Poland being back in my good books (and good to see Donald Tusk back on the scene), with the real reason being a walk with Fritz Heiber, Empor Berlin, on 2 November, with a very early start from Berlin.
Despite the fact that I am a morning person, it did not take much self-convincing to decide to treat myself to a night in a hotel in Stettin in order to be able to get up and have breakfast at leisure before meeting the others at the train station. And then – what the heck – another night there in order to have breakfast at leisure on 3 November as well, given that that is my birthday. Not an interesting birthday – 71 – but considering that I am still around, and spent my 70th birthday in “Reha”, this will make a nice change. By the way, not a word against the Hamm Klinik Sankt Peter Ording – I thoroughly enjoyed my four weeks of “Reha” there this time last autumn.
More about my strained relationship with Stettin later, which is only getting marginally better, with all those damn barriers everywhere with seemingly no other purpose than to make life miserable for pedestrians. Cars can of course move around unhindered and are clearly still king in Stettin while pedestrians are unwanted.
Anyway, I played a bit with low shutter speed, as well as (unsuccessfully) my aversion to photographing people :-), and caught some vibrant autumn colours on the way too.
By the way, I saw large flocks of storks, both in fields and in the air, but was never fast enough to photograph them. Always a wonderful sight, though.
After I had checked in at my hotel and decided to stay and not go straight back home (which I might have done, had it not been for the historical city walk I was signed up for the next day), I headed for the river. Stettin is blessed with a lot of waterfront but does nothing to make the area particularly appealing. Such a shame.
At the Chobry Embankment I headed back and started to look for a Vietnamese restaurant for dinner later, which would have been one redeeming feature, but unfortunately, I did not find any.
Some photos of the relatively new philharmonic:
Today’s afternoon route on MapMyWalk here. Total distance walked: 13,5 km.
Day 2
After a leisurely breakfast, and before meeting the other fourteen people off the bus from Berlin via Angermünde, I went out to have a look at the area beyond the central station – very run down, full of barriers, supposedly because of roadwork, and even more difficult to navigate than the area around the by now infamous new central station under construction in Stuttgart. Incidentally, Stettin reminds me quite a lot of Stuttgart – full of barriers and stairs.
Despite the fact that the others travelled on a Deutsche Bahn “Ersatzbus” from Angermünde, they arrived punctually, and we had a very nice and interesting walk. Eckehard Heiber had put in a lot of work and effort to prepare and make this happen, and even booked a table for lunch for us in a very nice restaurant: Karczma Polska with modern Polish food and great service. Highly recommended.
After the lunch, the others headed towards the station, and I went to the contemporary art section of the national museum. Not wildly interesting, I have to say. Afterwards, I checked out the shopping inferno called Galeria Kaskada. Not too bad, actually, and had I been in shopping mode, I could easily have found something to buy, and at lower prices than in Berlin.
I can’t think of anything else to do here, so tomorrow, all that remains is another leisurely breakfast (what a shame – I hate that ;-)) and return to Berlin, hopefully in time for the bridge evening at my place.
And then I have to start preparing the next project – the challenge I have set myself to visit and try to take acceptable photographs of things and places I don’t like (Christmas markets).
