First Stop: Warsawa

Date: 2018-08-02

So the first stop on the tour was Warsaw. When I got on the Eurocity train in Berlin I was really exhausted, the heat, carrying the big bag. Bit the nice thong was that I had the first hour of the train ride a cabin on my own. So I could stretch my legs and recover.
One of the interesting things is when you drive into a city I always try to examine the buildings and to get a glimpse on people just to develop a feeling how it might be living there.
Well Warsaw is one of this big very communist style cities with satellite towns with prefabricated concrete buildings. When I then got off in Warsawa Centralna I stood just before the Pałac Kultury
i Nauki (short: Pkin). What an impressive building.
The city center is well structured, and on big Crossings you have underpasses for the pedestrians. Well sometimes going in such underpasses makes me feel a bit awkward. But when I came to the first passage there was a polish hard rock band playing just in the spot before with a lot of spectators. So I enjoyed the music there for a while and then moved on to the hostel where I had booked a bed.
My roommates there were two women and a men. In Warsaw temperatures were nearly the same like in Berlin (about 35 degrees), so the next thing I did was taking a cool shower and then went off for a decent meal – it was already 8pm.
The next day I passed by the Pkin and went to the old town of Warsaw. It was rebuild in the 1950ies after the Nazis completely destroyed it after the polish uprising in 1944.
I found a really charming old town with a castle, old churches, nice cafes and restaurants and some shops.
Well spent there a while and then went through the city to get to the bus station to buy a ticket to Riga. Yes you read correctly a bus ticket. It is a pity that there is no train connection to riga on weekdays. But there is a EU project to rebuild the baltic railway line (http://www.railbaltica.org).
After a tip of my friend Henry, that there is a viewing platform at Pkin. I went there in the evening and had a great view over the city. Thanks a lot for the hint!