W-wa Jeziorki

Less than eight miles south of Warsaw's centre, yet within its city limits lies Jeziorki. Through it runs ul. Trombity, one of Warsaw's more fascinating streets. A mile long, ul. Trombity is full of contrast - houses old and new, farmyards, wildlife, wetlands; aircraft fly over it, trains trundle past it. Suburban yet rural, this is Jeziorki - 'Land of the Little Lakes'.

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Winter still holds in the forest

Mar 13, 2010 2:20pm

It may surprise my readers from Warsaw that though the snow's retreated from the city's pavements leaving only piles of icy grey heaps here and there, the Las Kabacki forest is still experiencing a proper snow-covered winter. After lunch the skies cleared, so it was time to check it out....

Commuters' staging post

Mar 11, 2010 2:12pm

Unless my Jeziorki-bound train is the first one in at W-wa Powiśle station (it rarely is), in winter I'll hop onto whatever comes first and hop off one stop further along, at W-wa Śródmieście to wait there. Compared to some of the more rubbish stations I could choose to wait...

Half way through Lent

Mar 11, 2010 1:22pm

It's gone so quick this year I'm not even counting off the weeks. As one gets older, so time passes faster. At the age of ten, a year is 10% of your life's experience. At 50, it's but 2%. Lata lecą. This is my 19th Lent in a row, and...

Congruent consciousness

Mar 8, 2010 11:15am

Imagine a childhood summer's day on the beach, the sun glinting off the waves; or a walk in a pine forest with your parents, or staring at a toyshop window just before Christmas, snow falling gently on the rushing shoppers. Can you feel those memories strongly? Can you conjure up...

More from the frozen, flooded wetlands

Mar 7, 2010 9:04am

Yesterday's visit to the far end of ul Trombity was brief; today, equipped with wellies, I set off from ul. Kórnicka to gauge the extent of the flooding (the Polish word podtopienie rather than the word powódź or potop which is more a mythical flood). Above: the streak of clear...

Snow melts, water freezes

Mar 6, 2010 3:20pm

All the snow that settled between the middle of December and the end of February had to go somewhere! Once waterlogged, the lower-lying ground between ul Trombity, Kórnicka and Dumki was ripe for localised flooding, which promptly froze up - the temperature fell back below zero on Thursday night. Above:...

The Station With No Name

Mar 6, 2010 10:57am

Today's print edition of Gazeta Wyborcza carried an uncompromising article about the couldn't-care-less attitude of the Polish state railway PKP to its passengers. Here's my little local contribution to the gripe; W-wa Dawidy station (below). This must be the only regularly-used station in Warsaw, maybe in the whole of Poland,...

Dogs being to bark, hounds begin to howl

Mar 5, 2010 1:32pm

One less than pleasant aspect of walking around Jeziorki is being barked at by dogs as you pass by. This is something that happens rarely in Britain as one strolls through leafy suburbs; walking from one end of ul. Trombity to the other, I'm barked at by dogs from at...

Frequent flying civilises the nation

Mar 3, 2010 12:44pm

"Would Mr Lopez travelling to Madrid please proceed immediately to Gate 43, where your flight is boarding". How often we hear phrases like this, yet the Tannoy announcers at Luton, Doncaster, Liverpool or East Midlands are seldomly heard hurrying a Mr Burak who's travelling to Rzeszów or a Ms Pietruszka...

Kensington

Feb 26, 2010 3:26pm

London is often regarded as 'a city of many villages'; one of these is Kensington, to where our London office has recently moved. Above: click to enlarge the photo; just look at the colourful flowers in bloom outside the Churchill Arms. A sight unimaginable in wintery Warsaw!London's real character is...

A week into Lent

Feb 23, 2010 1:33pm

Holding up well. Caffeine withdrawal headaches very low-level this year; a few weeks back I exchanged a huge dose of caffeine administered via two heaped scoops of Lavazza Qualita Oro in a cafetiere for ever-smaller doses of instant coffee until just before Lent I was drinking essentially hot water with...

A month before spring equinox - let's move the clocks forward now!

Feb 21, 2010 8:25am

Today we enjoyed ten hours and 17 minutes of daylight. The sun rose at 20 to seven and set a minute before five. The day, two months after winter solstice, is two hours and 43 minutes longer than the shortest day. Comparable to late October, two months before winter solstice,...

