Vancouver Vs. Warsaw: trains, planes and automobiles edition

It’s hard for me to imagine a city that is harder to get around than Vancouver. Partly this is because I haven’t lived in too many cities and partly it is because some 19th century dolt didn’t foresee the rise of the automobile and the growth of the city and decided to build the city’s core on a hard-to-reach peninsula. If Surrey were the core it would be much easier to get around. But then you’d have to go to Surrey.

Whatever the case, as a trip to Stanley Park yesterday showed, Vancouver traffic is hell. It’s bus system is decent but curbside parking means the buses are slower than a kid who’s been dropped on his head one time too many. They also don’t have the same variety of routes as, say, Warsaw, where nary a street is untouched by the city’s bus system.

Vancouver’s Skytrain system has more stations than Warsaw, but the trains are positively puny by comparison, indicative of a smaller number of users. Unfortunately, the aforementioned geography of Vancouver means that the most used stations are packed at the end of the lines. Ideally, of course, you would like the centre of the line to be the city centre, as in Warsaw.

Of course, Vancouver will soon complete its Canada Line, which will extend Skytrain service to Richmond and the airport. Contrast this with Warsaw, where commuter’s to the city’s Prague district on the other side of the Vistula river cannot take the metro. Drivers must instead navigate clogged bridges (like in Vancouver). Mass transit commuters can take (relatively fast) trams or buses.

To reach Warsaw’s outer limits from the city centre, one should expect to spend about 45 minutes in the metro and/or on the bus. To cross the city north-south would take (I’m really guessing) about 90 minutes. East-west I really have no idea but on a bus, I would guess about 100 minutes.

In Vancouver, to get anywhere from downtown will take you about an hour, if not more. From downtown to Port Coquitlam last week at about 3 p.m. it took about 80 minutes. It usually takes me about 40 minutes on metro and bus to get to my home in Central Vancouver.

An unlimited monthly transit pass in Warsaw costs about 75 zloty (about $30). In Vancouver, a one-zone, limited pass costs about $75 (about $75).

Verdict: Warsaw, but mostly due to Vancouver’s unfortunate (albeit, beautiful) geography.

Vancouver versus Warsaw

I know what you’re thinking. Like millions around the world, you’re wondering whether you want to live in Vancouver or Warsaw. I know, it’s a difficult choice, but with some help, maybe you’ll get through.

Like I posted earlier, every person is liable to like, or dislike, a city based on their own preferences and hobbies. But I’ll take a stab at it.

First up, and because I don’t have much time to write right now, the sun and the sky:

The weather, from my own limited experience, is a draw. Warsaw can be warm in the summer, as can Vancouver. Given that I’ve never experienced a Warsaw summer, I don’t think I can compare the two sunny seasons. But I have seen both cities in the winter and neither one is particularly attractive. Both are rainy, grey and dreary. Warsaw gets a little more snow, which can be good or bad, but Vancouver gets a lot more rain, which is definitely bad. On the other hand, Warsaw is quite a bit further north, which means that even when you can see the sun, it dips before the flat horizon before 4 p.m. in winter.

I was going to give Vancouver the point because you can easily retreat into the interior of B.C. to soak up sun or snow. But then I realized that while Poland itself may not be as climatically diverse as B.C., the good transportation links that link Warsaw with, say, Milan, even the field once again.

So a draw it is.

The city that forgot tourism

Krakow may have had the culture, the ancient and prestigious university, the tourists and the stunning castle but residents of Lodz could always note that their city, in fact, was bigger. No more, while the manufacturers of Lodz struggled towards the 21st century, Krakow raced ahead, becoming a tourist and student mecca.

We are in Lodz again this week, visiting Magda’s family. The city is often compared to Manchester; a gritty past focused on clothes manufacturing having given way to an identity crisis in the post-industrial world. And while Manchester has recently taken great strides towards developing a tourist and shopping-oriented economy, Lodz is just starting to take baby steps.

There are posters everywhere touting Lodz as the best choice to be named the 2016 European culture capital and the Manufaktura, a huge shopping and entertainment complex, seeks to use the city’s past to move forward. Piotrkowska Street, meanwhile, is a large shopping stretch with many good pubs. Still, it’s hard to visit and not see untapped potential everywhere.

In many places, sides of buildings never meant to see the light of day lay bare and windowless, the structures on which they used to hug gone. On the above mentioned Piotrkowska Street many buildings have magnificent facades that nevertheless have been neglected. In a Vienna or a Dresden or a Warsaw the columns and the architecture flourishes would be lit up. Here they aren’t even cleaned.

It could be better, but it also allows one to take a look back in time and, like in Lokrum, revel in a tourist attraction without all the polish (no pun intended.)

That’s sick

Island1, at Polandian, has come up with a neat graph that pretty much sums up the situation here.

Unfortunately, he seems to miss the illegal alien sitting in his Warsaw apartment with a bag of Kleenex (yes, bag. Kleenex only comes in those little travel packs here) and a cup of tea.

Not that that illegal alien is me. No, not at all.

In other news, check out the Life section in tomorrow’s Globe and Mail for a story about what we did on Magda’s birthday.

Winter’s last days (photos)

A certain important web critic has brought it to my attention that I have neglected posting many photos recently so here are a couple of Warsaw’s old town that the weather will soon render dated:

The Safety Dance

While the sun is no longer setting at three o’clock, it still gets dark quite early here, given the fact that we are further north than Edmonton (don’t worry, all the snow’s gone here and the temperature is hovering around five degrees). Living so far north during winter, and not having a car, means I’ve been spending a lot of time walking in the dark. Often Magda is with me, but sometimes I’m alone.

And yet, considering we live in a densely populated area of a large city, I feel very safe. This is not extremely surprising. While Warsaw’s eastern district of Praga is known to be a little violent, elsewhere there doesn’t seem to be much threat of robbery or crime. It’s certainly easier to do the ol’ safety dance here than in Salford, Manchester’s grubby little brother, where I lived for a few months in 2005.

And yet, Salford and Poland seem to have one thing in common: an emphasis on security. In the UK, I lived in a student housing complex with a guard’s gate and 24-hour security. If you tried to LEAVE the wrong way the security guards acted like you had offended them personally and all but threatened to throw you in jail. Thankfully, we have no such guards here but our door includes two locks, one of which has two seperate deadbolts.

Elsewhere, we were instructed to lock the door behind us; not only when we were leaving but also after we entered the house. Even out in the forest at Mazury, locking the door is a must-do. For someone who for long stretches of his life hasn’t seen the need to lock the door behind him after leaving home, much less, when he is home, the focus on security is a little strange and alienating.

Even Magda, who, in Canada, prefers to lock the door at night has been taken aback. Still, we have been conforming to the norm, locking the door when we leave (and sometimes when we return) home.

Looking out (photo)

This statue stands just before one drives under the old city of Warsaw. Apparently it’s a tribute for those who fought during the Warsaw Uprising (not for the Nazis, obviously). To be honest, it’s kind of scary.

Cold, red Torun (photos)

Having sufficiently de-thawed my once blue fingers, I can now finally post photos from our recent skull-chattering trip to Torun, a historic city a couple hours west of Warsaw notable for its brick architecture.

A common observation of the trip was how, when you’re travelling in the middle of January, taking photos becomes less like part of the trip and more like the focus. You walk out of your hostel, shiver and bee-line your way towards the attractions, quickly snap some photos, go to the next attraction then try and find somewhere to warm up, be it a restaurant or museum.

Torun boasts its own leaning tower. Literally, that’s what this is called:

And did I mention it was cold?

No winter cruisin’ for us.

Icetime (photos)

Ice and Light (photos)