Polska

So we started our 13 month long adventures in the home of Pope John Paul, Tyskie beer and dumplings......

Having been to Warsaw before, we were anticipating the grim darkness of the train station but were pleasantly surprised to find that it had been done up due to the Euros......

Our hostel, the "Oki Doki" was pretty central and had an in house bar!!! We ventured out for a  bite to eat in the snow and came across a Polski restaurant whose speciality was dumplings, we both had fried meat dumplings which were delish (though Adam's accompanying gravy (fried meat) was interesting). After a beer at the hostel and a few games of cards we hit the hay, in readiness of the next day's sightseeing...

Having seen many of Warsaw's sights the time before we decided to investigate the Pawiak prison museum which told the story of the many political prisoners of the nazis who were imprisoned and died on the site. It was very interesting to get the perspective of the other individuals  of Warsaw who died at the hands of the Nazis  rather than the Jewish quarter.

The reconstructed prison and bronze tree

entrance to the museum

The copper tree with plaques remembering the dead. The actual tree  stood throughout  the monstrosities and was the only living witness to what went on. In the 2000s it was replaced by the bronze statue. 

After this we headed to the Warsaw uprising museum which showed the tales of  resistance in Poland during WW2. Again it was very poignant and an interesting perspective to what went on in occupied Poland. The most poignant image was a picture of a dead child who had acted as a messenger for the resistance.

Sign of the resistance, still seen on buildings today

The following day we set off on a mammoth journey to the northern city of Gdansk. To sum it up, it was very much like a Polish version of Portsmouth with a few more museums. Our hostel was very close to the Hilton hotel and near to bars and restaurants. It was called the Hosel Guitarra and as you can guess had a focus on the guitar legends including Jimi Hendrix and according to our room, Eric Clapton. 

Our wardrobe

The Eric display

We were in Gdansk for 4 nights so had plenty of time to relax and read. We visited the Uprising museum which told the story of the creation of the first free trade union in Poland. 

We also visited the memorial to some of the shipworkers who had died in the 1970 strike in order to achieve a trade union

The memorial

Gdansk is also famous for it's marine museum, so we spent the day learning about boats.... there is only so many boats you can learn about, but pretending to be a sea captain was fun!!!

On our final night in Poland we arrived at the random town of Bialystok. This was simply to break up the very long journies of Gdansk- Vilnius. However when we arrived, we discovered that it was the home of Esperanto (the double dutch language.) Our hostel was super cute and looked like a little austrian cottage dwarfed by the tower blocks surrounding it. As we were in the home of Esperanto we naturally went to the Esperanto cafe and bar for dinner, where we chatting to a group of OAPS learning English- very cool.

Next up... Lithuania

a&axx