When I got up today, I decided to have an unusual breakfast. Pork pate on whole grain bread, with horseradish and bilberry jam. My friend Gina told me about it. It sounded about crazy enough to be good. It was, even though I might have gone a bit heavy on the horseradish.
After lingering too long over two cups of morning coffee, playing games on my iPad and reading the news, it was lunch time. The last time I went shopping, I bought a package of beef tartare. It was just the lean meat finely ground. I packed in into a pate jar, which I had saved for just such a use. I didn’t have any eggs, so I skipped the egg yoke this time, only using chopped white onions and Cornichons. I ate half of it with crackers for my lunch. I know, I should have had a crusty baguette.
Having wasted most of the day, I looked through my list of landmarks and found one that would give me about the right length of walk I wanted for the day. I picked the Monte Cassino Monument. Google gave me three choices of paths to take. I picked one, which seemed to include areas I had not walked before.
On my way, I encountered another of the markers for the Ghetto Wall. I believe that the cube shape which can be seen more clearly, in photos of other markers in previous post, shows you were the marker is in relation to the Ghetto’s former area.
I thought about doing a post going to all the markers, but I just found out that Eleonora Bergman had already written one called Following The Markers.
As I walked down the wide shaded sidewalk outside Krasiński Gardens, I could see the white base of the monument to the right of the photo above. I took a photo of the park gates, and was about to move off when the couple in the red jackets (below) walked past. It made for such a good photo, I took another quickly, hoping it would turn out.
I was surprised to learn that the Battle of Monte Cassino, was another name for the Battle for Rome. Had the Polish 2nd corps not staged a suicide attack, losing 900 soldiers, the battle would have lasted much longer and could have even been lost. The monument is carved with a rough harshness, which reflects the brutality of the battle. The statue of Nike and the pedestal have a broken look to them.
After having waited my turn to take photos of the monument, I took a few shots with my phone.
I wonder if the ones taken by the man carrying a big heavy camera, where that much better than the ones I got.
Once inside Krasiński Gardens, I followed the path around to the right, which is my normal way of walking in any space. Could that have come from my firefighting training? I came across the Monument to the Victims of Simons’ Passage. this monument was not on my list of things to see in Warsaw. I have tried to find out more about the monument, but the link in the sentence before is all I could find. I tried my best to translate the plaques on the monument.
On the 45 anniversary of the uprising, by veterans and families.
(A very rough translation.)
The beauty of Krasiński Gardens was a good antidote from the darkness of the two monuments. I walked around the edge, until I realized that I had cut through the park several times without knowing that the two monuments were on the other side. I had cut through from the side of the palace and angled across to the road home. I had no idea that the rest of the park was so beautiful.
It was when I saw Krasiński Palace, that I knew I had been in the garden before. Krasiński Palace is the one with the winged horses in front.
I walked all the way around the lake admiring how the light changed, and how perfect the reflections were. When I went by the childrens play area. I normally try not to take photos of people’s kids. For the moment the playground was empty, so I took a shot to show how nice the public playgrounds are here. The merry-go-round was built to look like a carousel.
Across the path from the lake was a little waterfall.
As I headed out of the garden I ran into a young man who asked me a question. When I told him that I was sorry, but that I didn’t speak polish, he repeated his question in english, “is that the Krasiński Gardens?” I looked it up on the map and showed him that it was the Krasiński Gardens. We spent a little while speaking before we parted ways. He was a good example of how pro-american the polish are.
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