More warmer than average days for this time of the year in Warsaw – again in the high 20s.

Yesterday (Thursday) we wandered the area around our hotel and spent time in the National Museum. The museum was not exactly what we expected; we would call it an art gallery. Having said that, it was good and did help us understand more of the Polish history.

We also caught up on some housekeeping things before meeting up with other members of the tour group at 1830. The bus takes 40 people and there will be 39. The majority of people are from the USA with a spattering from NZ, Australia, Ireland, Canada and the UK. There is lots of room on it so that helps I guess. Our tour manager Monica is Swedish and appears to be very organised (we may refer to her as Helga during this blog). There is one family with a couple of teenage children and the rest of us are in our late 40s and over. Based on todays (Friday) experiences there is one person who is likely to be a problem – will keep you advised.

First stop was the memorial to Chopin The was a park with a large statue of Chopin, a bench, one of 15 around Warsaw, that played his music and about 8,000 rose plants. The statue had been destroyed and removed by the Nazis during the war and anyone caught listen to Chopin's music was sent to the camps. This was because the Nazis were worried that Chopin's music in particular would cause the Poles to remain patriotic and unite. An exact replica of the statue was rebuilt after the war. Of interest is that one quarter of Warsaw is parkland.

Next we were off to the old town stopping on the way to view the Jewish Memorial which will soon have a museum to the Jewish opening in a couple of years time. During the drive there we were given the following statistics:

1. 85% of Warsaw was destroyed during the war much of it blown up after the Warsaw uprising in 1944;
   
2. The Jewish quarter was levelled after the uprising;
   
3. 800,000 people or 80% of the Warsaw population was killed;
   
4. Jewish population before the war was 300,000. It is now only 2,000;
   
5. city was rebuilt by 1956 without any outside financial assistance as the Soviets refused to accept money from the Marshall Plan;
   
6. the city was rebuilt in its old image using, where possible, recycled materials from the rubble;
   
7. the Warsaw people also willingly paid a 1% levy to help finance the rebuilding.
   

During some free time after the walking tour we visited Madam Curie's house (inventor of penicillin) and then walked back to the memorial to the Warsaw uprising.

Meeting the group again we headed off to the Palace of Wilanow (pronounced Vilanov). This was the king's summer residence and it went through a number of modifications (at the Queen's request) to eventually resemble a smaller version of the Palace of Versailles. The ceilings, floors, art work and furniture in the palace was worth seeing especially when taking into consideration the commentary from our local guide.

Back to the hotel we had the rest of the day free choosing not to go to a Chopin concert which was an extra to the tour. We had attended a Mozart concert at a palace in Vienna a couple of years ago and thought we did not need to attend another similar one. Instead we did some more exploring and visited the tomb of the unknown soldier and a very unique building, the Palace of Culture and Science. This building was built and given to the people of Poland by Stalin and is now commonly referred to as the ”wedding cake”. A photo has been included here.

Off to Vilnius Lithuania tomorrow.