20 east

According to a survey conducted by the British Post Office, Warsaw is the “best value cultural destination”.

I’d hate to take anything away from my beautiful Warszawa but that really is a lot of old smelly pants! In fact the whole survey is pants. How they got those costs is beyond me. They are suggesting a 3 day trip to Warsaw including a visit to the opera would cost 75 quid. The opera alone accounts for 24 so that means the rest of the trip cost a total of 219 PLN! Sleeping on the street and eating nothing but McDonalds, maybe, but otherwise – you’re ‘avin a larf!! The other costs are equally wrong but perhaps slightly less ridiculous.

Anyway, cost is one thing and the other is just what “culture” you’re likely to see in each city and on that front places like Rome, Paris, London and Amsterdam knock Warsaw into a cocked hat. Spend the damned money and go somewhere nice for goodness sake!

They complain about the entry price of 10.40 GBP for the Van Gogh museum in Amsterdam. WORTH EVERY PENNY!! I’d pay 104.00 and still not complain (providing they didn’t have too many exhibits out on loan). Van Gogh’s work is the only art to almost literally slap me in the face with it’s brilliance when seen “live” as opposed to prints or other reproductions. It simply cannot be reproduced. So, go to Amsterdam and go to the Van Gogh museum.

Even better, perhaps, go to Paris and go to Musee D’Orsay. Then you get a few very good good Van Gogh works (the site of my first exposure) as well as bucketloads of mouth watering impressionist stuff from the usual suspects AND some very yummy sculptures from Rodin. Now that’s what I call a museum worth visiting. Skip the Louvre and its Moaning Lisa, compared to D’Orsay it’s Boresville, Arizona.

The National Museum in Warsaw does have some excellent paintings but they are all Polish ones and therefore nothing that anyone else apart from me a couple of mates will have ever heard of or seen before. They are an “acquired taste” and so a three day, street-sleeping trip just won’t cut the mustard. Anyway, it’ll take you two of those days just to take in the grossness that is Matejko’s Grunwald and Siemiradzki’s, Christian Dirce!

Way back in November I wrote about religion and promised to come back with more thoughts on living in a strongly Catholic country. Well, time has marched on and I also promised my chums at Polandian to write something about religion. I have therefore killed two birds with one stone and jotted down some hopefully thought-provoking words over there.