Poland...Land of the Lods

It was cold there. I can say that with certainty. We started in Krakow, and since that just wasn't quite cold enough or far enough north, we went up to Warsaw. But the most exciting thing was making the pilgrimage to my homeland: Lodz, Poland. Indeed, it is the place where Lods originated, and it pulls at the heart of every Lod, large or small. But I digress. I must start at the beginning...once upon a time I took a plane trip to Egypt........oh, just kidding. I meant the beginning of Poland. Silly me.



Krakow is a very charming city...not too big, not too small. There was another Christmas market, and many pedestrian streets in the surrounding area where we could walk around and soak up the atmosphere.



Most of what I enjoyed about Krakow was the shops and pedestrian streets in the city center...so...quite frankly I have no idea why I chose this picture. I suppose I must have thought it was pretty. Which it is. And there was a nice park area in the city. So there you go. We also took a side trip to the Auschwitz camp while we were there. We didn't take many pictures. It just seems...irreverant I guess. And I sat out for some of it. It's a bit too much for me to handle. But it was amazing. And very sobering.
It took us a while to nail down our Poland plans. In the end we decided to stay two nights in Krakow, and take off early for Warsaw the next morning. We would then store our luggage in Warsaw, take a very fast and very rushed tour of the city, then take a train to Lodz (with our luggage still in Warsaw). Afterwards we'd take the train back to Warsaw, collect our luggage, and board an overnight train to Vienna. The first thing we attempted to hunt down was the Chopin museum. It took us a little while to find it, and after walking back and forth on the street a couple of times, made our way up the stairs...only to find that it was closed for rennovations and wouldn't be open again until the following year. So here I am watching my non-existant watch and patiently counting down the hours...well, months I suppose. But Elizabeth got impatient. The elusive Chopin. I couldn't find his gravestone in Paris, couldn't get into his museum...ah well. Between my Chopin and Elizabeth's Hadrian, we couldn't seem to find anything.
This is the city center of Warsaw. I don't know why, but the name Warsaw doesn't inspire friendliness. Nor does the name Krakow, I suppose. But the city center of Warsaw (shown here) was just as charming as Krakow. We had so little time there, but we did make it to the Christmas market. I personally was fascinated by this tree here, which looks so fake, but is, in fact, a real tree. In fact, I think the whole picture looks like a doll house. Cute, isn't it? It's all real, I promise.
And at last, we made it to my homeland! Here I am standing in the city of Lodz and looking quite pleased with myself.
This restaurant has a picture of my kitty on it, and was built on this spot to commemorate the spot where I was born. Born as the Lod, not as Rebecca, of course. The Rebecca birth happened later. (Just smile and nod, okay? I don't expect you to understand all the complexities of my existence.)
The restaurant we ate at in Lodz was called Anatewka. It was a Polish/Jewish fine dining place, and they actually had a fiddler on the roof! Well, a fiddler in the loft behind me anyway. It was spiffy cool. And the food was really good too. Our waiter was Australian...go figure. This place was pretty out of the way of tourists. There weren't very many, and a lot of people didn't speak English. And yet our waiter was Australian. I would have loved to ask him what brought him there, but I didn't think he really had time to chat.
Here I am saying goodbye to Lodz. It was sad, but I was so glad to have at least made it, however briefly. After this we collected our luggage and headed for our next overnight train that would bear us all the way to Vienna, Austria.

However, before I conclude my post about Poland, the train station in Warsaw does deserve a mention. It deserves a mention because of how terrible it was. There was one area that sat above ground, where the information stands and some of the ticket stands were. Ther rest was underground. There were also many restaurants down there, and convenience shops, and more shops, and in this whole underground labyrinth, you'd be lucky to find even one helpful sign that would get you in the right direction. And so we wandered, and wondered, and wandered some more, and eventually found the information desk, the luggage storage, and the platform we needed. And then later refound the luggage storage, and the second platform we needed. Good fun! On to Vienna...

Did ew know...?
Some hostels charge you more in person than they do on the internet. So you can turn away from the desk, use their free internet, and book it right there online for ten dollars less.
Thank you for choosing Lod's Little Tidbits, and have a nice day.