Month: July 2017

A trip to… Porto

When I told friends I was going to Portugal for a holiday, I was met with nods of approval from those in the know and a slight tilt of the head for those yet to sample the delights of Spain’s neighbour. Perhaps the problem is that Portugal is the little sibling to Spain, a cultural juggernaut with everything a tourist could ever want. Yet, Portugal is an easy sell, it’s home to two hilly and sensuous cities in Lisbon and Porto, it has attractions from Roman ruins to Sintra’s fairytale castle and a long coastline, cooled by the ocean to stop it getting too hot, most of the time. For every hour of sunshine in London, Portugal has two. And, there are the custard tarts.

My second visit to Portugal took in Porto, the beautiful city of Coimbra and the seaside town of Matosinhos, but it all starts off at the airport. On arrival, we proceeded to follow the signs for the metro, only to be confronted by blank walls, escalators going the wrong way and smokers huddling in a corner. Retracing our steps, we did the same activities in a different order. As if by magic, an escalator appeared behind a shed which took us down to a car park. It seems that when you follow a sign for the metro, and finally see a ticket machine, it could either get you a few hours parking or into the city. It’s a crap shoot. Eventually, we made it to the train station ticket hall, only to find that the €15, 3-day travel passes we wanted, had to be bought in the tourist centre back in the airport. So far, so horrible.

A trip later on the weird, two-car metro trains that grind along the tracks, we checked ourselves in at White Box apartments, a minimalist hotel on a pedestrianised shopping street. For lunch, we went to try out the Porto “delicacy” Francesinha, at Bufeta Fasa. This most indelicate meal consists of bread, ham, some smoked sausage, chorizo, steak and melted cheese covered in a beer and tomato sauce. With fries. And a beer. It was enormous, and for those on a diet, contains over half of your daily food allowance. By eating it, you are destined to pile on the pounds but on the bright side, it’s so cheap that you’ll also save the pounds. Now I’ve eaten one, I am never tempted to again, but rumour has it that Bufeta Fasa is the best in town. The waitress seemed to be in a mild state of hysteria whenever we interacted. Was she trying to tell me this meal would give me a heart attack after I headed into the city with its infinite number of steep alleys?

1) Tiles are everywhere

In Porto, as in Lisbon, if something can be tiled, it will be tiled. Some of the earliest examples are Azulejo tiles, bringing an Islamic taste to the streets. These tiles do not feature images of people, so will be geometric or floral in style. The main train station, São Bento, has the history of Portugal tiled on the walls. In a nutshell, Portugal has had many fights. Horses feature heavily. Visiting here will ensure an epic start to any journey, though most people were taking photos of the twenty thousand tiles, rather than travelling. Other landmarks clad with intricate tiling include the Chapel of Souls, with the facade almost entirely covered in blue tiles, dating back to 1929, representing the life of Saint Francis of Assisi. The nearby Church of Saint Ildefonso and Igreja do Carmo complete this triptych of tiling, all close by each other.

Chapel of Souls

2) Museums

Porto has plenty of museums to nose around, including the Photography museum, housed in a former prison, which when we visited included a selection of photos of the Royal Family hanging out in various sunny climes. I longed to be back in time where everything seemed so glamorous. On closer inspection, everybody was dripping in sweaty woolen suits and it took an age to travel everywhere. The museum featured an exhibition of photography by homeless people and this was both powerful and touching as the photographers had such a different perspective on the city – benches and doorways took on a new meaning and their was some real talent on display. The best part of the museum was the collection of old photographic equivalent, from ancient Zeiss lenses to Kodak Brownies and a gallery of spy cameras. The exhibition made the past, with cameras hidden in cigarette cases and wallets, seem highly paranoid and anxious.

Old camera equipment

The Serralves museum is a fair trek out of town, but it’s world-class and utterly transfixing when you arrive. Don’t do what we did which was to take a tram to the Casa de Musica stop and then walk for half an hour to the gallery down a dreary main road. Plenty of better options are available, such as buses from Bolhao to the museum. Set in beautiful gardens with over 200 varieties of plants and trees including pine, chestnut, oak, Lebanese cedar and even Giant sequoias from the US, the museum occupies a space that is ideal for a lazy afternoon’s wander around the gardens and some art.

