Children, Hearts & Rock n' Roll

If you have been in Warsaw last Sunday you have been probably wondering why everybody is wearing a red, heart shaped sticker? What the hell? ...

Every second Sunday of Janunary is a day on which the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity plays all over Poland. In every city, town, village, every corner of Poland they are collecting money for purchasing medical equipment for Polish hospitals. They have been doing it for 21 years and Poles got very into it. You can meet Orchestra's volunteers everywhere. Their characteristic feature is a big, colorful paper can in their hands. And, what's suprising, whole Poland is donating money by putting it inside the can. Every year it gets really crazy - big companies spend thousands of zlotys to buy an official golden heart of the Orchestra, there are concerts and events taking place in every city, all TV channels are broadcasting only materials about the Orchestra, people are spending as much money as they can to take part in the Grande Finale money collection. It's crazy & beautiful. And the person who makes it happen is Jurek Owsiak . It was his idea to found the Orchestra and collect money for specialistic equipment for children hospitals. He also organises Woodstock Festival in Poland. See the website of the Great Orchestra: http://www.en.wosp.org.pl/

This is what you could see on every TV channel on Sunday 13th January. Jurek Owsiak is in the studio of the public television, coordinating the Grande Finale money collection.

Christmas is over?

Not in Warsaw! After Christmas you can still enjoy all the lights along Krakowskie Przedmieście and Nowy Świat Street, but people of Warsaw favourites are the Nativity Scenes beside the altars of the oldest and the most beautiful churches and cathedrals of the capital. Located around the Old & New Town they are Christmas peace of art. It's worth to take a walk around them and see them all; it'll take you no more than an hour. Take a look at the map.

Nativity in modern style; Church of St Anne on Krakowskie Przedmieście Street (photo by "fotopasja")

View Most beautiful churches & cathedrals with Nativity Scenes in Warsaw in a larger map

Happy Birthday Palm!

The Palm from De Gaulle's roundabout is 10 years old! Many people wonder why there is a canary island date palm in one of the Warsaw's most popular spots. The palm is part of a project 'Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue' by Joanna Rajkowska. The author of the project had planned to put a lane of palms along the street called Aleje Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue) but at the end they decided to put just one palm at the junction of Jerusalem Avenue and Nowy Świat street, on some kind of a traffic island.

The tree is 15 m tall, it's waterproof and made mainly of plastic. There was a long discussion going on during preparations to make the idea of the palm come true. There were many doubts about who's gonna take care of the palm, who will pay for it, how long should it stand on the roundabout, about copyright lawsand of course about its political and cultural context.

Origins of the project date back to the artist’s journey to Israel (in Tel-Awiw there is a street called Jerusalem Avenue too) and her attempt to realise and the others aware of the significance of Jerusalem Avenue to Warsaw, the street’s history and the vacuum caused by the absence of Jewish community. It was supposed to be also a social experiment, testing whether the Polish society is ready to absorb such a culturally alien item. The spot at which the palm has been placed before the year 2002 had been used for a Christmas tree :)

The palm still sparks extreme feelings. It has divided Warsovians into those treating it as a symbol of a city and a society welcoming the others, developing, focused on the change, and those that support order, tradition and a city closed for strangers. The palm brings about many divisions and fuels conflicts deeply hidden in Polish society. It contains a lot of humour and irony as well, which saves it from definitions that could subdue it to any ideology. However, despite many different statements about the palm, it has become a symbol of Warsaw and one of the most characteristic points of the city.

More about the Palm you'll find on the official website: http://www.palma.art.pl/

View in Poniatowski's Bridge direction

Something about Łódź

It is often said that Łódź is an uglier sister of Warsaw. I can agree that they are related somehow, but I'd never say that Łódź is the ugly one. Even if it's only 135 km (84 mi) away from Warsaw, it is far different from the capital of Poland - and this is what makes her worth sightseeing.

Łodź has left her brightest times in the past - it used to be one of the biggest manufacture centres in Poland. Giant factories were everywhere, not much of them have survived. Łódź was focused on the textile industry, it was even called a 'Polish Manchester'. By the time right before the World War I Łódź had become one of the most densely populated industrial cities in the world! The textile industry declined dramatically in 1990 and 1991. However, countless small companies still provide a significant output of textiles and old factories are being turned into galleries, cinemas, theatres and culture centres. The alternative culture is growing there very quickly - you can observe it on the streets, on the walls of buildings, in cafes and pubs... everywhere.
During the World War II, Łódź was captured by Germans. Soon the Nazi authorities set up the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area (approximately 900 people survived the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944).

