Woolly says – Our day had started with sunshine and the sharp wind of yesterday was no more, we headed across town passing through the residential areas before arriving at the Royal Park.
Łazienki Park or Royal Baths Park is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares which I just hoped that the women didn’t expect me to walk. The park and palace complex lies in Warsaw’s central district (Śródmieście) on Ujazdów Avenue, which is part of the Royal Route linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów Palace to the south. Originally designed in the 17th century as a baths park for nobleman Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, in the 18th century Łazienki was transformed by Poland’s last monarch, Stanislaus II Augustus, into a setting for palaces, villas, classicist follies, and monuments. In 1918 it was officially designated a public park.
First impressions were amazing, thousands of trees just on the autumn turn greeted us as we entered, passing a large statue of the famous Chopin who we would be visiting later we found all manner of busts and sculptures along the pathways.
A small summer house was nestled amongst the trees overlooking a lake which made for a very pretty site.
The cry of red squirrel greeted my ears as Jo and Zoe proceeded to capture a picture of the red squirrels, I sat waiting patiently for them to give up and move on.
We were really excited as we don’t have red squirrels in the UK, so this was a real find for us, sadly none of them wanted to help us in our endeavours to capture their images merely scuttling into the trees and disappearing from site.
Woolly says – After what seemed like hours, they gave up their quest and we continued our stroll passing an interesting sphere sculpture.
Through some more trees we spotted the parks orangery, which is now used as a restaurant, with its glazed dome it looked very fine.
We followed the river along until we arrived at the lake and the palace. Known as the Palace on the Isle it was originally a baroque Bathhouse erected in about 1680 by Lubomirski according to the design of Tylman van Gameren, the most outstanding architect in Poland at that time. Both the building’s interior as well as its exterior elevation were richly decorated with stucco, sculptures and murals which we admired as we waited for the ticket office to open. Bang on time the doors creaked open, and I raced up to the cashier to gain our tickets only to be met with a shaking head from the lady behind the desk. ‘Not open today’ she said, we all looked at her with a puzzled expression as the sign right next to her said open at 10am on everyday except Monday. Jo voiced all of our thoughts and pointed to the sign, ‘Yes usually,’ said the lady ‘special event today’, I glared up at her but before I could mutter anything my human had scooped me up and taken me back outside.
It’s us and we are very used to finding places shut but it would have been great to see that on the website when I checked the night before, with nothing else for it we took a few more pictures of the lake frontage and herded the mammoth out of the park and towards the bus stop.
Woolly says – I felt like sulking but with the bus upon us I didn’t have time so instead I kicked the kerb and climbed on board. Alighting the bus several miles down the road we turned many left and rights to find our next destination.
The Fryderyk Chopin Museum was established in 1954 and dedicated to Polish composer Frédéric Chopin. The exterior of the building was beautiful and although I knew nothing about the man himself, I was eager to learn more about him and his music.
Frédéric François Chopin (1st March 1810 to 17th October 1849) was a Polish composer and virtuoso pianist of the Romantic period, who wrote primarily for solo piano. He has maintained worldwide renown as a leading musician of his era.
Born in Żelazowa Wola in the Duchy of Warsaw he grew up in Warsaw, which in 1815 became part of Congress Poland. A child prodigy, he completed his musical education and composed his earlier works in Warsaw before leaving Poland at the age of 20, less than a month before the outbreak of the November 1830 Uprising. At 21, he settled in Paris. In the last 18 years of his life, he gave only 30 public performances, preferring the more intimate atmosphere of the salon. He supported himself by selling his compositions and by giving piano lessons, for which he was in high demand. Chopin formed a friendship with Franz Liszt and was admired by many of his other musical contemporaries, including Robert Schumann.
After a failed engagement to Maria Wodzińska from 1836 to 1837, he maintained an often troubled relationship with the French writer Aurore Dupin (known by her pen name George Sand). A brief and unhappy visit to Mallorca with Sand between 1838 and 1839 would prove one of his most productive periods of composition. In his final years, he was supported financially by his admirer Jane Stirling, who also arranged for him to visit Scotland in 1848. For most of his life, Chopin was in poor health. He died in Paris in 1849 at the age of 39, probably of pericarditis aggravated by tuberculosis.
The exhibition started with a large interactive screen where we could read about his work and listen to his music at the same time, I felt a bit guilty as I didn’t know a single one of his tunes but there were some very nice pieces for us to enjoy.
Having listened to 20 or so short pieces of quite a large collection we moved into the next area which had a brilliant piece of technology. Selecting a score, you placed it on a dais and that music would start to play while we watched a pianists fingers playing it on the screen higher up. Having enjoyed that we peeked into the concert area which is still used today for competitions and recitals of the man’s work.
Following the arrows, we were then taken through rooms filled with glass display cabinets (terrible for taking pictures through) which told us about his life and showed us photocopies of letters, musical scores and pictures of him and his family. Interactive screens allowed us to find out more about each display, it was very well done.
Climbing up to the next floor we entered a room that dealt with the time he spent at George’s summer house and the music he wrote there which could be heard by opening a drawer which was novel.
Next door taking centre stage was Chopin’s last grand piano which Jo informed me was NOT interactive and I wasn’t to touch it which was a bit mean of her.
The last room told us all abut his friends and how they had supported him, containing a lovely sculpture of him we had just finished pressing all the screens before a large group of school children arrived. Arriving back at the main doors we exited and found a table to sit at in the outside area where we discussed our thoughts on the museum as a whole.
We all felt that the museum’s technology was incredible and that we had learnt a lot but sadly there wasn’t anything other than his grand piano that was real, everything was a copy of the original and there were no actual artefacts to look at. Apologies for the blue lines on the pictures but it couldn’t be helped with the lighting.
Woolly says – With us all feeling exhausted and having clocked up a ridiculous number of miles I suggested a very late lunch at a small place just up the road. The women were more than happy to oblige, and we tucked into our first proper Polish feast of dumplings, baked potatoes and stuffed mushrooms which were scrumptious. Full to bursting we set off back to the accommodation to ready ourselves for the next day and another city to see.