Serralves

Across the Duoro river from Porto’s old town is Gaia, which is itself a city. Here is where all the Port is stored in huge warehouses that stretch on and on with big names like Sandeman, Churchill’s, Taylor’s and Graham’s all offering wine cellar tours which will take you through the history of port. We stopped off for a port cocktail outside Sandeman, taking in the views over to Ribeira and being entranced by the beauty of the river, the bridge and the Rabelo boats, unique to this part of the world.

Livraria Lello isn’t a museum, but may as well be. The bookshop with a staircase that apparently influenced JK Rowling when writing Harry Potter, is unlike any other I’ve been to. Like Ernest Hemingway, Rowling seems to have visited anywhere and everywhere, but the interior does have a Potteresque flavour to it. You have to buy a ticket to get in, which you will have refunded if you buy a book. Nobody was really looking at the books, instead, we were all snapping away at the elaborate staircase, the vaulted ceiling and the stunning hand-carved decorations. It is a clever idea to charge, because the interior is too beautiful to lose and if nobody is purchasing anything, its future would be uncertain.

Livraria Lello

3) Food and drink

One of my favourite spots in Porto was near Praca de Lisboa. Here, the deceptively simple idea was to place a gorgeous garden with green spaces for people to enjoy, on top of a shopping centre in the middle of the city. We enjoyed a mojito from the bar in the garden and spent ages sitting in the sunshine, looking out at the city and wondering why this doesn’t happen everywhere. I was particularly pleased that you don’t have to buy anything at the bar to enjoy the space, and a bit delighted that the bar sells generous glasses of wine for €3 a glass and cocktails at €6 a pop.

Just moments away from Placa de Lisboa is the exceptional tapas restaurant Caldeireiros; when we went, we managed to bag the last table going and had one hour to be in and out, so my advice would be to book in advance. Even though every dish came with a mine’s worth of salt in it, the flavours were exquisite and this was the culinary highlight of our trip. While slightly more expensive than elsewhere, there’s nothing to fault.

A view of the old town

In comparison, the Majestic Cafe on the city’s main shopping street, is a disgraceful rip-off. The cafe has a Belle-Epoque interior that rivals anything in Brussels or Paris and it is genuinely beautiful to look at, but like an attractive person, it knows it and treats you accordingly. €12.50 will get you a distinctly average espresso, a latte and two stodgy nata. Serves me right for idealising beauty, when any less beautiful cafe on the street will treat me like the prettiest boy in the room.

4) The Old Town

I’ve written about beauty in abundance all around Porto and I’ve yet to mention what for many will be the highlight of the city, the old town, Ribeira. Strung out along the riverside by the Luis I bridge, a hotchpotch of ancient buildings tumbles down from high terraces, creating a picturesque delight. On the ground, most of the buildings are tourist trap bars and restaurants but the atmosphere is fizzing with life and more than a fair share of buskers. Taking a step into the old town is to take a step back in time, into a warren of tightly packed apartment blocks, plazas, churches that appear at sharp angles and views that demand to be explored. Porto is a wonderer’s dream and a photographer’s nightmare. Bring a spare memory card, or lots and lots of film.

The old town

As a city break, Porto is hard to beat. I find it hard to switch off, but on this trip I was so relaxed, I could have melted into the floor. Just walking around, stopping off for a drink and a snack is pleasure enough. One mystery remains, though. British phone boxes are scattered through the city, but I’ve no idea why. It was reassuring at least to see that none of them worked, just like at home.

A long weekend in… Milan

It was music that took me to Milan, Italy’s second city, twice in the space of a month. First I saw Radiohead at Monza and then Elbow on the Gardone Riviera, by the shores of Lake Garda. People’s reactions to Milan went from “Oh, now why would you do that?” to “Hmm”. People said it’s not as nice as the rest of Italy, it’s industrial, it’s boring. This was confirmed to me when on my first flight out, a priest described it as the Birmingham of Italy. As a Brummie, I knew full well what he meant, but if Milan really is the Birmingham of Italy, then let’s call it what it is – a city that doesn’t immediately charm but one that is full of interest when you scratch the surface. And Birmingham has more canals than Venice (but the canals are in Birmingham, so…).

