it.

Walking towards the centre along Swietokrzyska avenue (the new underground runs under the avenue) bikes and motorised scooters are separated from the cars; normally interlinked and weaving with the pavements. The motorised scooters are great; bookable and all GPS linked so can be picked up from an app, I was tempted but felt it was asking for trouble... 

Walking past building after building with plaques explaining its destruction during the war and its re-construction in the 50's and 60's gives a sense of the complete desolation of the city in 1944. Those people who survived and others who returned faced a virtually in-comprehensible period of re-organisation and re-construction. All this is written and known but being able to walk through the city, away from the main streets gave me a sense of the scale of the destruction.  

I walked into the Zacheta, the National Gallery of Art, primarily to see the exhibition Spojrzenia: 'Views'. Similar to the Turner Prize in the UK. The entrance fee also gave access to two other exhibitions, 'Poland' for Export, and Puppets: Theatre, Film and Politics. 
I visited the latter two first.. 

'Poland' for Export:
Published monthly for the first time in 1954 (ending in 89/90) it started with two versions, one for the west and one for the east, reaching 60,000 and 200,000 respectively. They were specifically published to describe the modern scientific, artistic and cultural society of the new Poland. Later two further versions were created for Africa and Asia focused on the industrial capability of Poland; for developing export markets. 
They were propaganda tools but the critical issue for the exhibition curators was the vast amount of high quality photography, with original negatives, available to create the exhibition. Sometimes when reviewing a role of negatives the real images of Poland appeared rather than the chosen image. The photographers' were allowed the right to keep their negatives and this is why so many remain. After 1968 this wasn't the case. 

The shifting of images was also well displayed. This is a man describing how his brother was murdered in 1939;

The bottom images were cropped and re-shot.

Puppets: Theatre, Film and Politics:
The exhibition explores the theatre of puppets from 1930's modernism through the communist period charting its role in socio-political critique to its subversion as a political tool to promote socialist ideals and the 'new socialist individual', a perfect vehicle to start that process with children.

The political puppet..

 Spojrzenia: 'Views'

Any visitor can vote for their preferred artist..

This installation reflects 12pm with the beach party deserted with up turned tables. In the tables are the detritus of the evening. The video with sound on the wall was really evocative of a moon lit night and emptiness...

 
Moving on... 

I did reach the 'old town'.. It is an UNESCO site; full of people.. but it felt a little frozen in time.. Some of the walls felt too well re-constructed but the area felt overwhelmed by tourists.. and opportunities to listen to Chopin. I found a photo taken in 1939 and compared this with now.. 

(it had started raining by now..)

Pristine ruins...

On the walk out I came across a wedding celebration, backing onto a small public park, with a violin playing... it changed my slight negativity of the previous couple of hours..