Half a day in the Polski Capital.

Got up and had breakie then out the door as I only had 4 hours to visit the city!

I went to the Old City…. well what was left of it! In fact, the old city that I visited was mostly rebuilt after the war. It was a flying visit and then I went to the Uprising museum.


This museum was pretty good, the main focus was about the Warsaw / Polish uprising near the end of the war. It also explained how the Nazi’s tried to eliminate Polish culture completely during the occupation. Banning Polish language and destroying Polish history / cultural literature.

It also explained how the Polish combated the much superior Nazi forces using guerrilla urban warfare. They lasted quite well until Hitler wanted to make an example. If people want to see the summary / Hollywood version of it, see “Uprising”, I thought it was a good movie and the museum just helped fill in some gaps missed by the movie.

One major thing… Hitler wanted to make an example to Europe showing what happens when you stand up to the Nazi empire… so he ordered the complete destruction of Warsaw. The entire old town was blown up and 30% of the city was levelled… this is not including the amount of buildings destroyed during the battles. Warsaw was just ruins after the war! After the war, when the soviets were in power, they rebuilt the main town square and the old city.

Just outside the museum was the “wall of remembrance” which has got the names of the Polish people that died during the uprising… it wasn’t a small wall.


After this I didn’t have much time, so it was a quick trip back to the hostel to grab my bag then off to the airport. I didn’t get a chance to get to the top of the “Palace of Culture” to see Warsaw from a vantage point… but oh well.

I arrived at the airport about 15 minutes before I needed to check in (which is usually plenty of time). I found out that my terminal wasn’t the main one and was a 5 minute walk away. When I arrived there were people queuing out the door. Luckily, some other people were in the same boat as me so we pushed through to the front and checked in… with 1 minute to spare!

Got through the customs checks (got another stamp) and got on the plane. Arrived back in Stuttgart where the pilot got claps for the landing because of some minor-turbulence. In Germany, they seem to applaud the pilot in the most minor of turbulences. But I guess anything is a soft, easy landing after my Croatian flights!

So, as you can see… that was the most disorganised, badly planned, losing things, almost missing every bloody train/plane/everything trip I have ever done. And it was fantastic! I really loved Poland and want to go back at some stage (next time round). The time I spent there was defiantly not long enough. Don’t know why it was so great… it just was.

This week I’m off to Heidelberg for a conference.