The waste piles up

Feb 21, 2010 6:13am

Because of the heavy snows, it's been over two months since my last trip to the recycling point*. And the waste has piled up. Segregated plastics, glass (clear and coloured) and paper/cardboard. Today was a lovely blue-sky day, entirely unpredicted by the weather forecasters, so a good opportunity to load...

Progress along S2

Feb 20, 2010 5:22am

The Big Melt started last night; it rained and it rained. Time to see what progress has been made on the stretch of the S2 Warsaw southern bypass (Południowa Obwodnica Warszawy) over the past few weeks. Above: The last house left standing will soon be demolished. Google Earth imagery (dated...

Waiting for the meltdown

Feb 18, 2010 11:35am

According to the weather forecasters, we're in for several hours of heavy rain from tomorrow night into Saturday, coupled with temperatures as high as +3C. Disaster looms! Above: Just look at all the heaps of snow in front of W-wa Powiśle station. Where will it all go? Above: This is...

Another Lent begins

Feb 16, 2010 2:53pm

"Hey, Mr. Bartender, don't you be so slow.I've got time for just one more round, and a six-pack to go,Tomorrow's Ash Wednesday, I ain't gonna worry no,So please Mr. Bartender, one six pack to go."*Once more, I've quit alcohol, caffeine, meat, dairy products, salt, salt snacks, fast food, confectionary,...

That will have been the winter that was

Feb 16, 2010 2:09pm

Above: Scene at W-wa Zachodnia ("The Clapham Junction of the East") this morning. Above: Scene on top of the school across the road from my office today. Snow on top of roofs can be deadly.The forecast for the end of the week is temperatures hovering around zero; the thaw is...

Beat this for a snowy winter!

Feb 15, 2010 1:05pm

A challenge for my readers: 1) Post me links to photos of winters in Warsaw between 1997/98 and today that feature more snow than in these pics, and 2) see if you can identify the cars covered by snow...Above: Outside my office on ul. Fabryczna. Any more snow and these...

Snow drift fences doing nothing

Feb 14, 2010 11:29am

Every year with the onset of winter, the people from PKP put out the snowdrift fences along the line, to ensure that snow is not blown across the track, thus hampering rail operations. This year, for some reason, when the winter has been the harshest and longest since we arrived...

Oligocene water, Jeziorki

Feb 13, 2010 1:24am

I'm surprised that I've not written about this before. Warsaw sits on top of reserves of water trapped 200m below the ground in rocks laid down in the Oligocene period. The city has 107 of these artesian wells (click for full list of addresses and opening times). Above: here is...

Polish TV and pharmaceutical advertising

Feb 11, 2010 2:53pm

Back in Dobra, Eddie and I would do something we never do at home - watch television. In our room there was a small set that we'd switch on to catch the local news and Małopolska weather forecasts on TVP Info. While waiting for these, we'd be subjected to an...

Confusion on the rails

Feb 10, 2010 8:11am

Once it was all so easy. To get from anywhere to anywhere by rail in Poland, there was but one carrier - PKP. Polskie Koleje Państwowe (nicknamed Płać Konduktorowi Połowę ("Pay the Conductor Half" in the old system). Incidentally, the logic back then was as follows: It was your duty...

Today's dose of wintery gorgeousness

Feb 9, 2010 2:45pm

Today Eddie and I made our way to the ski slope from Gruszowiec, retracing our steps from yesterday. The hoar-frost made the forest on the south of Śnieżnica astoundingly beautiful. Above: our way up in the morning, below, our way back down in the afternoon. Again, skiing meant that the...

Skiing in the Beskid Wyspowy

Feb 8, 2010 10:12am

Yesterday, the piste at Kasina Wielka, on the north-west slopes of Śnieżnica, was packed with skiers from Kraków. Early this afternoon, it was quite empty. As I wrote last year, this piste is ideal for children and less-experienced skiers. Below: view from the four-seat chair lift. No queues whatsoever!The Polish...

Along the Transwersalna again - in winter

Feb 7, 2010 10:15am

A favourite walk of ours, along the disused tracks of what once was the Galician Transversal Railway, built by the Austro-Hungarians in the mid-1880s. Sadly, trains have stopped running here last year; PKP Line 104 between Chabówka and Nowy Sącz is now defunct. The views, the atmosphere, the klimat is...