Street sign

Of course, there are negatives in Milan’s column. The traffic is incessant and cars would be parked in doorways if only the drivers could fit there, there’s a lack of parks in the city and the ones that are there looked a bit barren and unloved, the homelessness is endemic and the city can feel a bit claustrophobic with endless rows of imposing buildings. But there are plenty of positives, too. Being Italy, culture is never far away, eating and drinking can be a genuine pastime, there are cool districts to the city just waiting to be explored, the city is very elegant in places and some of the architecture is flat-out stunning. An early indicator of charm was Milan’s old trams that criss-cross the city, which really add to the street scene. Over 200 trams from 1930 ply the streets, yet it’s cities like Lisbon that I associate trams with, so whoever does Milan’s marketing can have that insight for free. You are welcome.

Old Tram

You’ll probably start your trip in Milan at the central railway station, which is based on Union Station in Washington D.C. Once Mussolini arrived on the scene, the station grew more monumental, to demonstrate the fabulous power of Fascism. Its dimensions are the architectural version of a mid-life crisis. It is 200 metres wide and 72 metres high, so when you pass through it, you cannot help but feel overwhelmed but the building is deeply beautiful at the same time. I always felt a little thrill to walk through it, looking at the giant eagle statues around the station and craning my neck to see the roof. Stepping outside, you can’t miss the homeless people. It should be a sign of intense national shame to see so many people using the station gardens and verges as a bed, the fountain as a shower but in Milan, it seems even more hideous when there is so much visible wealth everywhere.

Train Station

The best way to start your day is like an Italian, by which I mean have coffee and a pastry in any of the cafes around the city. You can’t miss them, for they are everywhere. It was like a tragi-comedy when my friend ordered a latte in a café, only to find that latte in Italian is milk. But like a good Englishman, he drank his milk, though he would have preferred some coffee in it. Note to self; start learning Italian before the trip starts, not after. For guaranteed excellence, Princi makes excellent coffee and pastries and has five branches across Milan, with a bonus outlet in London. People order their espresso at the counter, sipping from the cup before fleeing. We didn’t see takeaway cups anywhere and the comparison with London is striking as a woman just came into this café, asked to “grab” a coffee and ran out the door, like she’d remembered her house was on fire but needed a caffeine buzz.

After coffee, orienting yourself in Milan is easy. Just head for the Duomo and you’ll be confronted by one of the great cathedrals of the world; it rises up in magnificence – it’s the largest church in Italy when you strip out St Peter’s Basilica in the State of Vatican City and the third largest church in the world. Construction started in 1386 and was completed only in 1965, so no rush there. There are 135 spires and it’s the most marble you’ll ever see outside of a 1980’s school playground. The Duomo first enchanted me in Luca Guadagnino’s gorgeous film I Am Love. Tilda Swinton would gracefully sweep along the church – at times it felt that’s all she did – and I decided that at some point, I would see the building. Getting inside or on top requires you to buy a ticket at the ticket office before queuing up; you can go inside the church for €3, get combined tickets to see the church interior and the terrace for about €13. Or do as we did, enter round the side and climb the stairs to the terrace for €9. The climb is fairly taxing but it is broken up by a few terraces along the way to the top of the building. The views from the top are far-reaching and the workmanship up close is incredible. Large parts of the building are covered in scaffolding currently but you are still likely to be blown away by the sheer scale of the church. We saw a man get told his shorts needed to be at his knees before he could enter this house of God. Odd, really, that the church would worry about boys in shorts. I thought it was their thing.

