Warsaw - Warszawa Poland

Thursday : Morning train to Warsaw, arriving before noon. We chose first class on a Pendolino - express train 2.5 hrs. Very comfortable and included a light snack.

As expected our room wasn’t ready yet, so we parked our suitcases in the Merecure’s secured baggage room and set off to explore, in what Steve later referred to as a “marathon” tour of Warsaw (but which was only really about 15km).

This is the skinniest house (possibly in the world) and violated all building laws, but was successfully built as an “art project” and is occupied.

Dinner at Stara Kamienica. Fine dining for reasonable prices compared to Canada. Lots of interesting meal choices, including deer and wild boar. I had deer ragout and Steve tagliatelle with beef. Upon paying the bill, we were presented with a rose and a small glass of sweet vodka.

This morning I walked to Lazienki (Royal Baths) Park, at 76 hectares, the largest park in Warsaw. The Chopin sculpture was the first monument destroyed by the occupying Germans in WWII. On Sundays there are free concerts, which we will, unfortunately, miss. The park also has a botanical garden, which was not open early this morning and a lovely small Chinese garden.

Catching the 2:49 to Krakow this afternoon. In the meantime we are hanging out in the lobby bar having a bit of chocolate dessert and some sparkling water with lemon. Yum. Hoping we can find the elevator down to the train platform instead of the stairs we navigated up yesterday with our heavy suitcases. Rick Steves would be horrified with our luggage weight.