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Starting the day on the back foot, we decided to go do some walking tours of the Old Town. We had the guide book, and thought we should make the best of a bad situation. At about 10 am we headed out from the hotel accompanied by a phone conversation from BMW, informing me that they had still heard nothing from the local dealer but would update me as soon as possible.
We headed out and then took a wrong turn, spending about 30 minutes waling in the wrong direction. The main street we walked down could have been any in Europe, a mess and busy with people and beggars.
Finally we found the start of the old town. The place was very clean and well maintained. Obviously this was close to the affluent business area as there were an abundance of coffee bars, and suited people walking around attached at the ear to their mobile phones.
Towards the end of this street the coffee bars thinned out and the tourist area started, with streets and buildings of either well restored, or crumbling buildings. We had a look in a few churches, which always seem to annoy me. It is obvious that these churches were originally constructed quite some time in the past, when the populous were very poor, yet the churches were very opulent. I find the whole idea of this disturbing and not very Christian.
Reading the guide book, I found a few amusing entries, such as "...the oldest building in Warsaw, completely rebuilt in the 1940's". I can appreciate the city may have been devastated in the war, and a lot of reconstruction has taken place, but don't tell me it is the oldest building built 60 or so years ago.
Stairs have featured quite heavily in this trip, so we could not miss the opportunity to climb the stairs of another tower to take some more pictures. I can't understand the reason, but the steps in the tower we climbed seemed harder to manage than any other on my travels, but the views were worth the effort. The contrasting skyline was interesting, in the foreground, old irregular roofs mainly red in colour, and further in the distance the new glass sky scrapers of the modern world.
We followed two and a half walks around various places in Warsaw, but following the constant phone calls from BMW giving me unhappy news, and feeling that the whole city was a fake as most had been rebuilt, we headed back to the hotel in the early afternoon.
The news from BMW meant my trip had effectively ended, I was to fly home the next day, on the same plane as Amanda and my bike would follow some weeks later.
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