Warsaw: the city that was fully flattened by the German tanks and artilleries during the WWII as a result of the Warsaw upring in 1944 and also when the German were retreating, while the Russians just sat there at the other end of the river to let the Germans flatten it and do nothing. The Red army didnt care much for Poland either.. As a result, the Polish couldnt say for sure whom they hated the most.. atrocities of Nazis or the communist Stalin's Red army... Both were terrible in the Polish WWII history.. Since I had only day and half, I didn't spend much time in Warsaw. Some features of Warsaw were the workman like working class residential area built in the communist times with Russian help, Culture center built by Stalin as a gift to Poland, Jewish Ghetto, Old city (newly recreated after WWII to resemble the Old city), Old (new) castle etc... Warsaw is also home to the famous music composer Fredrick Chopin. If you have the movie, Pianist, most of it was filmed in the old jewish ghetto in Warsaw.. So I spend my day walking in the old city and market square.The old city or the 'old' new city... is completely recreated after the WW2 to represent the past glory of warsaw... It is so nicely done that u wont beleive it is only 50 years old... it was fun to walk around on a nice sunny day with lots of ppl outside .. music, drinks and food all around... After a coffee, I headed towards the station to catch my train to krakow...
Krakow is one of the most beautiful cities in Poland and probably in Europe too... Almost untouched by the WW2, it is one of the most oldest and beaituful cities with a rich tradition and culture... Krakow is home to the Wavel castle, one of the oldest castles with Wavel dragon as their emblem... It was great to walk down to the Old city and huge market square called Rynek Glowny... It is one of the biggest market squares in Europe..It was a nice square with a towering basilica which gives a great view of the entire city and beyond...I also took a trip to Auswitz and Birkenau to witness the atrocities from the times of holocaust..
Auswitz was the biggest concentration camp ever built by Nazis and they estimate about 1.5 million ppl to have been killed at this camp. It was really a harrowing experience to be there looking at the remaining camps that have artifacts from the times of holocaust and memorials to all the murdered jews... Then i went to Birkenau which was also a part of the camp, which was specifically built as an extermination camp to solve the jewish problems as the Nazis called it. After a sad trip, I went back to Krakow to have a quiet evening and had dinner with a friend I made from the hostel I was staying at. After dinner we went and caught a techno playing in Krakow. It was fun...Next day I visited the Jewish part of the town called Kazimierz and went on to see the Jewish labor camp in the days of Nazis called "Podgorze". Some parts of the movie "Schindler's list" was actually filmed at several locations in this neighbourhood. I took a small tour of the neighbourhood to explore the remains of the walls of the Jewish ghetto and different memorials to the Holocaust and also saw the remains of the Oscar Schindler's enamel factory... It was little sad to walk the place where many crimes were committed by heartless people...
Next day I had to take a bus to the Katowice airport and fly back to Oslo. All in all it was total fun in Poland... Lots of good memories, some good Polish vegetarian food :) and zywiec beer...
Hostels I stayed in: Nathan's hostel
Krakow information center: www.krakow.pl/en
Vegetarian food in Krakow: Bar Vega I really like this place.
Recommended dishes: Zurek soup(Sour beetroot soup), Pierogi - dumplings(cheese & Onion, Potato & sourkraut), Soy Goulash ...
My photos from trip: Warsaw , Krakow
2 comments:
Lovely pictures, I remember buying cheese sandwich in Groningen once and the look of pity on the face of the seller, are things improving for vegetarians now?
Krakow was very good as they had a dedicated Vegan place... they served everything incl. vegtarian versions of Polish dishes and also Hungarian Goulash....
Warsaw also had many Italian, Mexican and Indian places that serve vegetarian options..
What I found interesting was that some of these places have ISCON places that serve pure vegan food... so its not all that bad..
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