8:...Warsaw!

From the train it was possible to see just how much damage had been done by the heavy rains and flooding of the past few days. In many rivers and streams there was a mass of debris including, in some cases, whole trees. Some river banks had obviously collapsed , and there was a swathe of river mud along the edges of the flood plain in many places. In some fields there were large areas of standing water, and it was obvious that valuable crops had in some cases been lost.

Watching from train windows one gets little snapshot images of places that are gone before one has really had time to register them....Locomotives with snowploughs attached in a siding; giant hemlocks growing by a stream; a strip of sunflowers down the middle of an otherwise ploughed up field; children waving at the train; a group of young men chatting on a street corner, one of them wearing a tuba round his body; goats, turkeys, chicken, sheep, a bird of prey hovering, cows; a vast landfill site; huge fields split into strips (possibly a hold-over from when the giant collective farms were split up amongst the people who used to work them).

The first train, from Zakopane to Krakow is a clapped out, old, local, stopping train...tatty but reasonably comfortable. The second train, from Krakow to Warsaw is a totally different experience, ultra modern intercity, climate controlled, clean,and posh. The carriages are divided into compartments like in old british trains, just 6 seats to a compartment with a corridor down one side. There's even a special compartment for families with small children with less seats, a baby changing platform and special decorations.

So, that was my birthday....another year older....another city!

The hostel in Warsaw is run by Zielone Mazowia (Green Mazovia) an environmental group working here in Warsaw. It's housed in an old 19th century apartment block built around a central courtyard and well. It was once quite a posh place, now it's shabby, but the plasterwork on the ceilings gives away it's former genteel status. Nearby there are ultra modern tower blocks...huge international hotels....offices....

...there's also the massive Central Station complex with a maze of underground walkways (apparantly even Warsovians find it hard to negotiate) and a modern shopping mall, the usual thing except for it's fantastic waved glass roof, I loved the way the reflections played with the light and the sky...

...almost opposite that is the building that locals call Stalin's Wedding Cake...

....built in 1955 it was Stalin's "gift" to the people of Warsaw, and is actually the former "Palace of Culture and Science", everyso often someone tries to get rid of it, but it's still there as a reminder of the Soviet occupation of the country. Just at the foot of the vast eyesore there's a reminder of a different occupation of the city. Embedded in the pavement I found a double bronze line with writing in between, and realised I was crossing into what had once been the Jewish Ghetto.

Tired after the travelling yesterday, and not prepared to venture further into the city without first examining the maps and guides more closely, I decided to walk back to the hostel, finding as I did a novel way in which the city has comemmorated the 200th anniversary of the birth of the composer Frederic Chopin.