From the roof of the Duomo

Outside the Duomo is Piazza del Duomo, with the Galleria Vittorio shopping arcade opposite. It is grandeur itself, with stunning mosaic floors, beautiful lamps and a vaulting iron and glass roof that if nothing else, signifies the prices you are going to encounter in the arcade. Stores include Prada, Versace, Louis Vuitton and Gucci and when their sale prices have jumpers at €300 you can see why I passed through to take photographs and not stop off en route. If you’ve some cash to burn, Savini restaurant has tiramisu for only €19. Despite the absurd prices, the area around the Piazza del Duomo is one of Europe’s great squares and without realising it, hours can pass by as you soak up the atmosphere. The Museo del Novecento is worth a visit for a walk through 20th century Italian art such as Futurism, abstract art, some fascist stuff, pop art, and Arte Povera. I was really interested by the art that came about during the fascism era, where things looked the same and interesting creases were ironed out – the future of Italy under this regime was to look back before awful outside influences arrived and took away some of what made Italy so Italian. It was all quite chilling. The collection also throws in some Picasso and Kandinsky for good measure. We went into an exhibit where you needed to sign a release form. I was expecting some Arte Porno, but it was just a series of rooms with strobe lights and uneven surfaces, which is still worth a visit. As you reach the top of the collection, you can view the Duomo out of the windows and admire the neon above you.

One part of the city with plenty of greenery and the glorious joy of shade is Sforza Castle. Within the castle complex are many museums and galleries, including Michelangelo’s last sculpture and a manuscript by Leonardo da Vinci, based on a book by Dan Brown if I’m not mistaken. There is parkland around the castle and in a noisy city, it could have been a refuge from chatter and cars. Instead a man played a guitar loudly for cash. I never did find out if he’d accept cash to stop playing.

The Italians are so classy. While we in Britain call drinking before going out pre-drinks – the idea being to basically move to drinks and then more drinks – the Italians have aperitivo, which fast became by favourite thing that’s ever been invented. It is said that Milan is the home of aperitivo and the idea of having a cocktail and some snacks before dinner is delightfully sophisticated. We had Aperol Spritz with some bruschetta and a rice dish, and it really unravelled my childhood where mum wouldn’t allow snacking before dinner as it would ruin my appetite. And all along, the Milanese are getting tipsy and then going on to eat dinner. I feel robbed.

Navigli district

After our aperitivo, we walked down to the Navigli district, where a series of canals linked together provided a gorgeous backdrop for an evening of dinner and drinks. We ate at Gnocco Fritto, where they serve baskets of fried dough parcels alongside meats, cheeses and pasta. We indulged in four types of sheep cheese, from crumbly through to salty, and a pig’s worth of ham, all washed down with wine. It may not be among the most healthiest of meals, but it was entirely worth the resulting reduction in life expectancy. After the meal, we took an evening promenade. I do love to do this, especially when the scenery is so good. All the lights of the streets bounced off the water, people were relaxed and enjoying their evening and, most remarkable of all, music was kept at a minimum. Even as the night progressed, there wasn’t a switch from music burbling in the background to becoming the main focal point, rendering conversation pointless. We found a wine bar by the water, called Il Vinaccio and had another glass, deeply relaxed and in love with Italian nightlife. Our final stop of the night was on the way home, the remains of the San Lorenzo Roman columns where hundreds of people were gathered in a square sandwiched between a church and the columns. A drunk or high man was cross with us because we didn’t want to buy his drugs and then when he swung back a moment later, he seemed to love us. We didn’t buy whatever mind-altering madness he was on. The police idled at the sides, there in case anything out of hand happened, but generally in the shadows. The atmosphere was electric and rounded off a visit in which all my ideas of what Milan was like evaporated into the night air.

Roman columns

A long weekend in… Warsaw

Here’s a fact that will make you a pub quiz hero. The population of Warsaw before the second world war was 1.3m people. At the start of the Warsaw uprising, in August 1944, 900,000 remained. In 1945, once the uprising had failed and the Germans had finished their systematic destruction of the city, 1000 people remained and Warsaw was dead.

