Warsaw, Poland

Wednesday and Thursday, 13 and 14 September 2006

Lured by the website of the "Garden Villa" hostel in Warsaw (judge for yourself at http://www.hostelworld.com/availability.php/GardenVilla-Warsaw-17526 ), which boasts having its own swimming pool, we are looking forward to a few days of shoe-string luxury. We arrive to find that the hostel shares a "garden" with a psychiatric hospital - we are noticing a trend here (see Gdansk). Also the "villa" is being completely gutted with only the top floor half-way habitable. It is difficult to say whether the dishevelled people we meet in the corridors are (a) staff, (b) patients or (c) plumbers and we keep expecting to bump into Basil Fawlty with Manuel in a headlock. Warsaw is not the prettiest of cities with alot of Stalinesque architecture remaining but the Old Town and Royal Way, levelled during WWII, have been completely re-built and are worth seeing. We also visit the Jewish Cemetary which certainly has an impact. To get a break from the unique Garden Villa experience, we see "United 93" in the cinema - perhaps not the best movie to watch as we are taking a plane the next morning!