Barcelona to Warsaw

Wednesday, July 1

After breakfast, we went into the subway station at Catalunya & looked for the train to the airport. We couldn’t find it, as I think we went into the wrong subway entrance. Someone there said that Sants is the best stop to get to the trains. That was 6 stops away. I had to use the bathroom, so we asked for directions. Several opinions on how to get there. Finally got off at Sants and found the WC upstairs by all the stores. It was free – which meant that it wasn’t that great. As I looked for a suitable stall, there was no toilet paper in some stalls, no lock on one door, another wouldn’t close, but I didn’t have time to find the ultimate, so had to settle for what I could find! They had stainless steel toilets with no seats. There was soap, water, & a blow hand dryer, though, thankfully. It was still not evident where the train to the airport might be, so we decided to get a taxi & went outside, finding one long queue for all taxis. Cost €30 for one and we were running late; traffic was horrible. We finally made it!
Extra Barcelona airport info: Luggage carts are free, the taxi had an automatic initial charge of €7.50, Warsaw is written Varsovia, and the exit sign says: Salida, Sortie, Sortida (the last word is Catalan, my guess is).
Got on the plane to Warsaw, LOT had comfortable seats, a nice deli lunch, lots of bread and rolls. Buses wait at the airport to take passengers to the terminal. Several baggage claim areas. Met my cousin & her daughter who met us and graciously showed us around. We rented a car for the time we were here- although Poland has good transportation- because I wanted to check out a couple of places my grandparents had lived. We went to Warsaw’s Old Town for dinner at POLKA Restaurant of Magda Gessler. Their website shows their menu. A very classy place with prices that are not astronomical. I had duck with red cabbage & mizeria (cucumber salad) for 39zł ($13). Old Town is a very beautiful area with statues & lovely buildings – all of it rebuilt to look exactly as it was before the Nazis systematically destroyed the area in WWII, razing it to the ground with not a stone left standing.
We stayed at Hotel Novotel in the center of Warsaw. A business type of hotel in the American style with few amenities. A queen bed & a queen futon. We got a good deal (comparatively) for the room. The parking, however, was outrageous, even with the special rate! Normally 120zł for 24 hours, hotel guests pay 85zł per day - over $28 – to park a car at a hotel! So we found, with some difficulty, street parking, although there is a daytime fee. We just parked at night & got up early to pay the meter by 8am (13zł). In Poland, cars park on the sidewalks, usually with 2 wheels on the walkway & 2 on the road. Traffic lights turn yellow before both red and green.