Warsaw - Notes

The Polish capital is frankly a rather depressing sort of place (especially when compared with Krakow). Partly because of the preponderance of drab grey Soviet style buildings throughout most of the city, but also because of the sense of history. At the end of the war the retreating German armies flattened everything - it has been said that scarcely anywhere was one stone left standing on top of another. To make matters worse, the advancing Red Army had stopped outside Warsaw and waited for the Gestapo to wipe-out the Polish uprising so that their own job of suppressing resistance would be so much easier. It is only when you see photographs of how the Old-Town looked in 1945 that you realise what an astonishing achievement its reconstruction has been. It probably didn't help my appreciation of the place that it rained solidly for the three days I was there.

NB. Sadly these were some of my first attempts at scanning for the web so they're a lot bigger than they ought to be and the tonal range is pretty poor - will hopefully get round to redoing them eventually...