A little Curie in Warsaw

The center of Poznan
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Berlin to Poznan, Poland

With a quick breakfast at Honigmond under our belts, we set off for the Polish border.

Was it the Ambassador himself who came out?

We had no idea what to expect at the Polish border, but the biggest delay was for the trainee border guard to decide whether or not to put a stamp in Scott's passport (he did not; it already was too full). The road from Berlin to Warsaw is relatively long, so we chose to stop for a break (that means food, as you know by now) in the largest city along the way, Poznan. We had no idea what to expect.

A reminder to drive better
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Poznan turned out to be charming, and even navigable once we related the reality to the map. Lonely Planet suggested a vegetarian restaurant, which we located without much difficulty. The bigger challenge was in the restaurant itself, where we could read and understand nothing. Knowing that we could not go wrong (a little foreshadowing here), we used the tried-and-true method of randomly pointing at the menu. It turned out to be very good.

Poznan has a very cute little old town square. The symbol of the town is two goats butting heads, and the clock tower on town hall re-enacts this at noon. Unfortunately, we did not get to see this event.

The center of Warsaw
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Poland has few true highways. Most of the main roads are one lane in each direction, each about 1.2 lanes wide. The extra width is used for passing, often at the most inappropriate times. We saw semis passing semis, with other semis oncoming. People also use the extra width for walkways, horse carts, bicycling, or roadside shops, so surprises can lie at every high-speed point.

This is clearly dangerous, and many small towns along the way have tried to minimize the problems, either through speed limits (hah!), center islands (oops - surprise - not a good time to pass!), lights, or complete bypasses. They try to dissuade speeding with fake cop cars and displays of accidents. Still, we saw numerous recent collisions.

The hall of Art and Culture
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Warsaw, Poland

Street labeling in Warsaw leaves some challenge for the traveller. Fortunately, we had a GPS, and eventually made our way to the hotel Portos, one of a trio of 3-Musketeer-named sparse workers' paradise-type high-rises. After checking in, we decided to check out the Belarus Embassy in preparation for tomorrow's visa hunt. It was a good thing that we did; when Roswitha rang the bell, some confusion ensued (was it the Ambassador himself who came out?), and then they told us how to get to the visa-issuing consulate. With the location identified, we drove into Warsaw's old town for a stroll and dinner.

Solvay conferences - all the big stars of physics
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Central Warsaw was pretty much destroyed in the war, both by the Germans, who were looking for expansion for Lebensraum, and by the Allied bombing. Rather than rebuilding with pure modern concrete boxes, Warsaw chose to reconstruct the Medieval old city. (In numerous cases, one can see photos of the devastated buildings before reconstruction.) Although mostly new, the buildings do an effective job of evoking the past.

Dinner was at Pod Samsonem, a traditional Jewish restaurant. Scott wanted to see (taste) if this was just like the food he grew up with. While similar, but not exactly the same, it was not as good as Mom's (or Scott's, for that matter).

The first requirement the next day (after breakfast at the Portos) was to get the visas for Belarus. It was suggested that Warsaw was a great place to do it, since their consulate there was practically empty. We surmounted the language barrier by finding a helpful woman who spoke German. She gave us forms to fill out, and the address of a travel agent who could issue vouchers. (Like many former Soviet countries, one must either have an invitation or a voucher, ostensibly from a hotel.) We then found the recommended travel agent, who gave us some advice on travel there (driving should be OK, where to get a good map, etc.), and sold us the vouchers. Filling out the forms seemed a good excuse for coffee. We dropped everything off, paid our US$180, and went off to kill time with lunch (Turkish, around the corner, recommended by our friendly Consulate person), and a trip to Mediamarkt to get an inexpensive tripod. Our visas were ready when we got back, so we headed off to the Marie Curie Museum.

Marie (Sklowdowska) Curie was born in Warsaw, and the house where she was born has been turned into a museum. She studied and worked primarily in Paris (after not being allowed to attend the university in Warsaw), but Warsaw showed their pride in their native daughter.

Among the items on display was a series of photos from sequential Solvay physics conferences in the early 1900s. This was a period when significant developments were happening in modern (nuclear) physics, and it was exciting to see all of the well-known names of people who attended, like Einstein, Curie, Bohr, Schroedinger, Lorenz, de Broglie, Zeeman, and so on.

A long walk around the old city, including the long Royal Road, revealed many interesting buildings, monuments, and art. We wanted to see Holy Cross church where Chopin's heart is enclosed in a column, but Mass was being held.

The main church had interesting architecture, and the competition next to it was austere by comparison.

We found that one ice cream joint was always busy, while others were empty. We had to sample it to find out why...although it was challenging to figure out which flavors were which. And it was good!

The Warsaw skyline is dominated by the Soviet-era hall of Art and Culture, which towers over the center of the city. The Poles say that the best view of the city is from the top of the building, because it is the one place in the city where you do not see the hall of Art and Culture.