Eighteen years after the fall of communism, Warsaw remains a city of glaring contradictions. The city centre, with its wide boulevards, gleaming new shopping malls, noodle bars and coffee shops, is strikingly familiar to downtown Tokyo or the swankier parts of Shanghai and Seoul. Flashing lights scroll across glass and steel rectangles adorned with multi-national brand names; the Old Town has been meticulously restored with even more care than the Nazis took in smashing it apart; even the underground passageways have been tarted up. But the grubby apartment blocks are still there too, with views of broken down walls and cracked-up pavement. Under concrete balconies, dusty shop windows display washed-out jars and discoloured boxes. Here, everything, and nothing, is possible.
My Polish friend Hania showed me round all the main sights: the Uprising Museum, Nowy Swiat and Warsaw University, the Palace upon the Water, hot chocolate at
Wedel's, bus rides out to Wilanow and beers in the park. In some ways a weekend wasn't enough, but it was all either of us had to spare.
Eighteen years after the fall of communism, Warsaw remains a city of glaring contradictions. The city centre, with its wide boulevards, gleaming new shopping malls, noodle bars and coffee shops, is strikingly familiar to downtown Tokyo or the swankier parts of Shanghai and Seoul. Flashing lights scroll across glass and steel rectangles adorned with multi-national brand names; the Old Town has been meticulously restored with even more care than the Nazis took in smashing it apart; even the underground passageways have been tarted up. But the grubby apartment blocks are still there too, with views of broken down walls and cracked-up pavement. Under concrete balconies, dusty shop windows display washed-out jars and discoloured boxes. Here, everything, and nothing, is possible.
My Polish friend Hania showed me round all the main sights: the Uprising Museum, Nowy Swiat and Warsaw University, the Palace upon the Water, hot chocolate at Wedel's, bus rides out to Wilanow and beers in the park. In some ways a weekend wasn't enough, but it was all either of us had to spare.
No comments:
Post a Comment