Before the Autumn

In the days when there were leaves and sunshine and people spent time on benches reading books and enjoying the world around them.

Let's follow the path into Łazienki

Mandarines anyone?

Mr Mouse is always snacking.

A nice warm place to rest

as the sun decides to curl up to sleep

Na Wisłę

A recent stroll down the Wisła (Vistula) allowed me to take a few photos, even some of Most Łazienkowski before it was damaged by fire. The riverbank has started to spring to life with remodelling work as well as with the opening of the new second metro line which has a stop near the "Fish with boobs" statue (aka Sawa). I think Spring and Summer will be a great time along the river this year, and maybe the city citizens will slowly take back the water front from the Wisłostrada road which basically severs the riverbank from the world. Here's hoping.

Racoon says hi.

Fish with boobs

Plac Grzybowski

Recently in Warsaw, there has been lots of "upgrading" of places in the city. I put it into quotations as many people feel these are not upgrades in fact the opposite. Some are complaining even if the locations are returning to their original formats. I guess it is hard to keep some happy. However, they may not have seen Plac Grzybowski (sorry it's in Polish) but it kind of translates to Mushroomish Square.... or something like that. Anyway, Hania (pronounced Hun-ya) the Mayor of Warsaw, she could also be called Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, if you wanted to be formal, has indeed been busy. She has done a fantastic job here with her town architect and the people who assisted in taking an extremely boring and bland square and making it into a place that people will actually want to spend time in.

A great place to kick off your shoes and read a book

Or maybe you could just splash about.

There is long benches for laying back

And chairs for kicking back

There of course is a religious affiliate present

It must be a macho society as the men have stolen all the seats!

But there is a balance with many beautiful wild flower plantations around the square

With all manner of flowers

All colours

All styles

And some friendly locals

a Pair Pillaging the Pollen

While people relax in the sun

The Jewish area that they are renovating note the photos of one time local people

Wawa and storms

Warsaw in summer is funnily tropical. Well, it is to someone from an extremely dry country. This year, we had some torrential rain, which reminded me of the "knock em down" (Banggerreng in the local Aboriginal dialect) storms I experienced in my 6months in Darwin way back in 2000. Then later we experienced lots of lightning and thunder, some really near to the house feeling like we were having a religious experience. You can imagine why people of past generations felt that their gods were angry when they heard such loud sounds. The advantage of all this patchy weather of course is that you get some really pretty light shows. Either as lightning or as bursts through clouds or the ever fanciful rainbow.

As we start our, hopefully, slow slide into Autumn, I thought I should get back to the good old sweaty days in Warsaw. With some photos of the stormy times.