Summers in the city

 

So,  Another summer passes, incredibly the 22nd since I first moved to Poland, for a short one week workshop that has stretched on to this day.  The time has passed in the blink of an eye: it seems like only yesterday I was sweltering in the long hot summer of 2001, when the temperature seemed to have been locked into the upper twenties from May through to the end of September.  I remember living in a rental apartment, paid for by the client, that had a decent terrace (rather than the more standard small balcony) with an ivy laden pergola surrounding a small picnic table and benches, overlooking a big green space with more apartment blocks at the far side of it, that was used as a dog bog by local pet owners.  To the right the eaves of my now favourite Las Kabacki forest park overhung the footpaths and Metro maintenance depot, although it was another year before I walked in and fell in love with its fine greenery.  Looking back, I didn't make the most of the location or the fine weather: I was still solo, getting used to a solitary life in my late 40s after being off the market, so to speak, for a quarter of a century.

I spent much of my time, on the weekends I frequently spent in Warsaw, strolling around the city centre and its Stary Miasto (Old Town), a big cobbled area surrounded by cafes and restaurants and bars with outside tables and chairs and big sun umbrellas, selling  a wide selection of hearty Polish food, Italian pizza and pasta, ice cream and cold local beers. In the summer it was crowded with locals and increasing numbers of tourists until late at night on weekdays (and the early hours of the morning on weekends), and I spent many happy hours people watching and reading books and magazines, eating and drinking, either alone or with whichever work colleagues happened to be in town that weekend. The buildings, five and six storeys tall, narrow and brightly painted, looked (and still do) to be two or three hundred years old but in fact were then not much more than fifty: the entire area had been reduced to rubble by the Nazis during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, and rebuilt after the war during the 1950s and '60s, from the original city plans hidden by a forward thinking Polish civil servant under his bed during the Occupation, using (where possible) scavenged materials or more bought in from the same regions as the originals.  It's an absolute masterpiece, in my view, a tribute to Polish stubbornness and patriotism, and a fitting memorial to the thousands - including many children - who fought and died there during those bitter days.

But in that summer, I didn't explore much.  I took a long walk along the banks of the Wisla river one baking hot Saturday and got sunburned, blistered feet and ended up in a little Irish pub in the city centre with a work colleague drinking Guinness, eating Irish Stew and gammon steaks and watching football. The next day I felt terrible, sore and light-headed, and not much better when I went to work on the Monday.  My project manager, after giving me a deserved bollocking, took pity on me and sent me home. Thank you, Paula, wherever you are.  

The only other trip of note that year was an adventure, a weekend trip to the Baltic Coast.  One of the PAs at work (now My Beloved) helped me by booking a seat on the train from Warsaw to Gdynia and a room in a small hostel close to the central station there.  The train ride, more than ten years before the line was upgraded and new rolling stock introduced in time for the Euro 2012 football tournament, was tortuous, hot and uncomfortable: six hours crammed into a second class compartment in a middle seat, surrounded by a family of six and a flatulent drunk (who we all studiously pretended wasn't there).  The train eventually broke down somewhere between Sopot and Gdynia, and we all got off and completed our journey walking along the tracks.  Fortunately, by this time it was after 11:30 p.m. and the trains seemed to have stopped for the day, but it was a bit bizarre.  The hostel was ok, comfortable enough for two nights.  I spent the Saturday wandering around the sea-front, watching the many games of beach volleyball (most featuring beautiful and scantily clad Polish girls), eating burgers and ice-cream and drinking cold beer, then after a short night's sleep loaded my backpack and hopped another train out to the Hel peninsula.  The ride through the forest, in a juddery and ancient two-car train hauled by a huge diesel freight locomotive, was pleasant enough, and I got off at the port town of Wladyslowowo, deciding to walk along the beach for a few hours.   

