Eastern Europe 2007 - Return to Warsaw

From Worldtraveller

On my way back from China in 2002 I'd stopped for a couple of days in Warsaw. This time, I started here because flights were much cheaper than flights to Kiev, and I thought it would be nice to start somewhere familiar. After a brutally early start to my day at Heathrow, I arrived at Frédéric Chopin International Airport in the early afternoon, found my way into town and got off the bus at Warszawa Centralna to find the Palace of Culture and Science towering above me. It was good to be back in Eastern Europe.

I only spent a short time in Warsaw. I bought a ticket to Lviv, departing that evening, so I just went for a tired walk up to the old town. I walked via the Saski Gardens and Castle Square under grey skies, and found the experience a bit like intense déjà vu.

Warsaw makes me feel slightly melancholy. It lacks soul, and the reason it lacks soul is that it was utterly destroyed in the Second World War, after its inhabitants were let down in their uprising by the Red Army, which stopped its advance a few miles short of the city as the rebellion took place. The Nazis defeated the rebellion and set out to completely flatten the city. I couldn't help thinking about the scale of the tragedy that took place there as I walked around. I stopped briefly at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier on my way back to the station.

At 6.15pm I got on the train to Kraków, from where I'd pick up a connecting train to Przemyśl and then another to Lviv. I fell asleep almost straight away but woke briefly to see a beautiful sunset over endless plains as we sped south. On the train from Kraków to Przemyśl I met two other travellers and chatted to them as we headed east. At Przemyśl we changed trains for a sleeper, and I was happy to get a little bit of sleep. This was interrupted only by the border crossing, where my battered passport, already veteran of 24 countries, caused a bit of consternation. "What has happened to your passport?", demanded the woman checking it, sternly. For the sake of brevity I skipped stories of Patagonian rain and Atacaman sand, and said I had accidentally laundered it. "Only once?", she asked, with a raised eyebrow and a smile. With that she stamped my passport and I was in Ukraine. It was 2am.

Eastern Europe 2007: Return to Warsaw / To the East / Kiev / Black Sea / Breakaway Republic / Moldova / Transylvania / Bucharest