Dining in the Park...

Lazienki Park is the largest park in Warsaw, occupying 76 hectares in the city centre.

Housed in the Park is a Palace complex, which is part of the Royal route and links the Royal Castle with the main Palace in the south of the city. 

The park is well used by locals and tourists, with many museums and sites to visit and explore as well as many places to relax and play.

On the weekend, we were fortunate to watch a Chopin concert at the grandstand in the park.

In addition to walking around and enjoying the beautifully manicured gardens, we were also lucky to secure a reservation to dine at the Belvedere Restaurant, a gorgeous and inviting restaurant housed in the old Orangerie, which feels like a solarium/greenhouse in the middle of the park.  Slow service couldn’t get in the way of the delicious food and delightful backdrop.

Truly a park used to the fullest for all the community to enjoy. 

Palace Controversy

When Russia took control of Poland after WWII, Stalin organized a gift for them - the Joseph Stalin Palace of Culture and Science.

Built from 1952-1955, this Palace was constructed using Soviet plans with some Polish architectural details included.  The tower was built by 3,500-5,000 Russian workers (and 4,000 Polish workers) who were housed in Poland at Poland’s expense! 

The Tower is the city’s most notable landmark but understandably is a controversial one.  Many Poles initially saw the building as a symbol of Soviet domination and some of that sentiment remains even today.  Many others feel that the building overpowers the city and destroys the aesthetic balance and charm of the old city.  This has been lessened over time, however, with the building of other skyscrapers nearby. 

Without controversy, the name has been changed and is now simply The Palace of Culture and Science. 

Warsaw Rising

Bad weather in Istanbul made our flight to Poland a little more adventurous than we would have liked - with consistent air turbulence, a late arrival, a speedy run through the Istanbul airport to catch our connecting plane, and then an unexpected two hour wait after our connector was, at the last-minute, delayed.

Nonetheless, we arrived in Warsaw before sundown and were delighted to check into the elegant Hotel Bristol which was perfectly located on the main street of Warsaw’s historic town.

As usual, we started our stay with a walking tour of Warsaw.  Our tour met at Sigismund’s Column in the heart of the historic town.  This was a fitting starting point as it was King Sigismund who decided to move the country’s capital from Krakow to Warsaw in 1596 and helped Warsaw truly emerge into a world-class city.

Like many European cities, Poland has endured a turbulent existence, surviving multiple wars and domination by a variety of countries including Prussia, Austria, France, and most recently the USSR. 

Through all the upheaval, Poland’s capital city has earned the reputation as a “phoenix city”, in large part because of its ability to resurrect itself on numerous occasions, including after its almost entire destruction in WWII. 

Although many cities in Europe suffered damage in the war, Warsaw suffered a worse fate than most.  It is estimated that 80% of the city was destroyed, including nearly the entire city centre and its most historic and significant buildings.    

Warsaw was a key target of the Germans during the War, primarily because the city was home to the largest number of Jews in Europe at that time.  In addition, when the Polish organized the Warsaw Uprising in 1944, the Germans - on the verge of losing the war - were thought to be so angered by the rebellion that they sought to destroy every aspect of the city before their defeat.

But the Polish were determined to rebuild their city and their spirit and drive is felt throughout Warsaw.

The completely gutted Historic Main Square was rebuilt in just 7 years with the majority of the city, including the city walls, rebuilt not much later.  Using photos and artist sketches from the 18^th Century (a prettier version preferred by the architects versus the 19^th Century version), the rebuilding was almost entirely identical with a few unexpected updates – a monkey statue, for example, perches on the corner of a building which was originally incorporated into a sketch as an insult to a feuding family.   

Although not the biggest or most dramatic, the people’s passion shines through  and this UNESCO recognized site now welcomes guests with jazz concerts, buskers/balloon sellers, outdoor restaurants and of course the famous Mermaid of Warsaw, who is fabled to be the sister of the Copenhagen mermaid and is meant protect the city from war (she was napping during WWII).

Architecture aside, however, Warsaw’s human tragedy during WWII can never be undone.  Of Warsaw’s almost 1.4 million residents before the War, half died during the War and only about 10% remained in the city by the time the War ended.   This tragedy is commemorated and reflected throughout the city and will be explored more fully in a separate post. 

Although the city has re-emerged and its 1.7 million population is growing at a pace much faster than the rest of Poland, the city still felt quiet somehow.   Perhaps because people were on vacation or because it is just now back to pre-war levels (versus the growth beyond that from other cities), but the city never felt crowded.  There was never any traffic, no waiting lines and never any trouble getting reservations somewhere.    A quiet calm for the phoenix city.

Four-tea!

A most delicious way to spend a birthday - breakfast in bed followed by a fabulous afternoon tea at the stunning new Address Boulevard.

Welcome new decade!

Beth Finally Met Her Match

"Guest" Post by Geoff :

One thing that has always amazed me about my wonderful wife is that, despite her lithe frame, she maintains a limitless ability to pack away cheese, potatoes and bread.

Having seen her tackle multiple jacket potatoes, french fries, loaves of bread and wheels of cheese in France, Italy, the UK and even Texas-size portions, I assumed she would never be defeated.

That is, until she met her fiercest adversary yet: Georgia.

After reading about the wide varieties of fresh vegetables and fruit available in Georgia, we had visions of our health-quotients rocketing as we hiked through the mountains, breathing the pure air and munching on freshly plucked organic produce. 