Human spirit is an incredible thing, because the Warsaw of 2017 is a vibrant, modern city boasting the newest old town in the world and an atmosphere far removed from what you may read in the press about a far-right lunatic government. Oh, that Government, let me count the ways… The environment minister Jan Szyszko said that “human development is not detrimental to the environment” and thought it would be a good idea to allow logging in the primeval Białowieża forest. He somehow squares the destruction of Poland’s wildest spaces with something he completely misread in the bible. He’s an idiot.

Back to human spirit, which Warsaw has plenty of. It’s an underrated city absolutely worth a visit. In a region with the opulence of Vienna, the old town charm of Bratislava, the beauty and stag-dos of Prague and Budapest, Warsaw has had to go back to the drawing board on what it can offer as a city. It has a wealth of history, a history so violent and shocking that much of my long weekend there was taken up in museums, mouth agape at the sheer horrors that Warsaw and Poland has gone through. But, modern Warsaw also has some great attractions for hipster living, and just general fun times. I left Warsaw feeling it struck a note between Stockholm and Berlin, with a mixture of beauty, gritty realism, a lust for life and sitting on deckchairs. Deckchairs were everywhere; outside the front of the Palace of Culture and Industry, up on the viewing platform of the Palace of Culture and Industry, outside the Neon museum, along the river and many places in between.

Warsaw is a messy bedroom when it comes to architectural styles, there’s a bit of everything scattered around. From the Stalinist wonder of the Palace of Culture and Science, where a New York skyscraper may well have flown into the centre of the city, to the other major communist gem, Constitution Square, Warsaw announces itself as somewhere important. Constitution square is a slice of socialist realist architecture that really captures a moment in time, when the Soviet Union could do anything in its imagination, if not in reality. The square is surrounded by grand blocks that gracefully echo the strengths of the union, sculptures of heroic workers adorn the sides of buildings in a celebration of soviet myth. An updated version might show a bored woman giving you change at a supermarket, but it would somehow lack the power required to carry everyone forward into the light. On the square are three glorious oversized lamps that add a touch of brute elegance. This architecture of power is always fascinating to see, and there’s some irony in the enormous Samsung illuminated logo on the top of one of the buildings, bringing brazen capitalism into view. The square and immediate surrounding remind me of Karl-Marx Allee in Berlin, but more glitzy.

If I was to think of glitz and Warsaw, I would be drawn to the biggest building in the country, the eighth biggest building in the EU and a testament to the ways the USSR would wield their power. The Palace of Culture and Industry. Back in 1950’s Warsaw, Stalin was keen to offer Poland a gift. With Warsaw in ruins, you might think a hospital, a university or even somewhere for people to sleep might be a good gift, but as our tour guide said, when Stalin asks if you want something, there is only one answer. It was constructed in three years and in making it, 16 people died, which we were told was pretty good going for the 1950s. A sobering thought for the pointless 2022 Qatar world cup is that over 1,200 have died to make their vanity project. The rush to build the Palace was intense, and construction went on 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A benefit of having no neighbours, I suppose. It is, I’m sure, a symbol of the evil of Stalin but the Palace is a marvel and we had a commanding view of it from our rooms in the Intercontinental hotel. Never having to live through communism, I can appreciate the structure, without having to worry about the morals of it.

The building today is a genuine people’s palace, unlike in the days of Stalin where only members of the communist party could attend events, by invitation. It is rumoured that new year’s parties here went on for four days. Keeping that spirit of booziness alive, in 2012, I heard that Roman Abramovich hired a hall in the Palace for Euro 2012 and turned it into a strip club. Today it holds a cinema, four theatres, two museums, a bookshop, a swimming pool and a viewing platform on the 30th floor. You can also go on fascinating guided tours of the building, some taking you down to the basement to see the antiquated machinery and up to the viewing platform.

