Warsaw pics

Returned from Warsaw on Saturday, and immediately knew I was back in England. Predictions for our holiday in Poland told us to expect four days of rain. We got half an hour. Meanwhile Luton was a quagmire - I knew it was bad when I went to pick up the car and saw Dennis Hopper chasing Kevin Costner in the distance, such was the rainfall. From the airpark at Slip End (!) I drove out of Luton, taking the wrong turn (M1 and A1 are so easy to confuse) and at one point skimmed around the outside of Leicester, about 40 miles from my intended route. I'm blaming the driving rain.

Warsaw itself was amazing. The pics above are the Palace on the Water, two pics of Castle Square, and some drunk guys who wanted my scalp for Halloween.

We stayed in Nathan's Villa Hostel off Marshall Street. The best hostel I've ever been in - clean bathrooms, quiet, and even our own balcony: what more could we want?

Much of my pre-conceived notions of the country were justified. The beer was cheap and good and the Old Town, similar to that of Tallinn, was breathtakingly pretty. One whole side of the square (pic to be added later) was Poland's national museum, with the interiors of the houses removed so you could pass through. It was a rare example of tourism - Emma was bitterly disappointed by the lack of shops, asking (justifiably) where people bought clothes. I didn't see a single music shop or newsagent chain in four days.

Many of the grey, dismal communist style tower blocks were still intact, intermingled with the grim reminders of Poland's part in WW2. A bunker where Jewish immigrants hid, before one blew himself up in a suicide pact as the Nazis closed in. Remembrance walls with the names of some of those executed. Most poignantly Pawiak prison where 100,000 people including children, pregnant women, elderly and disabled were held, beaten and killed. Poland's invasion can never be allowed to be forgotten.

The food was unusual but cheap and exciting. Pike was delicious; Blood sausages indulgent; tripe and beef soup far more pleasurable than it sounds. Zywiec, which I pronounced in at least ten different attempts as my tongue fumbled its way through the Polish language over the four days, was around £2 a pint.

A disappointing aspect was the unscrupulous nature of taxi drivers. Even in the foyer of the Frederick Chopin airport we were hounded by drivers pleading to escort us to the hostel. Our trip to the old town from the hostel cost anywhere from 12 to 90 zlotys (4.5 zlotys to the pound), meaning there was roughly a £15 difference between drivers for a mile-long journey, depending entirely on which driver you got. I made a rookie mistake of climbing in one cab (at 11.30pm in the freezing cold) and the meter was dimmed, meaning that it probably had about 40 zl on it before we'd even started. Scandalous.

More pics to come later.

ps Must just congratulate Keiran Westwood, Coventry's star goalkeeper, whose stunning performance kept out Kevin Phillipset al for our 1-0 win at Birmingham last night. I was 4 years of age the last time we won there. Work it out.