On my first day in Warsaw I decided to do a free walking tour focussing on Jewish history, after I had woken up quite late and eaten a nice lunch near the old city. It was nice, but probably too hot, and it definitely couldn't top the tour I did in Budapest last summer.
Here are some impressions:
(Remember this one from Riga? Stalin's birthday cake.)
(This tower was more or less built on the ruins of the old synagogue, which was destroyed in 43, if I remember correctly. According to the guide it wasn't destroyed earlier because it wasn't within the Ghetto - doesn't really sound like an explanation to me. It looked more like a church than a synagogue, but had the Star of David on top of it. The orthodox community wouldn't go there because it was financed by mostly modern, assimilated Jews who didn't observe the law. There's a model and pictures if it in the Jewish museum, POLIN.)
Although dead tired I still ended up in the old city again, and when I had already decided to leave, I couldn't resist the view of the red brick buildings in the beautiful light of the sunset, so I made another round.
The next day I dedicated completely to the Museum of the History of the Jews in Poland. 15 Zloty for entrance and another 10 Zloty for the audioguide seem very reasonable when you consider that I spent more or less the whole day in it - from 11 to 5. The core exhibition covers a thousand years of Jewish history in Poland in a very sophisticated, easy to understand, and interactive way. I'm usually not so much into multimedia stuff, but I really feel like I learned something from all the little games and riddles you could do on the hundreds of touchscreens all around the museum. I even got to print my own coin ;)
You probably dot get the context of the following pictures, but I'm posting them anyway.
After this marathon I was completely worn out and desperately needed some food. I only had 20zl left and for some reason all the ATM seemed to be empty. All I could get out of one was another 20zl, so I chose the cheapest dish I could find on the menu of some African restaurant nearby. Afterwards I went on hunting for filled ATMs - when I found two I them next to each other and none of them would give me money, I realized that probably my card was empty.
Well that was shitty. Craving for coffee and ice cream, not even having enough money for a ticket, I had to go home and get my other card there. This moneyless situation really half-ruined the day for me - I think this was the first time in my life I really didn't have a single cent on me, with no possibility to withdraw money from somewhere.
I generously rewarded myself with an awesome piece of cake and a (not so awesome) coffee, enjoying the very last sun rays and the cold breeze of the evening.
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