A lazy morning getting ready for a day of sightseeing starting off with a Hop On-Hop Off bus. The rain was supposed to hold off until evening, and with fingers crossed, it did.
I tried to find some breakfast before I boarded the bus, but most restaurants don’t open until 10 am on Sunday morning. Even the American style fast food places – McDonald’s, BK, KFC, Subway, etc. – were open, but didn’t offer breakfast. I just wanted a dang donut or bagel or muffin or something!
OBTW: Bike and scooter lanes are very nice and clearly marked in red and white, just like the Polish flag! 🇵🇱 Polish drivers are also very courteous and invariably stop at any crosswalk for pedestrians, bicyclists, and scooters riders.
So without breakfast I boarded the 10:00 am Red Bus to carry me to the places I wanted to stop.
Warsaw was largely destroyed in World War II, and then rebuilt, so the city has a pretty modern feel. Although some buildings look old, it’s rare. Only a few had survived intact.
The Germans crammed 450,000 people into the Jewish Ghetto they created in Warsaw, segregated and walled off from the Aryan side. Unbelievably, the daily food ration for people in the Ghetto was only 270 calories!
The Warsaw Uprising, sometimes referred to as the August Uprising, was a major World War II operation by the Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from German occupation. It occurred in the summer of 1944, and it was led by the Polish resistance Home Army.
The uprising was timed to coincide with the retreat of the German forces from Poland ahead of the Soviet advance. While approaching the eastern suburbs of the city, the Red Army halted combat operations, enabling the Germans to regroup and defeat the Polish resistance and to destroy the city in retaliation. The Uprising was fought for 63 days with little outside support. It was the single largest military effort taken by any European resistance movement during WWII.
Over 200,000 people died during the time (the majority civilians), and the Germans destroyed 80-90% of Warsaw to put the uprising down. (Source: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Warsaw_Uprising)
I got off the bus in the Old Town section and joined a free walking tour that was going to begin in a few minutes.
Interlude: A funny story heard on the bus dialogue.
“A man walked into a Warsaw jewelry store. He had a servant with him and his right hand was in a cast. The buyer picked out a beautiful and expensive bracelet, but did not have money with him to pay for it.
The buyer said that he had recently had surgery on his hand. He requested the jeweler to write a note to his wife so his servant could take it and retrieve the money for the bracelet.
The jeweler pulled out pen and paper and wrote what the buyer requested. The servant then took the note and departed to retrieve the money. The servant returned some time later with the cash and the purchase was completed. The cost was over $22,000 in U.S. currency.
When the jeweler returned home that night, his wife asked him why he sent a servant to fetch such a large sum of money? The jeweler then realized he’d had robbed himself!”
If it’s not a true story, it should be. It was a brilliant deception.
Here are some photos from the walking tour:
Some Interesting Tidbits
- Used to be near 400,000 Jews in Warsaw. Now only about 1,000 today.
- Many immigrants today, but overall unemployment of less than 1%!
- Old Town was destroyed in WWII, but totally reconstructed following the previous plan.
Winnie the Poo Street! No one actually has an address on the street. Half of the buildings use addresses on the street on one end, half on the other. Because no one can actually live on Winnie the Poo Street!
We also walked by the National Bank of Poland. Our guide said, “Maybe you come from wealthy countries and sleep on stacks of gold bars, but not I! I liked visiting the National Bank because you can actually lift a bar of gold and I could see how heavy it was!”
When several car horns started honking at once, our guide said,“Ah, maybe some Italians come here!”
When the first McDonald’s opened here in 1992, the queue was a mile long! And a priest had to bless the place before they sold the first burger (which the priest ate!).
After the walking tour, I hit a Milk Bar cafeteria at 1:00 pm for lunch and had a hearty meal to make up for missing breakfast. All excellent!
And a few final pictures.
I’ve decided that Georgian food is my new favorite! I went back to the same restaurant from lunch yesterday and had a delicious meal again!
Tomorrow, on the way to Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania.
Words of wisdom, or just to amuse…?
Getting cheated occasionally is the small price for trusting the best of everyone, because when you trust the best in others, they generally treat you best.
A Captain’s Adventures 