Resilience lives in Warsaw
6/03/2010 Posted by Shella Skye
Poland's history is a chronicle of invasions by powerful forces. It's also the story of its people's resilience in fighting for their independence and maintaining their language and culture.
To understand the historical forces that have shaped Poland, two of its cities, Warsaw and Krakow, should be among the traveller's essential stops.
The country's capital, financial hub and largest city, Warsaw has literally risen from the ashes of the Second World War. The Nazis destroyed about 85 per cent of the city in 1944. Today, modern office towers in the financial district contrast sharply with the remnants of Soviet-era architecture and the city's medieval Old Town.
Warsaw's picturesque Old Town market square, lined with burgher houses, originally dated from the 13th century. Painstakingly rebuilt using pre-war paintings and photographs, it is on UNESCO's list of World Heritage Sites as an outstanding example of restoration.
On the eastern side of the square stands the Royal Castle, the residence of Polish royalty from the late 14th century. It was plundered and blown up by the Nazis but was also exactingly restored, a process completed in 1984.
Lazienski Park, Warsaw's largest park in the centre of the city, was the grounds of the summer palace of Stanislaw Poniatowski, the last king of Poland. The palace was completed in 1793, but the king only had two years to enjoy it before he was forced to abdicate. It suffered minor war damage and is now open for guided tours and exhibits of contemporary Polish art. The park includes an ornamental lake, an amphitheatre, and wandering peacocks.
Not everything worth seeing is as beautiful. The Palace of Culture and Science, a famous Warsaw landmark and Poland's tallest building, was a "gift of friendship" from the Soviet Union and completed in 1955. Disliked from the beginning by Warsaw residents, this colossal example of Soviet architecture is still known by its various monikers, including the Russian Wedding Cake and Stalin's Syringe. It's now used as an exhibition centre and office complex.
Warsaw abounds in museums and galleries, notably the Historical Museum of Warsaw in the Old Town that tells the story of the city from its beginnings, and the National Museum with its collection of religious art including the glorious 13th-century triptych depicting the martyrdom of St. Barbara.
A stunning new addition is the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which opened in 2004, the uprising's 60th anniversary. Between August and October 1944, the Polish Home Army (resistance movement) tried unsuccessfully to liberate Warsaw from German occupation in the face of the advancing Soviet army. About 16,000 Polish insurgents were killed and as many as 200,000 civilians died in the fighting and subsequent reprisal attacks. The uprising infuriated Hitler, who ordered the city destroyed.
Housed in a former streetcar power station on the southwestern edge of the former Jewish ghetto, the museum charts the uprising with photos, film footage, artifacts and recorded testimonials of those who survived.
Little remains of the Jewish ghetto except remnants of its wall. In 1940, the Nazis crammed as many as 450,000 Jews from Warsaw and outlying districts into an area to the west of the city centre surrounded by a three-metre-high brick wall. By mid-1942, when evacuations to the death camps began, about 100,000 people had died of starvation and disease.
In 1943, those who remained took up arms in a desperate act of defiance.
The ghetto uprising lasted three weeks until the Nazis gassed the leaders' bunker and later razed the ghetto. A monument to the uprising's leaders stands where the bunker was located.
Krakow, Poland's most popular tourist destination, is a pleasant three-hour train ride southwest of Warsaw. The capital until 1596, Krakow was looted by the Nazis, but its medieval and Renaissance architecture emerged from the war intact. The city is the home of the renowned Jagiellonian University, which counts astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus among its alumni.
The historic Old Town, on UNESCO's World Heritage List, has enough churches, galleries and monuments to keep tourists busy for days. The medieval town square is the largest in Poland. Dominating it is the Cloth Hall where cloth merchants once sold their wares and vendors now hawk crafts and souvenirs.
St. Mary's Basilica, with its two towers of unequal height, overlooks the square on the east. The lower tower, capped by a Renaissance dome, is the bell tower. The taller, topped by a spire, is the watchtower. Every hour, a bugler plays a melody in memory of the medieval bugler who attempted to warn the city of Tatar invaders. The melody breaks off in mid-bar, reminding listeners of the legendary watchman whose throat was pierced by a Tatar arrow.
