Day 19: Introduction to Warsaw

Warsaw’s Gdańska station in all its glory.

Now you would think that an overnight sleeper train going from the capital of the Ukraine to the capital of Poland would arrive at the main train station.  Boy were we in for a surprise.  It turns out that Gdańska station is a relatively minor station in the middle of nowhere (actually it’s in northern Warsaw) and so our first challenge was finding our way to the city center and the central train station so we could book our tickets for the next leg in our trip.

We found the subway without any difficulty.  It’s actually a very modern and new subway system (its primary line was completed in 2007) that unfortunately has one critical component that didn’t seem to work very well: the automatic ticket vending machines usually weren’t functional and there were no manned ticket counters that we could find.  Out of the five machines we used during our ten hours in Warsaw, one was frozen, one wouldn’t accept payment in any form, and one had an error screen displayed.  Of note, our local tour guide bought his ticket from a local magazine vendor instead of using the machine.

The Warsaw metro.

Upon getting to central Warsaw we quickly found our way to the main train station, appropriately named Warszawa Centralna train station.  Needless to say, it was considerably more impressive than Gdańska.  We found the storage lockers easily and stowed our luggage and got into line to purchase our tickets to Köln.  We ran into an American couple from Michigan who were going to Krakow to visit some friends, as well as an Englishman who had just earned his degree and was doing a trip through Eastern Europe.  It was a rather long line to wait in, but the ticket lady behind the counter was courteous and helpful – a welcome change from Kiev.

 Warsaw Centralna train station.

We had already grabbed some pastries to eat in the shops at one of the metro stops and our only “appointment” for the day was a 1300hrs rendezvous with our tour guide – after we’d gotten luggage and tickets secured, we had about two hours.  We decided to head into the old city of Warsaw (which is where the tour started) and ended up grabbing lunch at a café downtown.  Dad reminisced about his prior travel experiences in Western Europe and remarking how Warsaw reminded him in many ways of the European charm he’d experienced in Germany. 

Lunch right next to the Zygmunt Column.