Making bread made in a deep clay oven

This was not to be. We certainly enjoyed the clean air, and upped our caloric-expenditure well above the 3,500 calorie per day level via vigorous activity, yet we (well, I did at any rate) managed to gain 2 kilos over the week.

This was all thanks to the ubiquity of the combination of bread, cheese and potatoes at every meal. The Georgians are quite proud of their cuisine, but it can be shocking to more delicate systems.

It is almost unheard of to not eat Khachapuri at least 2-3 times per day. Khachapuri is certainly delicious, but it is basically an entire loaf of bread stuffed with cheese. At least that is the healthy version. It comes in far more cholesterol-spiking versions as well, including stuffed and topped with cheese, and the most popular version which is topped with cheese, and an egg, and a giant pat of butter. Those following the bulletproof diet would highly approve.

The most amazing version we had of this was at Shavi Lomi, where they substituted Armenian Lavash bread (which is lighter, thinner and crispier) for the traditional denser bread, and used a slightly sharper cheese than the traditional Sulguni cheese. It was amazing!

The second most popular dish is Khinkali, which is a derivative of Nepalese momos. These look like giant soup dumplings. You hold on to the twisted knobs of dough at the top, bite into the side of the Khinkali, suck out the soup inside before eating the rest of the dough (except the topknot). They keep bringing more until you wave the flag of surrender, with payment being determined based on the number of topknots on your plate. The vegetarian version of this fills them with - guess what? - potatoes and cheese!

After Shavi Lomi's Khachapurito, the next best dish we had in Georgia was roast potatoes with dill, drenched in salt. This won't come as a surprise to you who know Beth (who loves potatoes, salt and dill), but it was a bit of a surprise that I found them delicious as well. I am lukewarm on potatoes generally and hate dill. Perhaps it was the salt, which helped to soak up all of the sweet red wine I was drinking.

The best version of these potatoes was at Rooms Hotel in Stepantsminda / Kazbegi, but a strong honourable mention goes to Barberestan, which was a cute little restaurant on the other side of the river in Tbilisi that was created to strictly follow the found 100+ year old recipe book of a Georgian who happened also to be a leader in the feminist movement.

Another very interesting dish that only Geoff was brave enough to try was Elarji. This is very hard to explain, but it is a combination of cornmeal and sulguni cheese that somehow becomes turned into a gelatinous blob resembling porridge. It was quite tasty, but we worried about the combination of viscosity and cholesterol.

Churchkhela stands around the city

After gorging on the above dishes at pretty much every meal for a week, I knew we were in trouble when I suggested that we order a pizza at one meal as a "healthy" alternative, and Beth said that she couldn't possibly eat another dish containing cheese, bread, or potatoes.

Of course, there are Georgian dishes that are at least moderately healthy. They did serve vegetables, albeit these were generally drenched in (delicious, but not particularly healthy) Bazha, which is a sauce made from walnuts.

Lobio was a fantastic stew made from kidney beans, although it generally contained a day's worth of sodium allowance and was served with a super-dense, albeit super-tasty, cornmeal bread called Mchadi,

Luckily the Georgians aren't much on sweets. They did have a delicious snack called Churchkhela, which is basically walnuts or hazelnuts coated in flour and grape juice (much better than it sounds), but otherwise we managed to avoid sweets (except for the Marriott's cookie tray) for most of the trip.

View from the Top...

After our stint at the baths, we decided to walk up part of the Tbilisi hill to catch the Funicular up to the top of the very large hill.

We must have been delirious from the hot sulphur baths as undertake this steep hike on such a hot and humid day left us on the verge of passing out.

Nonetheless, the temperatures were much cooler up at the top of the hill and the ride allowed us to finally find a restaurant that served vegetarian Khinkali, a Georgian delicacy.  It also left us wondering - could they possibly think of any more ways to incorporate delicious cheese into their meals?

Hot, hot, hot!

Tbilisi is known for its sulphur baths.  Many believe that it was actually Tbilisi's sulphur springs that inspired King Vakhtang Gorgasali to settle the area as the capital in the 5th century.

Legend has it that the King was in the area on a hunting trip and either poached or healed a pheasant in the boiling sulphur waters, thus spurring his decision to move the capital city to that very spot.  In fact, "tbili" translates to warm so perhaps there is some truth to the story.

A key spot along the Silk Road, these sulphur baths were historically a huge draw for weary travellers, at one point hosting 60 different baths in the area.  Today, there are five surviving bath houses in the city - one which is public, one which is open 24 hours and the others where individual rooms can be booked.

Upon advice from our tour guide, we booked at the Royal House, supposedly the nicest of the group.  Even still, this cavernous spot felt like it was from a different era - and though we told ourselves that the tiles and furniture had been replaced since the baths were first developed centuries ago, we weren't entirely sure.


Nonetheless, we forged ahead excited to plunge into the warm bath.  Until we stuck our toe in and panicked that our foot was being burnt right off our body.  The water was scalding hot!

We did our best to adjust the temperature with the cold water hose nearby but the boiling water was simply too intense. Geoff braved the bath by spraying the hose right on himself as he slowly and painfully waded into the water.   Beth did her best to even keep her feet in the water.

By the end, we both managed to get ourselves all the way in but it certainly did not meet the vision of the relaxing and leisurely baths we had dreamed up in our minds.

All in all, we left the pools feeling clean and even a little relaxed but admittedly looked much redder and in the back of (Beth's) mind wandered if we had suffered any third-degree burns or other long-term consequences.