We couldn’t check into our apartment in Warsaw until after 14:30 so we were in no hurry to leave our current one as it was supposed to be about a 4 hour drive. As it happened we were ready in good time, helped by the fact that I was awake from 04:30 onwards, albeit dozing.

The road to Warsaw from Kraków is not as good as the ones we’d experienced previously. It is being improved and there are sections of dual carriageway that are motorway-like but then you revert to areas that are yet to be developed so the traffic slows down. It was a bit tedious and I was fighting sleepiness all the way, which made the journey seem even longer. Anyway, we got to Warsaw and found our apartment without too much hassle and I’m sitting at the table typing this just before going out for dinner – tonight we’ve opted for a Thai meal.

We got here around 15:30 and after a cup of tea we went in search of a Tourist Office. Google told us that the nearest one was 850m from us but that closed at four o’clock. The next nearest one was to 1.9km away but that was open until 19:00 so we set off in search of that one. Now I find Google hard to follow when walking, the arrow never seems to point in the direction we are walking. After a while I got fed up with being confused and Julie suggested that we pop into the nearby Hotel Metropole to ask them for a map and directions and the concierge was extremely helpful, pointing out that Google was wrong and that the nearest office was open until seven. The office is housed in the ground floor of the massive Palace of Science & Culture, built between 1952 and 1955 during the communist occupation. It was a gift from the Soviet Union to the people of Poland, using both Soviet and Polish workers. It is quite massive but not pretty. Anyway, we found the Tourist office and were assisted by a very taciturn woman who looked the very part of someone who was from that era – not a great asset to the organization, in our opinion. Still, we got enough information to enable us to plan the forthcoming days and also a suggestion as to where to go to eat and it was there that we found the Thai/Sushi restaurant to try.

We had aperitifs in the flat and enjoyed a nice meal in the poorly attended restaurant. Julie had Japanese style prawn dumplings followed by prawns in a mint & coriander mixture in a sweet and sour sauce, Rosemary had lemon grass & coconut chicken soup followed by Thai green curry (chicken again) whilst I had Japanese style soft muffins filled with not sure what but very tasty, followed by duck breast served with Thai-oriented flavourings – all very tasty indeed and a nice end to the day.