Europe

Warsaw

After three nights in Kraków we drove the 300 km to Warsaw.  On the way we found another charming local restaurant and had a very nice Polish lunch. 

Roadside Restaurant - Polish style

A pretty waitress even ran out to the car to return my reading glasses that I had left on our table.

The hotel in Kraków turned out to be well located and walking distance to much of what we wanted to see.  It consists of a series of suites spread out within what is otherwise a group of commercial buildings.  It's a bit odd, but it turned out to be comfortable and quite central and offers a good continental breakfast with soft or hard boiled eggs, in one of those French style boil-it-yourself troughs, cereal and an espresso machine, in addition to the usual selection of breads, pastries, fruit, cheese and meats.  It also styles itself as a music lover's hotel and features nightly Chopin recitals in the parlour.

Television

On TV in our hotel room in Warsaw we have both CNN and RT (Russian TV in English). Flipping between them is rather interesting. RT is obscure as to why the West is mounting sanctions against Russia. RT has an obvious bias spends a lot of time criticising US politics, using largely British left wing commentators who occasionally make a valid point and are otherwise amusing.  While CNN is not as right wing as Fox News, it too wears its heart on its sleeve: the Russians need to be isolated and sanctioned over their actions in the Ukraine and Putin is a smarmy ex CIA, I mean KGB, monster and just too popular.

Surprisingly, almost the same points are being made on RT and CNN about ISIS and Syria.  Basically both agree that millions of people have been displaced by those desperate to unseat Assad and, as a consequence of the piling weapons, money and foreign fighters into Syria, everyone is now threatened by new enemy. 

The only difference of opinion seems to be the conflicting views their differently biased commentators have of the of the validity of that original goal, a commentator on CNN describing Assad as the epitome of evil.  A bit strong I thought.  He's not exactly Hitler and definitely an improvement on his father, who seemed to get away with much worse.  And Syria is quite secular and a sort of Democracy - certainly more democratic than Egypt and several other countries in the Region, like Saudi Arabia.

Having been to peaceful and relatively prosperous and enlightened Syria prior to its deliberate destabilisation I find myself asking: 'what for?' too.

There is also amazing agreement amongst the competing commentators about the probable consequences: a new wave of radicalised terrorists sweeping across the world trying to bring down modern civilisation and establish, in its place, an Islamic Caliphate.

We had a pleasant afternoon and night and the next morning we set out to get a bit of local culture.

We tried to go to the Chopin museum but found it closed, so we went to the Curie Museum with the same result. On the way we had a second look at the statue of the other world famous local,  Copernicus. 

As the world knows, Chopin is one of the most loved and influential composers of all time - particularly of sonatas, mazurkas, waltzes, nocturnes, polonaises written for the piano. 

When I was a student I often played a (vinyl) record of Chopin pieces by the piano virtuosi Rawicz and Landauer on my home-made stereo while studying. A record was the only commercial way of recording and replaying music back then.  Now you can get similar quality from a CD and even a listenable download from YouTube:

 One day one of the neighbours stopped me and said:  'You are so talented'. 

I glowed with pride at this mysterious recognition of skills I had not revealed to her - until she said:  'Yes, I often pause passing your open window and listen to your wonderful piano playing...'  

Well, at least it was a fine endorsement for my home-built speakers and amplifier, not to mention my most valuable possession, an extremely expensive cartridge, with shibata diamond stylus.  But I was a bit mystified as to how she thought I could play two pianos at once.

Marie Curie was a similarly talented Warsaw born chemist and physicist.  She married the French physicist Pierre Curie who, with his brother, was first to demonstrate and describe piezoelectricity, the basis of many electronic devices, and to describe the effects of temperature on magnetic materials. The Curie Point, a property of ferromagnetic materials, is named after him.  Marie was awarded the Nobel Prize twice.  Once in Physics, jointly with Pierre, for discoveries in radiation and a second time in Chemistry for isolating the elements radium (Ra) and polonium (Po). 

Unfortunately all isotopes of these chemicals are radioactive and she died in 1934 from complications due to radiation poisoning.  Pierre was already dead.  He was run over by a horse drawn carriage in 1906 in Paris 28 years earlier.  At the time, Marie was the only woman to be awarded the Nobel Prize and remains the only woman to receive it twice, in different disciplines.

