Warsaw 2

 March 22, 2026

Slept ten hours. 

My intuition that these cruise vacations were not for a single traveler turns out to be correct.  I am the single single. No table has five chairs. 

Evening. Last night and this morning I feared this trip would be an ordeal to be endured. A rigid schedule, forced and unsympathetic society, the revulsion of guided tours. . . but by turning things back to the travel I remember, this afternoon redeemed all, finally released from the tour, alone, sitting across from Sigismund Vasa’s palace, drinking Belgian beer (which is what the waiter construed from what I asked) and thinking “Yes, this is me, back on the road, taking it all in.” I was happy. I was the man I’ve always been on the road. The great sponge absorbing, the great chameleon becoming. 

The morning bus tour through historic Warsaw was informative and grueling in equal measure. Our very cute guide fixated on the cruelties of the Nazis and of Stalin, but, since the Old City has disappeared, perhaps that is the balance of the story. 87% of the structures in Warsaw were pulverized. We went to the Ghetto, which was devastating even though time has been successful in rooting out every trace of physical remembrance. I turned my back and wept at the monuments. Can I go to Auschwitz? I barely endured the Warsaw ghetto, of which almost no palpable remnant remains. Men sit up at night imagining new sins, new atrocities. Laborious cruelty has been the ensign of the nations.  

Staggering back to the hotel across the many vast public squares I regretted tomorrow’s rush. Having discovered the Old City, I could spend days here in delight now, wandering around, poking into corners. Even the state of my legs was endurable. 

Why is the symbol of Warsaw a mermaid? Turns out she’s a Lorelei, a Wistula Maiden who lured men to their doom in the river when there was no one here but fishermen.