Day 341: Warsaw
36yearsago.com
Vienna 1971—A Student Journal
A year of music, study, travel, sightseeing &
friends.
Day
341 — Warsaw
08-Jul-1972
(Sat.)
TRANSCRIPT
Warsaw Palace of Culture
POLAND
Warsawa
After a terrible, bumpy, and sleepless train ride
that night, arrived in Warsaw.
Usual problems in trying to find a room. Did an awful
lot of walking.
Culture Palace. A big building in the zentrum. Warsaw
is mostly new high-rise apartments. Not too much to
really see.
A few museums. Went to the Marie Curie Museum. Also
walked into a real dumpy part of Warsaw.
People here seem to have it perhaps slightly better
because of more availability of goods.
It is pretty difficult to find a place to eat.
Finally found a cafeteria, but with the worst food.
Surprise, I rented a room in a camping site. Slightly
expensive. Well, they had a shower, so I really lived
it up.
REFLECTIONS
Poor
train travel. It looks
like it’s back to the typical bad train trip that is
more common in Poland than not. Sometimes it seems
that there are stark contrasts in travel—a commuter
train is modern and nice, other train travel sucks.
Finding a room. As
always, I walk around (with my bags) to find a room
and am having trouble. It is certainly more difficult
being on my own than being driven around by my
relatives. I find a room in a campsite—I don’t
remember this at all.
Walking
around. I walk
around out of necessity—no money to spend on taxis.
The good news is that I enjoy walking around. As a
young person, I trusted the world to be safe and
never had any issues of safety during this year. Even
in communist countries. I imagine that today is a
different world and walking around, as a tourist,
needs to be carefully planned for safety. When
looking around for food, I look for the cheap places
and find one, with terrible food.
Warsaw—yesterday
and today. Even in
1972, Warsaw was an immense city. I note that there
are many high-rise buildings for apartments and the
Culture Center in the center of town. As a capital
city, it is certainly going to be better than most
local cities. I don’t remember what the “dumpy” part
of Warsaw was but there is certainly an “old town”
Warsaw which is very nice. In trying to identify my
pictures using Google, I turned up a few pictures of
modern Warsaw today. Holy cow! Drab no more, it
ain’t. Lot’s of gleaming and glass business
skyscrapers. Bye, bye, drab communism.
Here are some pictures of Warsaw:
Warsaw skyline in 1972
There
are churches in communist Poland
Barbican
Castle in Old Warsaw
Walking
along a boulevard
Religious cross on street
Enjoying a park
John
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