The history of Warsaw’s near-total destruction is covered in forensic detailed in the Warsaw Rising museum. By January 1945, 85% of Warsaw’s buildings were destroyed, with an estimated 40% of the city levelled by the Germans once the uprising was over, with the population gone aside from a thousand people hiding in the rubble. Germans went around the city with flamethrowers and explosives to gut every building they could, focusing on anything of historical value or national pride, with the aim of reducing Warsaw to nothing more than a military transit point. The biggest building in the old town is the Royal Palace, which Hitler wanted destroyed as early as 1939. During the war, the Nazis conducted aerial bombardments of the palace, removed precious artefacts, tore off the roofing to quicken the building’s demise and in 1944 they spent six days blowing it up. All that remained was two small fragments of wall. Today it stands as the focal point of the reconstructed city and is an attraction worth visiting to understand the history of the building, a fascinating microcosm of Poland’s ups and downs over hundreds of years. One room, the Knight’s Hall, was removed and transported to Russia in 1832 and returned to Poland in 1922. It survived the onslaught of 1939, was removed again by the Germans and only returned to the castle in 1984. This is just one of many original fragments of the Royal Palace that through chance, brave Polish workers spiriting away contents in secrecy and the evil efficiency of the Nazis, managed to survive. The Knight’s Hall is a true gem, with a glorious wooden floor, busts, opulent chandeliers and more.

The Knight’s Hal

Similarly, the Conference Room survived by workers managing to remove many features of the room in 1939, including a chimney piece, wall murals, portraits and even a floor made from thirteen types of wood. In our minds, perhaps a war seems very immediate, but history shows it to be something very different, where people don’t flee their cities but do their best to stall the senseless damage.

The reconstruction of pre-war Warsaw was partly down to the work of Canaletto, who was commissioned to paint twenty-two street scenes of Warsaw. These paintings, like much in the city, was first nabbed by the Russians, then by the Germans, and they somehow all survived the turmoil, now sitting in one place in the Royal Castle. We visited the Castle on a Sunday, when it is free to visitors.

The old town is so remarkable, it’s hard to take it all in. You see what looks like a fairly standard eastern European old town; buildings painted many beautiful shades of green, peach, yellow, crooked rooflines, enchanting views from all angles. But it’s all of 60 years old, if that. The reconstruction of the city is a glorious act of defiance that stands at odds with how Britain rebuilt after the war, in a festival of concrete and ring roads.

All of this…about 60 years old!

The Museum of the History of Polish Jews is a spectacular building, designed by Finnish architects and every bit as adventurous as that would suggest; the exterior is relatively square in shape making the interior’s grand curved entrance even more startling. The building opens up to represent a parting of the seas and is lit from above allowing shadows and shapes to dance over the sprayed-concrete interior. Shapes are everywhere, from the spiral staircases to the slanted doorways. The main exhibition space is below ground and traces the history of the Jews in Poland since the middle ages and it would be fair to say that squabbles and power play have been a constant between the Jews and the Polish, with both sides enacting petty rules against the other whenever it suits. As we travel through history and edge towards the Holocaust, the space feels more oppressive as you get closer to the second world war and the tone is more frantic as history takes one of its bleakest turns. It is important to note that the Holocaust is just one aspect of the museum and the story ends in the modern world, reminding us that Jewish history did not end in the 1940s.

Museum of the Polish Jews

A much smaller museum is the Museum of Life under Communism, which squeezes hundreds of artefacts, photos and tat into a few rooms that imitate a home in communist times. A cheesy record plays on an old record player, with the staff coming along to start it up again. Every room has information in English to tell you about the great time-saving abilities of the commie kitchen – stuff that Westerners will probably look at half in interest and half in amusement, but across the homes of many millions of people would be the same sort of products and the museum is a great time capsule. The house was stacked with Zenit cameras with old film stock, cleaning equipment called Prozek and Wedel Chocolate. Wedel is an interesting company; in the war, the company refused to collaborate with the Nazis and so they were persecuted, with their factory being destroyed in the uprising. Afterwards, the company made attempts to get back on its feet when the communists nationalised it. Since then, it’s been owned by a bunch of global names and now one of Poland’s best- known brands is owned by a Japanese-Korean conglomerate. A history lesson in a bite of chocolate.