Copernicus (1473- 1543) was the father of what we now call the Solar System.  He was a bureaucrat, diplomat, economist and classics scholar, who worked in the Court of his Uncle the Prince-Bishop of Warmia, which was one of four bishoprics of Teutonic Prussia (now Poland again), from the age of thirty until his death.  He had qualifications and interests in numerous disciplines: canon law; medicine; languages; mathematics and astronomy. 

In the year of his death he published his idea about how the Aristotelian view of the Universe, that had put the Earth at its centre, could be simplified by putting the Sun at its centre.  This book De revolutionibus orbium coelestium (On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres) revolutionised astronomy and simplified celestially based navigation.  It later allowed Kepler and then Newton to correctly describe the orbits of the planets, and thus evolve the Newtonian theory of gravity. 

When the outcomes of his re-framing became evident 90 years later, Galileo was convicted by the Holy Inquisition on suspicion of heresy for 'following the position of Copernicus, which is contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture' and placed under house arrest for the rest of his life.

Today we know that there is no easily defined centre of our unimaginably vast Universe.  It seems to each of us that the centre is where we are standing.  The entire universe moves around us, no matter where we go, specially when those people bump into us or those bloody cars try to run us over.  But a model of reality that moves its centre to Mongolia or the International Space Station, if you chose to travel there, might be perfectly valid for you but it's useless to me. 

All Copernicus said is that it's a lot simpler for those thinking about how the planets move, and building instruments and tables modelling the heavens for navigation, if we all agree to put the Sun at the centre.  Many saw the logic of this and even the Jesuits began to teach it in places like China, with the proviso that it was nothing but a simplifying geometric trick.

Copernicus' vision of the universe in De revolutionibus orbium coelestium - public domain

Today practical navigators, like NASA, still use the same simplification, putting the Sun at the centre, even though astronomers have long known that the Sun is but one of billions of such stars revolving around the centre of our galaxy, which in turn, is moving very fast in relation to many billions of other galaxies.

The principal error made by the Ancient Greeks, and by subsequent astrologers and theologians, was to hypothesise that the infinitesimal part of Universe visible to the naked eye is all that there is and that things in these Heavens are pure or perfect, unlike things on Earth.  Thus objects in the visible heavens, which were conceived of as concentric spheres, must move eternally, at one speed, in circles.   Copernicus' simplified solar-centric model was nothing but a reframing of this model and was based on circles and epicycles too. 

But some excellent observational data, collected by the eccentric Dane, Tycho Brahe, allowed Kepler to realise that there was something seriously wrong with this.  It was Kepler who first demonstrated and mathematically described elliptical orbits and variable velocities and Galileo, using his early telescope, who revealed that: other planets had moons; Jupiter and the Sun had spots; Venus had phases like the moon; and thus imperfection ruled in the heavens, as on Earth. 

It was the now obvious and demonstrable errors of fact, endorsed by numerous Saints and Prophets and even the Bible itself  'contrary to the true sense and authority of Holy Scripture',  that was so profoundly disturbing to the Church.   The growing realisation that the Earth was in no way special and that life on it must be equally insignificant to a hypothetical Creator or First Cause, came later.

Closed Museums: Chopin & Curie
Copernicus has no Museum - just a bronze

One place that was open was the huge Palace of Culture and Science that had been a gift from the Russians to Poland in 1955.  So we took the tour, culminating in a visit to the viewing level at the top. 

Palace of Culture and Science

Many features reminded us of a Moscow subway station of a similar vintage.  But this was either fitted out on the cheap or the Moscow subway is better maintained, possibly both.   Our Guide had a standard commentary and one thing that obviously gets a laugh is that one of the foyers is known as 'the chapel' because members of the public started to come in and pray there thinking that a very secular bass relief there, depicting industry and science, was a religious icon.  'People will pray to anything here,' she said laughing.

Inside the Palace of Culture and Science

When it was built it was one of the tallest buildings in Europe, it still ranks ninth, and about the only thing standing in Warsaw that had be levelled by the Germans during the war.  Slowly the city has recovered and other buildings have risen around it. 

The observation deck however was well worth the price of our tickets.

The view from the Palace of Culture and Science

There was a café in the foyer and a tourist information place.  We had a coffee and Wendy decided to ask about things to see in town. An extremely annoying woman, accompanied by a whispering browbeaten husband, spent over an hour thinking of 'just one more thing' before she stood aside to let Wendy ask her simple question:  What is open today?  That is, in addition to Zara - which, of course, we had already found. 

