A Day of Botched Reservations

Photo: New Year's fireworks in front of the castle in Warsaw.


Quite a full day; we started out with a full breakfast of eggs, sausages, mixed salads and other hearty breakfast items. By 10:00 we had boarded a train headed south, (our reservations of course had been botched by the ticketing office) and after a ride of about a half an hour, we hopped off for three hours to see as much of the castle at Malbork as possible before heading on to Warsaw. We walked for about 20 minutes through the town, seemingly directly into light rain driven by strong winds. At the castle, which was set to close at noon, we managed to latch onto the last German-language tour group of the day, who were being practically dragged from room to room in the castle in order to see as much as possible in a very short period of time. This all suited us just fine due to our previously mentioned time restrictions. It was an ideal situation; we made the most out of the time we had there. The castle is truly a foreboding structure, and the fierce winds and rain only added to the ambiance of the place. The structure itself is everything one might expect of a Gothic castle and fit fairly closely the images of such places I had as a younger person. Inhabited by Teutonic knights, some of whom were actually veterans of the Crusades, Malbork had facilities for worship, beverage production (apparently at times beverages of a rather high alcohol content) and of course all the usual nifty castle lifestyle contraptions, such as drawbridges, towers, ridiculously deep water wells, and of course gargoyles for pouring hot oil upon would-be invaders.

After the tour, we hustled back through town to the station in order to catch the onward train to Warsaw. Maybe we boarded the wrong train or maybe there was just massive confusion among the conductors, but once again our reservations were botched and we had no seats. After a short discussion with the staff, we settled into a set of first-class seats and were fortunately no longer bothered by the train staff. Darkness fell while we were aboard the train, but not before we took in some impressive scenery and an improvised lunch of bread and cheese. We arrived at Warsaw Centralna a little after 5:00, and as is typical to this part of the country in early Winter, it was already quite dark. It took us an hour or so to make our way from the station to our hotel, stopping along the way to withdraw some money from an ATM machine and to buy a few groceries and some Moldovan champagne. (I’m afraid I can’t highly recommend that country’s spirits.) After check-in and a shower, it was off to the Old Town square to commence our New Year’s Celebration with a fancy dinner at the Dom Restaurancy Gessler, a fine (if somewhat pricey) eatery at which I’d made a reservation for two earlier in the week. (It was also somehow – and at this point unsurprisingly – botched, but happily the maitre d' didn’t make a fuss when he couldn’t find my name on his list.) The food was excellent, and presented to us in a memorable fashion, with cooks and servers appearing around us from all angles to plop our selections, sides dishes, and the corresponding sauces onto our plates direction from their cooking pans as soon as they were prepared. There was also very tasteful and amusing live polka music provided by a five piece band that roamed from room to room in the restaurant’s cellar, a wooden and brick maze-like basement with cobble-stone floor that so disoriented us to the degree that we had to ask for directions when we wanted to leave.

Filled with tasty food (and in my case, Polish beer straight from the tap) we headed back to the hotel for a rest, pausing to admire the reproduced Old Town Square’s picturesque charm and to snap off a few photos of the various shops and governmental and historical buildings along Krakowskie Przedmiescie, the promenade leading from Warsaw’s big commercial district to the Old Town and the city social (and tourist) center. Although at this point I was completely worn out and in no real mood to celebrate the New Year, Conny convinced me to head back out again around 11:30. From the southern tip of the Castle Square, we had a nice (and safe) vantage point for watching the numerous firework-launching merry-makers who sent fire and noise into the chilly air with only a modicum of interest in public safety. After midnight, we headed back to the hotel, drank a bit of champagne (myself quite a bit actually), and finally went to sleep.