Warsaw

[Highlander]

I am hesitant about putting European cities in here as they do not generate much interest but I just got back from a train trip across Europe where I stopped in Warsaw, Berlin, Munich, Stuttgart, Cologne, Brussels and Brugges (and a host of small German cities).  I thought it would be interesting to show some of the more characteristic images from some of the larger urban areas starting with Warsaw.  If you wish, I'll post Berlin and a couple of others if I can get myself motivated to upload the images.

Anyway, I was not expecting much from Warsaw Poland.  I wanted to go to Krakow but that was 11 hours by train from Berlin to Warsaw's 5 so Warsaw it was.  I was actually very pleasantly surprised by the city.  First of all, aside from being blasted to smithereens in WWII, the communists actually did a pretty good job of rebuilding the historic old and new towns, the first shots are from these areas.  They appear shabby enough to suspect that they were never actually destroyed in the war and are the originals. 






In other parts of the city, socialist realism styles predominate serving as a constant reminders of the Poles former masters.



Few people were jerked around in the 20th centuries like the Poles and they have the monuments to show for it....here are few starting with a monument to the victims of communism....

Memorial to the Ghetto Uprising

The ghetto area was flattened during the war.  The apartments that were built after the war exist today and are pretty grim.

And a monument to the hero's of the 1945 uprising (nicely done)


By European standards, Warsaw is not all that dense (again due to the way it was built back in the post war period).  It is currently undergoing a rather impressive building boom in the newer part of town.  The large building in the photo is the Palace of Culture.  A gift to the people of Poland from the Soviet Union in 1952-55.  The scale of this thing is much more massive than the photo would indicate.  From a distance, it looks like an art deco building but closer inspection reveals the imposing scale and coarseness of the socialist realist architecture of the time.  In a odd way, it is strangely reminescent of the Union Station in that the Poles are having a difficult time finding a use for the place.  It is now cccupied by a movie theater and Science Museum....sound familiar?


War of the Worlds was playing when I was there.


You can go to the top of this building for about 6 US dollars.  Here are some views of the city from the top...note the number of tower cranes.




And back on the ground in the same general area...


Hope you enjoyed the photos. Anybody know the Polish word for JUMP??

[Tosspot]

Yes, please do post your other European cities as well.

[KC0KEK]

I'd like to see some more, too. Thanks for sharing these.

[macnw]

When we were in DC, there was a big spread at the Holocaust Museum about the ghetto uprising in Warsaw. Pretty interesting. Gotta give the Poles credit for rising up against the Germans. Did you get a chance to visit any of the concentration camps?

[Highlander]

When we were in DC, there was a big spread at the Holocaust Museum about the ghetto uprising in Warsaw. Pretty interesting. Gotta give the Poles credit for rising up against the Germans. Did you get a chance to visit any of the concentration camps?

Unfortunately, not in Poland.  We originally planned to visit Krakow and nearby Auschwitz but it was too far by train and German car rental firms would not allow us to take a car into Poland.  We did visit Dachau near Munich a week later.  While not a concentration camp per se, (more of a prison for political prisoners and Russian POW's), the sheer scale of the place was still mind boggling.  The pretty and quaint medieval center of Dachau city made for a wierd juxtaposition with the stark reality of the camp. 

[KC0KEK]

That's a big roundabout (or whatever the correct term is). Does it work pretty smoothly? Is it more efficient than a stoplight?

[LenexatoKCMO]

Is it my imagination or are there streetcar tracks running accross that traffic circle?  If so, how in the heck does that work?  I would think a street car cutting accross a traffic circle would be dangerous and screw everything up. 

[Highlander]

Is it my imagination or are there streetcar tracks running accross that traffic circle?  If so, how in the heck does that work?  I would think a street car cutting accross a traffic circle would be dangerous and screw everything up. 

I'm not exactly sure as I did not dare drive there but the street cars would stop just short of the round-about to let people on and off, so they were not entering the round-about at high speed and cars could see them a fair way off.  The people you see next to the tracks are waiting for the street cars as the normal pedestrian traffic crosses the street via tunnels you can see at the bottom of the round-about.  The traffic was never that heavy anywhere in the city that I saw so the round-abouts were really efficient and the street cars did not seem to cause problems for vehicles (these seemed to be the two main drags in the city for cars). 

I have lived in Europe for several years and prefer round-abouts to traffic  lights unless the traffic is very heavy...only then do traffic lights seem to work better.

[shinatoo]

Looks like there are traffic lights at each point where you pull up to the circle. Notice that the traffic comming from the bottom left and top right is all stopped.

[LenexatoKCMO]

ahh, that explains it.  I didn't notice the people standing there until you mentioned it.