With our visit to Lithuania done and dusted it was off to Poland. The border was only a few kilometers down the road but our destination was 330km away in Warsaw. We have visited Poland twice before, once to pay our respects at Auschwitz and the second time to check out Hitler's Eastern Front stronghold - The Wolf's Lair (Remember the movie 'Valkyre'). This visit would see us in Warsaw and Krakow - 2 nights in each.

Before we could start our sightseeing though, we had organised to have an oil change and filter for the bike at Triumph Warsaw. Greg said he could have done the same work at home himself only marginally cheaper than we paid today - $113 AUD. We rode in to our hotel, only about 200m from Central Station.

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. The city stands on the Vistula River and its population is about 1.7 million in the inner city and 3.1 million in total. Warsaw was once described as the Paris of the East it because it was so beautiful. The German invasion in 1939 soon had the city in ruins. The architecture today reflects the city's turbulent history from Gothic churches, palaces, Soviet-era blocks and modern skyscrapers.

After unpacking and parking the bike (taken down to the secure parking on a vehicle lift) we wandered up the street to see some of the modern part of town. The most imposing building in this area is The Palace of Culture and Science. We thought the building must be very old and were amazed when we discovered it was only built in 1955. This impressive building, apparently styled after the Empire State Building takes up a whole city block - we walked all the way around. Some of the skyscrapers are beautiful - very innovative in their design, check out the photos in the Warsaw Album.

On our full day in Warsaw we took our usual bus tour to get a feel for the city, we did one full circuit and then went back to visit some of the sights. I should have counted the number of times Fryderyck Chopin, the composer, was mentioned in the commentary - they sure are proud of him!

We visited The Warsaw Rising Museum which focuses on events that took place in August and September 1944 when Warsaw rose up to expel the German occupying force. Over 200,000 Poles died in the ensuing 6 months. One of the most striking exhibits was a 6 minute 3D movie of the flight of The Liberator, a bomber flown by a Polish that flew along the Vistula River in spring 1945 and filmed the destroyed city. The movie showed the total destruction of what had been a beautiful and historic city. Greg filled us in on the turbulant history of Warsaw including the true story of the Warsaw Ghetto and the Katyn Forest massacre of 22,000 Poles in 1940 carried out by the Soviet Secret Police the NKVD.

We visited the Old Town for most of the afternoon. This part of Warsaw was restored after heavy damage during WW2. The Old Town is built around the Market Square which features pastel coloured buildings and open-air cafes. The cobblestone alleys and buildings were buzzing with tourists, buskers and we even got to witness two wedding processions through the streets - bride and groom at the front followed by a stream of well dressed guests carrying gifts. The Royal Castle is an imposing building overlooking the square. We found a cafe overlooking the Vistula river to have our afternoon beer before wandering back to the square and listening to some outstanding music by a busker playing her violin. In the distance we could see the National Stadium where The Rolling Stones are performing tomorrow night for an expected crowd of 72,000- we could have bought tickets for $1030 each. How lucky are we that we will be in Krakow by the time the concert begins!

The big red bus took us back into town where we ended our day with dinner and the news that England was through to the World Cup Semi-finals defeating Sweden 2-0. Not many games left now!