Warsaw April 30-May 5

I travelled to Warsaw to attend the International Congress on the Archaeology of the Ancient Near East (ICAANE), held at the University of Warsaw. I arrived on Monday April 30 just in time for the first session of presentations in the Islamic Archaeology section. I gave my presentation about Madaba in the Early Islamic Period on Wednesday afternoon.
The weather was sunny and warm the entire time, except for a brief period of drizzle right when the conference group photograph was first scheduled.

May 1 was Labor Day, marked by a political rally and then a parade down the main street past the University.

The rally before the parade

The Labor Day parade

May 3 was Constitution Day, with another parade. Isolated marching bands continued to march down the street for a long time.

A marching band on Constitution Day

I spent the bulk of my time at the conference, which was a good occasion to meet people. I did only a little sightseeing beyond watching the parades; I had done a lot of sightseeing during my stay in Warsaw last year. On Friday, the last day of the conference, I went to the archaeology museum, which I had not seen last year, only to find that the museum was closed on Fridays. So I walked around the adjacent park for a while.

The Krasinskich Park

After the conference ended, I took an overnight train from Warsaw to Prague, arriving at 7:30 am. I had not been in Prague before, so I arranged to stop over for a few hours before continuing on to Germany. I walked around the old city, which reminded me of Bamberg, before returning to the train station, where I took a bus at 11:30 am to Nürnberg and then a train on to Bamberg.

A building façade in Prague