A few minutes’ walk more and you’ll find the Neon museum, a celebration of liquefied air that when illuminated, makes everything look immediately cooler. Discovered by Brits, but finessed by the Polish, the neon museum has a heap of Warsaw’s old neon signs that adorned the buildings of the city during the Cold War. Some of the pieces include depictions of bikes zooming off, milkshakes, flowers bursting with colour and the symbol of Warsaw, a Mermaid. The museum also restores iconic neon in their original locations, and it looks like the museum’s work has made Warsaw reminisce for the illumination of old because the city crackles with the sound of neon on many shopfronts.

If the weather’s good, head to the University of Warsaw garden, a huge green space around the university and on top of it. The gardens are separated into two sections; the lower gardens with a pond, many spaces to sit and sculptures by Ryszard Stryjecki. The upper garden is even more impressive as it covers the roof of the university building, with four areas full of paths and differing plants and trees. The views of the riverside and the city centre are remarkable, with clusters of skyscrapers here and there and the familiar outline of the Palace of Culture and Industry dominating.

In the breaks between history and culture, a drink is always welcome and you can’t go wrong if you head to the bars of Pawilony, the cluster of little bars tucked away behind a gate at 22 Nowy Świat. Despite it not being announced by any signs, beyond the gate is pivo enough for everyone. The atmosphere is relaxed yet busy, the clientele a mix of young and older and choosing somewhere to go is really just a lucky dip. As we left the bars, a stag-do came along, singing their songs of fighting and so on. Actually, we had no idea what they were singing but the guttural chanting didn’t sound sweet in nature.

Hala Koszyki

For food, Warsaw packs so much on your plate that you’re going to need elasticated trousers for a few weeks afterwards but it’ll be worth it. A new food outlet is Hala Koszyki, a gorgeously renovated market hall transformed into a grand food hall with tiny bistros nuzzling up to food stands and restaurants. Finding a table was hard to do, so you might find that you eat wherever you can, rather than where you want. Spend some time here checking out the lighting which is an artwork in itself. Just looking around the market is entertainment enough. We had a great brunch at Sam, which sprung up in 2012 and has a deli, bakery, bar, and food through the day. They bring you many, many menus that offer you all sorts of food options, so you can even bring along your fussiest. I’ve noticed this in Poland; some menus will have little arrows telling you that chia seeds are “blah blah good for you” and the omega 3 is “blah blah whatever it does” and that the meat is from some special Polish place with the eggs being from blessed chickens. Menus are turning into little booklets on nutrition and I swear it worked its magic on me when I ordered Shakshuka, which is full of “blah blah all good eggy things”.

We had dinner at Stary Dom, inside an unprepossessing façade a tram ride outside town. The interior is high on rustic charms, with a wooden vaulted ceiling, lots of pictures of old people and generous sized tables with room for all the food and drink you’ll order. It’s genuinely nice to go to a restaurant and have space. It’s not all that fun doing Tetris with your pierogi. Our waiter had a good sense of humour and coerced us into downing shots of the strongest vodka known to man. Clever man. To balance out new Warsaw and old Warsaw, we visited a milk bar. For the uninitiated, a milk bar is a communist-era cheap cafeteria serving up dairy-based food, so expect mashed potato with everything. We visited Bar Sady, where the interior seems little changed from communist times and it’s all the better for it. The extensive menu offers Polish staples like soup, meat and veg with sides of cabbage. I had a mushroom soup with pasta in it, breaded chicken cutlet with potato and red cabbage. The entire meal with a soft drink cost under £5.

Warsaw has many great bakeries, it’s almost guaranteed you’ll stumble over one but here are my highlights. For pastry needs, there’s Vincent where I had an orange croissant. For beautifully structured cakes you can head to Lukullus or Odette but be warned that you’ll not want to eat it because it’s like a work of art. Then you’ll eat it and just buy more.

I went to Warsaw expecting something altogether more grim; after all, I was told it was an “interesting” city with rough edges. Seeing Warsaw in excellent spring weather was a genuine delight. The city might not appeal to those looking for something like Prague, but it has a real depth of character that gives the city a sparky personality. Resilience turned Warsaw from a charred wreck into what it is today, and that’s a thoroughly enjoyable destination I’ll want to visit again.

Many of the photos courtesy of my friend Rokos who has an eye for detail and a head full of 80s pop tunes.