It remains one of my favourite parts of the country, and I've returned a dozen times or more.  The beaches are pristine sand, no pebbles or gravel to wreck your feet, and range from narrow strips of sand between the pine forest that runs about 25km right down the centre of the Peninsula and the sea, to beaches a hundred metres or more deep, with small fishing villages here and there, and scattered with camp sites, caravan parks and many beach cafes.  To the north, the strip is typically windy and washed by the chilly and sometimes rough Baltic Sea, while to the south is Gdansk Bay, that forms a kind of lagoon with shallower, warmer water: again there are plenty of facilities and the views out to Hel at the tip of the Peninsula and across the bay to Gdynia, Sopot and (on a clear day) Gdansk lovely. I walked as far as Chalupy, crossing from one side of the Peninsula to the other to check out both, and almost missed my train back to Gdynia - I had to run after it along the tracks back into Chalupy station and scrambled aboard as it started pulling away (much to everyone's amusement).  Had I missed it, I would also have missed my train from Gdynia to Warsaw (the last of the day) and been stranded there with no room or Polish skills to find another, and probably more importantly missed work the next day.  A typical Englishman Abroad.

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In the years since, as I've settled here, married and raised another family, I've spent much time enjoying this lovely and historic city - not only in summer but in all seasons.  The Old Town area and Las Kabacki remain favourite destinations and over time they too have changed, better maintained and with more facilities.  The Old Town overlooks the river, and steps and a steep path lead down to a park that borders the busy road along its bank.  Part of the park now contains a big walled area, perhaps 50m on a side, that surrounds an installation of perhaps 30 fountains that are programmed to provide an impressive and co-ordinated display.  There are seats built into the wall and many wrought iron and wooden park benches, a network of paths criss-crosses the park and there is a handful of bars, restaurants and ice-cream stalls.  After dark, the fountains are illuminated and it's an impressive display.  There are also open air music concerts and big screens erected for tv broadcasts on special occasions.  

There are also pedestrian tunnels under the road linking the park to the Bulwar (boulevard) that runs along the top of the river bank.  This is a tiered walkway, and along it are a number of moored river boat restaurants and bars; scattered along the top of the steps are many food trucks serving a decent selection of street food.  Often there are street food festivals where the number and variety of trucks multiplies and offers a much wider selection: as well as the usual burgers and pizza and Polish dumplings, we've had delicious English fish 'n' chips, Japanese ramen and sushi, Thai and Indian food, Chinese and Vietnamese noodles and rice dishes, proper Middle Eastern kebabs and mezza, and even frog's legs and snails.  It's a cool place to spend a summer's evening walking and relaxing in the provided deck chairs enjoying the food and drink on offer.  One evening we sat on the top step of the promenade opposite the National Stadium across the river and listened to an Ed Sheeran concert being hosted - the sound quality at that distance was awful,- AC/DC or Guns 'n ' Roses might have been better and clearer - but it was fun anyway. 

There are many other parks and memorials scattered around, and we've had pleasant evenings in a lot of them.  We've also cycled into the Bulwar area from our southern suburb, near Las Kabacki, probably 12km each way, on the extensive network of cycle paths that Warsaw has built over the years. The network extends in and through the forest, and there are also a number of hiking trails too (Warsaw is surrounded by forest areas, something that for me is a highlight of living here, and they all have well maintained hiking and cycle trails).  

It's a decent place to live.

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That said, as well as enjoying all the city has to offer (the preceding paragraphs cover just a few favourites) we've always tried to do a summer vacation out of town.  Mostly we've been to small resort towns in Poland, on the Baltic coast, especially when the kids were small, and we've never been disappointed.  We don't use hotels for these trips, preferring to rent accommodation in the resort, and do self catering.  Pretty much every town or village has a selection of different types, from little apartments in a block of traditional flats, to two storey wooden blocks with self contained rooms along a balcony like you used to find in Butlin's Holiday Camps back home when I was a kid, to separate two or three bedroom wooden camp cottages on a communal site (typically with a kid's play area, swings and roundabouts, and always a bonfire pit to grill your sausages and burgers and pork chops with the other holiday makers in the evenings).  Our favourite was a proper wooden cottage on its own 500sq.m. plot on the edge of a forest a ten minute drive from the nearest beach.  It was surrounded by a fence and hedges for privacy, had a play area with swings and a see-saw for the kids, a patio area, two bedrooms down stairs and a loft sleeping area, plus a fitted kitchen and shower room.  The plot was laid to lawn with plenty of parking space.  It was gorgeous, and very reasonably priced and we rented it perhaps five years running.  Then the owner changed and it came off the rental market - I presume some lucky bugger now lives there permanently.