The church's main altarpiece is a pentaptych depicting scenes from the Virgin Mary's life, the largest piece of medieval art of its kind.
Carved by Viet Stoss and consecrated in 1489, it was smuggled out of Krakow during the Second World War. Located by the Nazis, who considered it German property because Stoss had been born in Germany, the masterpiece was stored in a bunker in Nuremberg during the war but later returned to Poland.
Leonardo de Vinci's Lady with an Ermine, the portrait of 15-year-old Cecilia Galleriani, was also plundered by the Nazis and returned to Poland after the war. Housed in the Czartoryskis Museum in the Old Town, it is one of only four female portraits painted by the Italian master.
The old Jewish quarter, Kazimierz, is named after King Casimir III, who established it as an independent town on Krakow's southern outskirts in 1335. In subsequent centuries it became home to Jews fleeing persecution all over Europe. In 1941, the Jews of Kazimierz were forced to relocate to the new ghetto in the city. Under the communists, Kazimierz was a forgotten, neglected place, but restoration began in the early 1990s, and its revival took off when Steven Spielberg shot Schindler's List there in 1993.
Today, Kazimierz is a charming enclave of restaurants and bookstores. Jews come to pray in the 14th-century Remuh Synagogue and its cemetery. The Galicia Jewish Museum, commemorating the victims of the Holocaust, opened in Kazimierz's market square in 2004.
The Auschwitz-Birkenau labour and extermination camps, 60 km west of Krakow, have become a symbol throughout the world of genocide and the Holocaust. It's estimated that about 1.1 million people, 90 per cent of them Jewish, died at Auschwitz-Birkenau.
Now a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it is visited by about one million visitors every year, entering the barbed-wire-encased encampment through the gate bearing its infamous legend, "Arbeit Macht Frei" -- Work Sets You Free.
Taste of Tuscany
6/03/2010 Posted by Shella Skye
Even if you don't already dream of days under the Tuscan sun, if you talk to Ivano Reali, you'll soon be dreaming.
Reali is the managing director of a Tuscan castle that dates back to the 12th century.
It includes a winery that's been operating since the Renaissance and a restaurant where the favourite seats are on a patio amid the grapevines.
And once Reali describes how to spend the perfect day in the area, you'll surely want to start packing.
"You start just south of Florence," says Reali, who speaks English with a melodic Italian accent. (He worked in New York City for 11 years.)
You get on a winding back road -- "it's called the 222; it's easy to find in the village of Grassina" -- and spend your day making your way past vineyards, up forested hills and stopping in ancient villages, until you hit Siena.
"If you didn't stop at all, this drive would take you, maybe an hour and a half to two hours," says Reali. "But you should take your time on this fantastic road, where you go through some of the most beautiful villages in Chianti.
"Then you can return on the autostrada and be back beside the castle's swimming pool, where you can relax with a bottle of wine before dinner."
Reali was in Ottawa last week to spread the word about Castello di Gabbiano -- the castle and the winery of the same name. I asked him to name the top tastes of Tuscany -- the foods and drinks a visitor shouldn't miss -- and it turns out you can find all of them on his favourite drive.
Chianti Classico
"Number 1," says Reali, "is that you should stay in a wine area, where it's not as hot as some other parts of Italy, and taste the wine there, where it's made."
Castello di Gabbiano is in an area designated "Chianti Classico," to differentiate it from the lower-quality, ordinary Chianti many North Americans remember in bottles with woven baskets.
"Chianti is the most known red Italian wine, and what we're doing now is improving the quality," says Reali.
Reali says Chianti Classico is smoother and richer-tasting than ordinary Chianti, but "for me, it is not only about the wine, but the area it comes from.
"I think Chianti Classico comes from one of the most beautiful areas in the world, with these fantastic hills, with olive trees and old houses from the Renaissance, and when you taste it, you see all that."
