Travels

Since our connection to Toronto was 6 hours & in the middle of the day, I did a wee bit of research & decided to taxi into Old Town in Warsaw for lunch & to poke around. It was not on our destination list & this was a chance to see it. We exchanged our Forints for Euros at the Budapest airport in anticipation of another exchange in Poland. The flight to Warsaw was painless & my window seat gave me some views of Slovakia & southern Poland. We arrived on time & exchanged 200€ for 700 Polish Zlotys. The cab ride to Old Town (Stare Miasto) was about 20 minutes & the traffic was quite bad. On the way the driver pointed out a few sites & slowed down at the President's Palace but we were shooed away by a guard. We were not impressed by the drabness of the part of the city that we drove through. There were some modern buildings & some other nice ones mixed in, but much of it was Communist drab. 35 Zlotys got us to Plac Zamkowy - the main square & good entrance to Old Town. I brought some restaurant info & a net map but left it on the desk at the Hilton in Budapest, of course. The taxi had some free map guides in a pouch which was sufficient.
Warsaw	A relic of Communist days	Plac Zamkowy
We jumped out & started wandering & snapping pictures of the square as the sky grew more ominous above us. The rain started after about 5 minutes & we ducked into a convenient restaurant for lunch. Some German place, but it was good. In Poland eating German food? I don't know. The rain only lasted 10 minutes & by the time we were finished it was sunny again. 12:30. Still lots of time. We perused the area, up & down the streets & through the lovely Old Market Square with its decorated buildings & multitude of cafés. We even walked outside the wall & completely around the 'new' old city wall to see the Vistula below. You can see rocks imbedded in walls in many buildings just outside the wall. In memory of the events that transpired here. It's hard to believe that it's a rebuild. But the same could be said for most of the areas we visited this trip. Only the castellated wall with the cones at the north seems contrived & but the rest is amazing. It is a small area & a couple of hours was enough. We didn't go in the castle which had some weaponry exhibit on.
The rebuilt walls	Some hero	Market Square
Building in Market Square	Bird on a bird	Building in Market Square
Building just out of Old Town	Old Town Street	The author & the Palace
Disturbing statue outside the walls	Entrance with embedded stones	A tribute
1:30 PM. Time to start thinking about going. Our flight was at 4:55 PM but there was customs & security etc. We had been warned about taxis by the flight attendant. She said the ones with 9191 (or 1919?) were the cheap ones & some would whack you with fares. The only taxi waiting at Plac Zamkowy was one of those - 80 Zloty to the airport. More than double what we paid. So we walked 2 or 3 blocks into the city in search of another. "No, I'm waiting for the president" from the 1st. "No, waiting" from #2 "No. I'm city taxi" from the #3 & #4. Each taxi took about 1 block to find. We were starting to get anxious as 2 PM rolled around. #5 just shook his head. Of course, we were asking in English & many of the drivers couldn't. But airport - aeroport was pretty universal. Finally, I waved down a taxi & asked his rate. He said: "I don't know. What on meter." We jumped in. Again, the traffic was horrendous on the way back to the airport. The driver ducked through numerous back routes to get us there. There seemed to be a closure due to some construction on a major east-west road. 37 Zlotys. And a 5 Zloty tip since we were so relieved. Now Warsaw's airport is not one of the best. There's a brand new terminal but it's not open yet. We went through passport control & into a duty free area. We bought some chocolate & cigarettes but we were way over on liquor already since I had 2 x 2l of Imre's wine amongst other liquor gifts. I didn't mentioned Imre's wine but it's pretty good. He grows his own grapes etc. Then off to currency exchange again for Zlotys to CDN $s. Forints to Euros to Zlotys to CDN $s - all in one day! We hit the LOT lounge, but it was small & cramped & not much fun. Then 1 hour before flight time we went through the humorless security into the gate area. A flight to Paris was boarding & ours was on the board as the next. That was the last we saw of the flight for many hours. Of course, it was delayed & we didn't leave until 8 PM. All this time we were trapped in the duty free security zone unable to get out. We could walk through security, but not out of the passport zone area. We were not amused. And LOT's passenger information? A joke. There were completely unintelligible PA announcements in Polish & English but since they were completely unintelligible . . . Asking at the desk was little better. Anyway, we finally boarded & we were off for the haul home. Just as a side note, LOT's meals were fairly disgusting too. A prune wrapped in uncooked bacon as a main course? In business class? Hmmm. And the Lufthansa seats embarrassed the LOT ones. I won't be flying them again. On arrival in Toronto, Custom's waved us through despite our over-abundance of wine. We were home.