But we've also made sure we take regular overseas summer holidays, as much as anything because we want our kids to enjoy travel and see lots of different places and cultures, and you can't start them too young in that.  My boy's first overseas holiday, to Crete (love the place!) was when he was perhaps 18 months old, my daughter's to Almeria in southern Spain (close to the Cabo de Gata national park, Europe's only official desert - I love that, too) when she was just under two.  We've also done Vilamoura on the Portuguese Algarve, a return trip to Almeria and - our all-time favourite - Zadar on the Adriatic Coast of Croatia.  Plus many trips home to England to visit friends and family there.  Throw in six months working in Trinidad when they were small, and I can safely say our wishes are being followed and enjoyed.  They are teenagers now, and old enough to travel without us old 'uns, and we are not standing in their way. It gives us some much needed peace and quiet, for a start!

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Of course, in the past few years our globe trotting has slowed right up.  For a start there was the Pandemic shut-down that cancelled two summers, so our whole time was spent at home in Warsaw - my personal horizon was limited to the half-kilometre square space around our blocks for my exercise and dog walking (after catching Covid twice, much more than that was frankly beyond my strength) while my kids and My Beloved were able to go further afield to school and work respectively.  It drove me up the wall, but needs must, and by the end of the winter 2020/2021 I felt ready to travel again.  We made plans.....

....that were promptly cancelled when I had an accident, needed surgery and the recovery from that took me through to August, so we settled for a trip to the Polish seaside again. It was nice, and got me out of the city.

Then last year our plans were again scuppered when all our available spare spending power was used for very necessary personal reasons (I won't go into them), but we at least managed to get a long weekend in the Mazurian Lake District with a dear friend (a canoeing expedition on a beautiful river the highlight) while my daughter had a couple of Scout camps and my son managed a trip to Berlin for a weekend with his mates.  But by and large, it was another summer in the city - enjoyable, but not what we had planned.  It was also the first year in my life (Pandemic years excluded) in which I did not see the sea - and I was surprised at how much that saddened me.

So we made plans for this year, 2023. My daughter had a couple of camps again, and my son another trip with his mates, and both of them travelled to visit family in England: their first overseas trip without us.  My Beloved and I meanwhile planned a couple of trips for ourselves - to Switzerland to visit family there, perhaps a late booking to Spain or Greece (to be decided) and for sure a visit to England too (but separately).  We should have known better: the best laid plans and all that: a cliche, perhaps, but a truism too.  Health problems got in the way, so another summer in the city beckoned.

First off, my elderly sister was taken ill and hospitalised, and the visits I made to see her ate into our savings: money well spent, but still....  But happily she is recovering from some very difficult - indeed life changing - times. Then to top it all off, unexpectedly, a blood test, part of my own personal health routine, followed by a string of scans and biopsies, came up with a positive cancer diagnosis.  It's not the end of the world, and is treatable, but I need some surgery to cure it and this is still not scheduled.  I hope to get it done before Christmas, but I won't be going anywhere until that is over and done with, and I've been given the all clear.  So another summer in the city and a second year without the sea, but at least I will still have my health, so I'm fine with that.

It's actually been a good summer, despite all the uncertainty.  I've had to give up my bike, at least until I get that all clear, but I've compensated by walking a lot more.  I've seen much more of Las Kabacki for a start, at a slower pace, wearing proper walking boots rather than trainers, armed with a stout tree branch as a support (it looks much cooler than the Alpine Hiking poles everyone else seems to favour, as far as I'm concerned) and a backpack full of sandwiches, drinks and a good book to read.  I've thoroughly enjoyed it, and will for sure do much more of it, even when I can bike again.  My Beloved and I have also done some exploring by the river, and there really are some beautiful waterside walks and secluded sandy beaches, often deserted, not much more than a twenty minute drive away. It's not the sea, but the river is quite shallow and slow flowing, and I've enjoyed a couple of decent swims to cool off (the summer at least has been pretty hot and sunny with the highest temperature a frankly ridiculous 38C).

So all in all, I'm happy.  I might even start making plans for next summer, hopefully not in the city, but that will probably jinx it - so I probably won't bother. I'll take it as it comes, and enjoy each day whatever it brings, and live my life to the full.  It's the main thing this cancer has shown me......carpe diem.  

Seize the day.