Chianti Riserva
"You should also try a Riserva, to taste the difference," says Reali. "Each winery in the area (there are more than 300) does a regular Chianti Classico, which is released after one year, and also a Riserva, which is released after two years."
Riservas, which generally cost a third more than regular Classicos, are made with the vineyard's best grapes, from the best slopes.
"Riservas have more body, more concentration, more fruit and more alcohol," says Reali. "They're a better wine, but Classicos are an easier wine. A Riserva needs more reflection."
Affettati
At 4 p.m., says Reali, you should stop for affettati.
"It's the best appetizer. It's always a mix of prosciutto -- Tuscan prosciutto is a bit salty -- and salami and pancetta. It needs to be fresh, cut immediately after you order. It's served on a plate, with bread and sometimes pecorino (cheese). It's fun. It's something you share with other people. You are together, you talk and share a nice bottle of wine."
Bistecca Fiorentina
"The steak comes from the Chianina cow, from the Chiana valley near Cortona," says Reali.
Popular also in Brazil, the Chianina is one of the oldest breeds of cattle in the world, dating back to the Roman Empire.
"You can get this anywhere in Tuscany," says Reali, "but it's really Florence's specialty."
Olive oil
Olives aren't native to Tuscany, Reali says, since the area isn't temperate enough. "Every five or six years, we have a harsh winter and lose many trees."
Olive oil is made at Castello di Gabbiano, but just 3,000 bottles a year. While the estate's wine is exported all over the world, you can buy the olive oil only at the castle's cellar door.
"The olive oil really is magnificent," says Reali. "We pick the olives early. If you wait, you get more oil, but it gets bitter and aggressive. Our oil is nice and crisp. Sometimes I even have trouble adding the vinegar" (to make a vinaigrette).
In summer: a salad
In Italy, the emphasis is always on what is fresh right on your doorstep, says Reali.
"In summer, I love a mixed salad that comes right from the garden; the lettuce, the tomatoes and cucumbers are so fresh. It's tossed with our olive oil and red-wine vinegar. We make a balsamic-style vinegar, but we can't call it balsamic vinegar, because that's only from Modena and Reggio Emilia, about an hour away."
Like the olive oil, the vinegar -- called Delizi del Castello -- is sold only at the castle's cellar door.
In autumn: wild boar
"Fall is the season for cinghiale; it's hunting season for wild boar in Tuscany," says Reali. "It's a true Tuscan dish in the fall. It's very robust, always done with a nice, spicy tomato sauce. You would have it for dinner with a Riserva."
Cappuccino
"Cappuccino is what I miss most when I'm out of Italy," says Reali. "You can get fantastic espresso in North America, but cappuccino, no. For us Italians, you only have cappuccino in the morning. If you see someone order a cappuccino after dinner, you know they're a foreigner."
Peposo
"In Tuscany, they don't put salt in the bread," says Reali. "I once asked why, and was told that it's because the food has more chilies than other areas, so you don't need the salt in the bread."
Peposo is a fiery kind of beef stew, with pieces of meat, tomatoes, vegetables, pepperonis, rosemary and chili peppers, says Reali.
It's the specialty of the town of Impruneta, which is southeast of Florence.
Gelato
"Every city and town in Italy has a gelateria," says Reali. "They will have 20 flavours -- chocolate, vanilla, limona, hazelnut . . .
"When you drive down the 222, in the small villages, you always find the gelateria in the piazza in the centre of the town. You miss a lot of Italy if you don't get out of the big cities; you don't see the heart of it. If you see a small place, go there and experience it. Stop for a gelato. You will be transported."
IF YOU GO
What: Castello di Gabbiano has 11 rooms and four nearby apartments. Cost: Most rooms in the castle cost 180 euros (about $250) a night. Apartment suites are 160 to 180 euros ($220 to $250) a night.
Dining: You can eat in the castle restaurant, Il Cavaliere, even if you're not staying at the castle. It seats 50 inside and 70 on the patio.