Thursday 19th August

I never realised how many kings there were of Poland, or how many paintings were made of them. There were quite a few and I think we saw all of them in the space of 90 minutes. All singularly ugly. Even the queens were touch and go on the beauty side, but marriages were made for economic and political reasons and that may be the reason.

Palaces, palaces, paintings, plaques, palaces, pretty plazas, pizzas and piazzas and ... oh did I mention palaces.

It was up and at 'em this morning. We did a three hours drive around the city, with everything being pointed out by the local guide, including picture from a glossy book he kept producing, and, oh, did I mention it was his book and could be purchased.

I must admit he knew his stuff and was very passionate. There were some very beautiful buildings and parks and plazas. Most of the buildings in Warsaw were built since WWII.

85% of Warsaw was flattened by the Germans before they withdrew and most of the rebuilding was undertaken by the Russians. Unfortunately their architectural flare had well and truly burnt out before they started the building.

The original 15% of the city not burnt or blown up was beautiful.

We also saw the railway station where over 1500 Jews were sent to the concentration camps every week. 300,000 Jews were sent to the camps from Warsaw. 6 million people died in Poland during the war. 800,000 were Jews and 2million Polish people were killed by the Russians.

A very thoughtful couple of days in the Polish capital.

The food has been great and the pastries have been beautiful with only a faint taste of sugar. The coffee is strong, the tea is English Breakfast, the cars are European (what a shock), the language is baffling, the spelling even more so.

The people are friendly and the cafes are all full (but they do smoke everywhere, even in the restaurants.)

We are off to meal with most of the fellow travellers at a restaurant around the corner.

Tomorrow we are off to Krakow (pronounced Krakoff) tomorrow with a trip to Auschwitz concentration camp on the way.

The odyssey continues!