These days, history is still alive in Łódź. There are many beautiful old buildings, especially tenement houses still waiting to be renovated. They seem to be ruined, but they still have something eye-catching. So, what Łódź has to offer? 
Piotrkowska street:  is the main artery and attraction stretching north to south for a little over 5 km, making it (one of) the longest commercial streets in the world. A few of the building fronts have been renovated and date back to the 19th century.
Łagiewniki: you can get close to nature in this largest city park in Europe. Actually, you can say that it is an urban forest! You can ride a bike there, rent a paddleboat, sightsee old chapels and enjoy the nature.
The 'Poznański' Palace: is known as a Louvre in Łódź and it became a City of Łódź History Museum with many events taking place there.
Manufaktura: it used to be a giant factory, right now it is a multicultural centre of spending free time in shops, restaurants, clubs, cinema and museum.
M2: it is a museum of Polish contemporary art. It has got a wide collection of Polish most important avantgarde artists. There are plenty of museums and galleries in Łódź!
Film School: Łódź is also a national film centre. It has got the most famous film school in Poland. Scenes of David Lynch's 2006 film 'Inland Empire' were shot in Łódź :)

Check out a great map of Łódź here: http://www.use-it-lodz.pl/

And finally, how to get there? Very simple! There are plenty of trains going from Warsaw Central Station. All journey by train takes only 2 hours. Check the timetible here: http://test2012.rozklad-pkp.pl/bin/query.exe/en?

All the details are important in Łódź

'Wolności' Square (the Square of Freedom)

Buildings of Łódź

Giant mural next to the Piotrkowska street

The details of Manufaktura

Cafe 'Wolność' ('Freedom' cafe)

Welcome to Warsaw movie!

One of the receptionists of Hostel Helvetia will be a famous director soon. Watch this short movie about Warsaw and Euro 2012 and judge by yourself.

Polish Teddy Bear

They say that Germany is the capital of teddy bears. But... wait a sec... Poland has got a famous teddy too! You can find it in Warsaw, standing in the middle of a tiny park called Glinianki Sznajdra. To know why does it stand there you have to know more about Polish cinema.

'Teddy Bear' is a cult Polish film directed in 1980 by Stanisław Bareja (famous Polish director making mostly comedy films). The film tells the story of Rysiek, the shrewd manager of state-sponsored sport club. He has to get to London before his ex-wife does in order to collect a big amount of money. As you can imagine, nothing was easy in a communist country which Poland was during those days. So the main character is meeting lots and lots of trouble on his way to get out of Poland. The history is hilarious and Bareja gives the audience a guided tour of the rank corruption, absurd bureaucracy, pervasive bribery and flourishing black market that pervaded socialism of the People's Republic of Poland.

In the last scene of the movie the monument of a big teddy bear appears. To commemorate the movie and to put some smile on the people's faces, the city decided to put the same teddy bear in Glinianki Sznajdra (the place of filming the last scene of the movie).

You can watch 'Teddy Bear' in our hostel! You just have to ask for the DVD at the reception desk.

How to get to the Glinianki Sznajdra? It's very easy! You have to take the bus no. 105 from the NOWY ŚWIAT bus stop, near our hostel. Then you have to get off at the TKACZY bus stop and you are just right next to the teddy bear. Take a look at the map and go :)

Rysiek - the main character of 'Teddy Bear'

European Capital of Culture 2016

Several polish and spanish cities are competing to become the 2016 European Capital of Culture.

Warsaw apparently is one of the candidates. To boost the contest a notch, the capital has issued a promo video made by Agnieszka Holland. This is another one, that was rejected during the process:

Polish fans of U2 in white & red

U2__Poland_Live_From_Chorzow_August_2009_flaga_biao_czerwona
przez jenaniston

'Something going on here. There's something going on in this country,' said Bono during absulutely fantastic U2 concert that took place on the 6th of August in Chorzów (southern Poland)and he added: 'We could feel it the last time we came. This country is going somewhere very special. Is it faith? Faith in the future. Poland! Europe needs more countries like Poland...'
It was the second time when Polish fans of the group formed a huge Polish flag: those in grandstands were keeping white shirts, towels or papers, those in the field - the red ones. They did it for the first time four years as U2 started to play "New Year's Day" song.
The song was written in the 80s and treated about Lech Wałęsa the leader of "Solidarity", Polish movement that brought up Europe to the collapse of communism. Thirty years ago, when Bono sang: "we can break through, though torn in two we can be one" one could hardly believe it was possible.
Last night we turned red and white again to say U2 how important the song was for us. How important was mentioning US behind the iron curtain.

See Tomasz Bereźnicki's cartoon about the white&red flag for U2:
http://www.bereznicki.pl/

Free at last we can support now the U2 latest action dedicated to: Aung San Suu Kyi, democratically elected leader of Burma, who has spent many of the last 20 years under house arrest. Whatever the critics say, we believe that rock&roll can stop the traffic!
See more details on U2 official website:
http://www.u2.com/stream/article/display/id/4770