I realised that this could take some time and went back to the café.  Eventually the information guy marked a brochure listing venues with a single dot.  On a Monday, only the technology Museum around the corner.  That suited me and off we went.  The Museum door was ajar and in we went.  The multitude of police, who were there providing security for some visiting dignitary were nonplussed.  But such was their surprise at our unexpected appearance that they didn't have the presence of mind to tackle us to the ground, or shoot us, so just as quickly, out we went.  

But all was not lost for Wendy.  Across the plaza from the inaccessible museum  - behold! - another Zara! 

So while she browsed I roamed about the ultra-modern shopping mall, deciding if I should buy a gun or a throwing knife from the stand outside the children's-wear shop or go down to pick up some sexy fetish gear from the shop in the subway under the road.

Retail Warsaw-style

The Old City

Much of Warsaw needed to be rebuilt after it was levelled during the war and in the old town area historic buildings provide a pleasant place to walk.

The old Town

Later we explored the reconstructed old town for a second time.  On out first visit we had been attracted by an Irish Pub where I had a very non-Polish Guinness and Wendy a cider this time we wanted to have a Polish dinner and check out the reconstructed buildings. 

In the end due to the favourable exchange rate Warsaw turned out to be a good place to shop.

More Retail Therapy

I finally succumbed to retail therapy and bought some Danish shoes, that are made in Thailand.  We even bought something designed and made in Poland, a pretty ceramic bowl.

But one of the things we liked most of all was the food.  Because of a very good first experience there we did what we hardly ever do .  We went to the same restaurant twice.  The second time we ordered kebabs and a nice crisp white wine.  The meal that arrived was huge, varied and wonderfully tasty and all at very modest Polish prices.

Dinner Polish style

As we drove the 570 km back to Berlin by the nice smooth autobahn the following morning, we were happy.  It had been a very pleasant little trip.  I returned the car with thanks. 

The car

(For those considering a trip to Poland or elsewhere in Europe)

I had driven a total of 1,709 km in six days.  I was very pleased with the almost new Hyundai i30 upgraded from a: 'Volkswagen Polo or similar' from Europcar (but booked through a 'best value' site).

Although only 1.6 litres and lacking the power I'm used to, it had a very useful 6th gear, in which cruising at 150km/h was not a problem.  It also delivered excellent fuel economy, coming in at just A$186 on my card.  Good fuel economy is important because in Europe fuel can cost as much as the car rental.

Might we have been better off going by train?  Possibly. 

Checking the prices the cost of car hire plus the fuel was almost identical to two second class train tickets:  Berlin - Krakow - Warsaw - Berlin.  But side trips and getting to and from the stations involve significant additional expense.

A car is door to door, with one's luggage, and all those other stray bits of clothing and little purchases chucked into the back.  One sees a lot more of the countryside in a car, the small towns and suburbs, local people going about their business and using the roads, up close, whereas the view from a train window is mostly distant or repetitive and boring. 

On this quick trip, the car also saved a lot of valuable time, notwithstanding wasting several hours going in the wrong direction one day, thanks to excessive trust in the GPS navigator.  Even then, we got to see some unusual places, and a lot of roadwork, and had some memorable experiences and interactions with Poles in the countryside. Like trying to get directions using sign language - quite an adventure.

I've looked up the train times.  Not counting waiting and the hassle of getting to various stations on time using local transport and having one's day dominated by a train schedule, the three trips take a total of 18 hours 30 minutes, main station to main station. 

The longest leg takes 9 hours 10 minutes by train station to station, while that leg took us around seven hours in the car door to door, saving at least four hours.  And we were able to leave when it suited us and stop if we wanted to.  For example, we took longer to drive the 300 Km from Krakow to Warsaw than the three hour high speed train journey but we left when we wanted to from the Castle in Krakow, and we drove directly to our hotel in Warsaw, no cabs or public transport.  We would probably have taken around three hours had we not stopped along the way for nearly an hour for a pleasant lunch. 

The downside to hiring a car is that driving requires more concentration, particularly on the wrong side of the road with the gearstick on the other side, and there is more chance of something going wrong, not that long train trips and public transport are a bed of roses.