Day #182 - Warsaw, Poland

Warsaw - Old Town - early morning

Warsaw, Poland

Overlooking the main river - 7:30am - Warsaw, Poland

Sunday, September 12th

This morning I arrived into the central train/bus station in Warsaw, Poland about 5:45am. This was 1 hour, 15 minutes earlier than planned --- very, very nice. The bus ride was the best of the 3 taken to get from St. Petersburg to Warsaw. All total - it took me about 26 hours of bus travel to make this journey.

I probably got 6 hours of sleep on the bus. It was not continuous - but still counts. After deboarding, I walked into the main station. I was informed that I needed to get to another station across town to take a train to my hotel - in a town called Zielonka. I found very few people who could speak English. They were not particularly friendly either. I did find a lady to give me a street map and circle the "You are here" and "This is where you need to be" areas on the map. It was going to be a long walk; but, it was early, I needed to stretch my legs, and I really didn't have anything else on the agenda for today.

A little about Poland ----

Poland has roughly 38 million people making it the 34th most populous country in the world. It's also a fairly large country as well - 69th largest country in the world (9th largest in Europe). It's located in central Europe, bordered by Germany to the west, the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east, and the Baltic Sea and the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad on the north. I don't totally understand the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad. All I know, I had to be careful and double-check that my bus would split the gap between Belarus and Russia heading into Poland - because I didn't have a VISA to be in the other countries.

Poland has been devastated by war and communism control for the last half century. The Nazi-German invasion of Poland on September 1, 1939 helped start World War II. Poland lost the largest percentage of its population than any other country during WWII - a total of 6 million deaths. Half of these were Polish Jews. After the war, Poland came under Soviet control which lasted until 1989. It's been a work in progress since this time.

I've been looking around the web for must-see sites in Poland. I'll be honest - there's not alot there. My book states a couple things in Krakow, which is a city in the southwest corner of the country - near the German border. Auschwitz - the largest German concentration camp during WWII, is located near Krakow. I didn't realize Auschwitz was a series of camps - Auschwitz I, Auschwitz II, Auschwitz III and 45 sateliite camps. Maybe I'll look into a tour once in Krakow.

Continuing with my day ------

My walk across the city was good. It took me maybe an hour or so. At one point, I walked through this area with many heavily-armed guards (it was 7:30am on Sunday morning). I saw these candles and pictures of people. This seen looked very similar to the 9/11 area in New York City after the terroist attack. I don't know what this was - but I can only assume it was not good. I've been searching around the internet for details - but haven't found anything.

Once arriving at the train station, I made my way to Zielonka and my hotel. The place is nice - but the town around it is nothing special. It was 9am. I was now getting pretty tired again. What should I do? I decided to basically have a rest day. I slept most of the afternoon. I then had a great dinner at the hotel restaruant and walked around the complex for a little while.

Tomorrow I plan to get back into town, do a little more site-seeing and then hit a train for Krakow, Poland. I'm inching my way back to eurail country (I'm currently paying for buses and trains as my pass is not effective in the eastern European countries).