Warsaw it again

 After a long 6 hour bus journey (I was expecting 7 hours, but there is a 1 hour time difference) I arrived in Warsaw. Approaching the bridge to cross the Vistul, traffic grinds to a halt. Now entering Warsaw propert with it's 1.8m inhabitants, so a sprawling metropolis.

I had a quick look around the old town, trying to remember where I had been when I firsted visited Warsaw back in 2017. I stayed in a similar area as last time, which helped somewhat to orient myself. Handy to the old town, university.  

I had a spot of dinner with some port that had been minced and reworked into a patty, cabbage, beetroot, potatoes. After I polish-ed that off, I wandered along Nowy Swiat (New World) which had a relaxed atmosphere, well on a Tuesday evening. Might well be different late on the weekend! There is a collection of cafes/pubs/restaurants. At one a guy with a guitar was doing good work with a looper, to play rythmn and solos at the same time. Opposite there is a popular standing bar, with tables but no chairs, where patrons imbibe Ukranian cherry liquor (I had assumed it was Polish!), because that's the only thing they sell. Also nearby was a geeky arcade bar, where you could play old Capcom beat 'em ups. Best one was Cadillacs and Dinosaurs!

Next day, it was time to do laundry, the excitement! Popped into cafe, and get subjected to Wet Wet Wet. Back into the old town, a lot of museums are acutally free on certain days, so I revisted the Royal Palace, which is full of ostentatious golden rooms that like most of the old town was rebuilt after WWII.

Further out I checked out the National Museum. Some interestingly weird religious medieval wood carvings, some of which are kinda gruesome. Such as 'Christ in Distress' covered in hives. In other sections there was 19th century art which was good, then old masters which wasn't so great as bowls of fruit and portraits of old men. Back to Old Town for a few snaps as it's very picturesque at dusk.

Next morning, I went to the fancy Cafe Bristol for breakfast at this historic cafe that's been around for over 100 years. Bit pricier than most places, but I got a dragonfly picture on my latte!

Just nearby in the History Meeting House was a good photo exhibition about Warsaw in it's post WWII rebuilding phase. Showing how the builders would have a scoreboard about who put up the most bricks!

Elsewhere, I found out that the Uni rooftop garden is open to the public, so can have a wander up there and good views near the river. 

I'd bought a ticket to the Copernicus Science Centre as last time I was here, it was sold out. While it was decent, it was abosultely rammed with people, not sure it was worth a seven year wait! Next door was the modern art museum, which had a single exhibit feature Ukranian Folk Art by (checks google) Maria Prymachenko, who had a quite distinct style of vivid animal drawings

Another point of interest was the Melt Museum (everything gets called a museum here), which had some weird AI art. One section used a camera to redraw you in realtime as a cyborg, which is very useful.