Locations: Southend, Amsterdam, Berlin, Wolstyn, Poznan,
Berlin, Hamburg, Amsterdam, Southend.
Music: New Season (Luke Leighfield), Best of the Lighthouse
Family (Lighthouse Family), ill Manors (Plan B)
Accomodation: Lalo Calado, Wolsztyn train house, IndustriePalast (Berlin), Hotel Budapesterhof (Hamburg).
So this summer my father and I bought some interrail passes
and set off for Europe. The aim was to get to Wolszytn, Poland where we had
booked a steam-train experience for Dad and to see some cities and museums for
me. We did well at achieving both these aims.
We used our local airport, London Southend, an anachronism
as its in neither London or Southend, which was really helpful seeing as the
flight was early and it was the end of the Olympics. The flight was speedy and
soon we arrived in Amsterdam and grabbed some much needed caffeine next to a
sex museum which offered to ‘tell you the history of sex throughout all time’
for the small some of 4 euros, needless to say we declined.
(Even Mona gets thirsty!)
A long rail journey to Berlin followed, our first brush with
the slower pace of interrail travel, feeling we stopped at every hamlet
between Amsterdam and Berlin, but appreciating the countryside nonetheless.
After a brief mix up, we got off the train at ZooGarten instead of
Hauptbahnhof, we met the lovely Lalo Calado who had made us hand-drawn maps and
found us some metro maps. A very gracious host had prepared a spacious room,
complete with German flat-mate to await us. We had a swift Italian near his
house and I ordered all the food in German, colour me smug!
The next day after an incident that I can only call
miraculous, Dad and I did a quick swoop of Berlin before heading for Poland.
Dad stood by the Brandenburg Gate looking at the site of the Berlin wall for a
full five minutes just saying, ‘wow’. My Dad was 12 when the Berlin wall was
constructed and it was still standing when I was born; he felt the full weight
of ‘history as current affairs’.
The train to Wolsztyn was a definite upgrade on the day
before, only an hour and a half and in compartments. Acknowledging Leighfield’s truth,
‘you are quiet but you are there, you are whispering through the world’
(Whispering) I really enjoyed our trip into the unknown. Poland struck us
immediately with its flat immenseness. A land very much under-construction, but
still featuring tractors on the highways. We were picked up by a slightly
dubious chauffeur, who knew you could text and drive at the same time (!), and
driven to the village.
Dad was in heaven, surrounded by Prussian steam engines and
free to roam the engine shed. We enjoyed getting to know the little town of
Wolsztyn with its cheap eateries, newlyweds taking their wedding photos infront of engines and complimentary wifi (in the middle of the
lake – something makes me think they were trying to get rid of the teenagers!).
We made the most of the Goulash soup (cue, ‘its never Goulash day!) and the
local beverages.
(One of three couples I saw posing near the hulking beasts!)
The next day, having had our original steam plans thwarted by a ‘fault’, we
got the modern train to the local city of Poznan. On the train we were
travelling through ‘Great Escape’ territory and it struck me that you would
have to have run a long way before you were safe in that flat, agricultural
land. It was also on the train we heard about Claire’s A level results and Dad
noticed, with much nostalgic sadness, that the stations were in disrepair.
(Station Demise)
Poznan is a city on the move, it is expanding all the time.
It has got a very pretty town centre dating back centuries and including a picturesque town hall (16th century), the main feature
of which is a pair of rams which butt-heads at 12 noon. We enjoyed some pretty
looking coffees in a garden cafe but I got bitten to shreds. We visited two
museums in Poznan, the first was a traditional town museum at the Town Hall,
think Cologne or Dusseldorf Statt Museum but less interactive. The second
museum blew our minds. It was hidden in the base of the new cultural centre at
Poznan and concerned the Poznan Uprisings particularly, 1956 when many people
lost their lives in the protest. There were two things that struck me about the
exhibition, the first was that neither me nor Dad knew anything about it, and
the second was how effective the museum was; it featured a variety of media
from propaganda museums to mock-up cells and original artefacts. All of the
audio was available in four languages including German and English and the
layout was imaginative making use of old tram cars and hiding speakers in
blocks of concrete. Made the single use of my ‘Polish’ app in order to ask the
lady where the toilet was and took a rather emotional father back to the
railway station. Poland is not England, heath and safety does not exist, so
when we needed to change platform to board our train the only thing to do was
jump off the platform, cross the tracks and climb the other one, quite a feat
when you’re wearing a dress! Returning to more depressing news about the ‘train
fault’ I wondered whether we’d been fooled into a con; we made conversation
with our host who had lived in Great Wakering, this would not be our last brush
with Essex in Poland.
(Poznan Town Hall)
Despite the initial problems Dad did get to drive his steam
engine in Poland but not until Friday afternoon; impatient to meet Berlin in
more detail I went on ahead. On the platform I was nervously waiting for the
train in the Polish lady, making conversation with the lady (phew!) who had driven me to the
station. A hopeful, tired man and his bike rolled towards us asking, ‘Do you
speak English?’. This man turned out to be Mel, he’s a teacher in Southend who
was cycling from Southend to St Petersburg who’d had a bad run of luck. We
spent most of the trip to Berlin praying we were on the right train (the
station commander only spoke Polish) and marvelling at the small size of the
world; even the train had gone through Sopot (twinned with Southend!).
Tune in on Monday for Part II. Berlin.
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