Warsaw April 20-24

After my two public lectures, I stayed on in Warsaw for a few more days to do some site-seeing, since this was my first trip to Poland. On Wednesday, April 20 I went to the Wilanowski (Villa Nova) Palace to the south of the city in the morning.

The Wilanowski Palace

In the afternoon I walked around the University area in the north and rode around on public transportation to some areas outside the city center. I was very impressed by the public transportation in Warsaw, with its buses, trams and subway. I almost never had to wait more than ten minutes for a bus.

The next day Thursday April 21, I walked around the Lazienkowski Park in the city center with its various palaces and pavilions. The trees were in full bloom, making the extensive public parks of the city especially attractive.

A tree in the Lazienkowski Park

The Egyptian Pavilion in the Lazienkowski Park

A statue of Chopin in the Lazienkowski Park

In the evening I went to the National Opera for a performance of Puccini’s Turandot. At first I was hesitant to attend, since I had just seen Turandot in Riga a few days earlier, but the staging of this performance could not have been more different. The performance was given a sparse modernist touch that was so bizarre as to be off-putting. For example, when Chalaf strikes the gong at the end of Act I, there was no gong on the empty stage for him to strike, and Turandot’s posing of her three riddles was staged as a private interview with no witnesses! I greatly preferred the performance in Riga with its normal staging.

The next day, Friday April 22, was Good Friday, so many public places were closed for the Easter weekend. I made travel arrangements in the morning and walked around the city center some more, especially the area to the north of the University and royal castle and the area of the Jewish ghetto. The course of the ghetto wall from the Second World War is marked by inscribed bricks in a few stretches, although it is difficult to follow the complete circuit of the wall.

The course of the ghetto wall

Also monuments and plaques commemorating the Warsaw Uprising are all over the place in the city center.

A plaque commemorating the Warsaw Uprising

On Saturday April 23, I went to the Botanical Gardens in the morning, although here it was too early in the spring for the gardens to be in their prime. During the day, I repeatedly noticed people carrying baskets of food or other items to be blessed at church services, a special Polish Easter custom.

Sunday April 24 was Easter, but I did not do anything special beyond walking around some more. Most everywhere was closed for the Easter weekend, so on Saturday and Sunday I mostly stayed in my hotel room and got started on the revisions to Gustaf Dalman’s second volume about Palestinian customs.

The weather during my stay in Warsaw was remarkably warm and sunny with clear blue skies, until the last couple of days. In general I had a delightful time. I had had ideas of Poland being significantly less economically well-off than western Europe, but at least in central Warsaw that was not in evidence.