parks

Parks are for friends and lovers. For solo contemplative strolls. For families on Sundays just before or after the big meal. For groups of school children taking their Phy Ed class there, walking hand in hand in some loose formation. For grandmas with strollers. Everyone knows that.

When I lived in Warsaw not many days would pass before I'd make my way to Lazienki – the most beautiful park of them all. It’s what you do. Sort of like pouring yourself coffee in the morning. A routine, a habit. (In the west -- say in Central Park or the Parisian Luxembourg Gardens, you must add to this list of park habitués the jogger. In Poland we know better. You shouldn't rush the moment. Contemplation and good conversation require a slower pace.)


Morning in Warsaw. I pull open the familiar heavy Polish window and look out. Another nice day -- gray clouds are floating in, but it's not too cold.





After breakfast, Diane and I set out for the parks. We pick up the Royal Way where we left off yesterday and we enter Ujazdowski -- the first in a string of green spaces. I call this one the lesser park because, nice as it is, it pales in size and presentation compared to Lazienki. But, as a kid I loved this one exactly because of its compact size. It has a pond, a small playground and gorgeous chestnut trees just along its border. You could pick up fallen chestnuts in autumn and make stick animals from them with toothpicks.

Today things look rather bare in a pretty sort of way. Just a handful of people strolling, feeding birds.










Ujazdowski Park checked off. Now onto Lazienki.





We begin with a nod to Chopin. In warm months, many people come to sit on the benches here, liking to conduct a quite conversation in the presence of this great Polish hero. Or they’ll bring the newspaper and read it in the calm of the rose garden, covered now for the winter with boughs of balsam fir.









But the grandest section of the park is down the hill toward the lake and summer palace.

Here’s where our red squirrels play...





And they come to you if you extend your hand and hold out a hazelnut. I brought some rolls of bread from breakfast. The squirrel came up, scampered up my leg (the bold ones do this) thinking he may be in luck, then, finding only bread, ran away pouting, like a kid who was promised an ice cream and is given a bagel instead. Thanks but no thanks.

The birds, on the other hand, do love the bread. Not the peacocks. They nibble it almost reluctantly. In an “oh, alright, if I must” kind of way.





But the ducks and gulls! They squawk and fight aggressively for every last crumb. I typically take this serene photo of the summer palace across the pond, but this time, as I throw pieces of bread toward the pond, suddenly I am left with a photo of the great bird migration.










And there you have it – a stroll through the park. A last breath of city air in a stately environment of trees and crisscrossing paths.










Outside, on Marszalkowska Street, we find a café and Diane sips espresso and I sip tea with lemon. How quickly I fall into that habit here! Paul at the café back home would be shocked that a milky espresso has been so quickly forgotten, replaced by a brew that is weakened by the presence of lemon. Fickle hearts.

I walk Diane back to the hotel, then come right out again for a whirlwind of last minutes. Cross Plac Konstytucji (Constitution Square)  and their small Christmas market (with kielbasy, of course)...



 



...to see my father. A quick look at the familiar view outside his apartment window.


 


...then onto a nearby café to meet up with a friend (tea with lemon!),  with a stop to pick up a duffel bag, to run this way and that so that by the time Diane, Ernest and I sit down to dinner at a lovely place just up the street from our hotel...


 



... I am spent. As I have said many times, after Warsaw, I’m always in need of a vacation.