95% of the city were destroyed, said the tour guide, though I am long gone as a stranger. Consider, then, if you look at the old building, not on actually old, but only to reconstructed, carefully reconstructed, adding to the slightly stocky woman. We walk through the historic center of Warsaw, the only center in the world that counts despite complete destruction of war and subsequent reconstruction of the Unesco World Heritage Site. We have reconstructed so carefully and devotedly, that the new is indistinguishable from the old town center, says the tour guide, and I have to Frankfurt To think of the east side of the Romans, as the buildings are there as an oversized doll houses, empty and uninhabited, while here everything looks old, as if the building facades for filming was in gray.
little later I stood in front of the Palace of Culture, which might be considered an emblem of the city, he would have been built at the behest of Stalin. A gift to the Polish people, says the tour guide, this one had all the gifts to Stalin like to do without. At the foot of the Palace of Culture, young men play basketball on three adjacent sites. The evening sun is struggling to them from long shadow in the muggy air, it is a mystery to me how you can sprint without a break after the ball. I pay 20 zlotys and go up to the viewing platform. The Palace of Culture is the tallest building in the city, and Warsaw is at my feet like a model train layout. In the evening rush to move cars, trams and pedestrians slow-motion through the wide streets where one could remove the wonderful parades. 1.7 million people live here, it is Poland's largest city.
In front of the Presidential Palace, a wooden cross and is guarded by police and army. A group of Boy Scouts has it placed there in April, shortly after the plane crash of Smolensk. Since then, it is Poland's armed simplest object to split a four-meter high cross made of beech wood, insignificant at first glance, and yet in a position to the entire country into two camps. When they wanted to bring it in early August in a nearby church, and there were scuffles between Catholics and the police. The cross stood. It must, then the modern Crusaders, are left in memory of the victims at his place, until you've decided to build a monument. Shortly after it came to the counter-demonstration: 6000 Warsaw shouted in chorus: "Tear from the presidential palace! It blocks the view of us on the cross, "and, less sarcastic, "A Cross belongs to the church!" A solution has not yet been found, and so the prayer, with their grave candles, rosaries and singing the vorbeiflanierenden tourists an exciting spectacle.
At the foot of the old town runs along the Vistula, unimpressed with its immensity. The Warsaw do not like them, they call our dirty river. Here, the Vistula is working for weeks trying to make the Nile to its top position in dispute. Category: Most beautiful river in the world. The shore is undeveloped, nowhere a café, a bar, a promenade, just a semi-legal club pulls in a few weeks time it all here. Then come to Warsaw, but only to dance. Their city, they know it can now compete with the biggest, most beautiful cities in Europe. The banks have come from Wroclaw, the culture of Krakow, now waiting in Warsaw that the rest of the world understands.
