Likes Warsaw.

Transcript context

…Not going to go to Ukraine, whether they should or not, right? That’s a shame. And Budapest is off the table . . . so I, selfishly, will start you in Warsaw, because I love Warsaw and I’m a Varsovian. Warsaw is derided, but actually one of Eastern Europe’s most interesting cities. You get that history. The architecture’s not great, but the history’s right there under the surface, if you know what you’re looking for. Good airport, too. Then I would send you south down to the mountains. You can skip Kraków on the same basis, as overtouristed (although it’s wonderful) as Prague and Budapest. Go down to Przemyśl near the Ukrainian border and get a sense of that old Hapsburg infrastructure and get a whiff of that, that you’re right on the border of Ukraine. You’re right on the border of Ukrainian influence, and you’re in that old Eastern Orthodox part of Poland, which used to be. You can go to Szreniawa, too, and the wonderful museums there. Then down through eastern Slovakia, the kind of Ruthenian Slovakia (the parts of these Catholic countries that are Eastern Orthodox), and into northern Romania. Northern Romania is the best place to see traditional Eastern Europe. To see the world of haymaking and hand-built houses and the land of hay and wood. Maramureș is my favorite area. Maramureș is kind of proverbially poor, northernmost half of Romania. Go to — there’s a village I love called Breb, but the whole valley — Ieud — is one of the most lasting, traditional parts of Eastern Europe. You can get a taste of what things might have been like certainly 30 years ago, 100 years ago. Are we too late then — maybe down to Bucharest? You have a few more days left, yes. Pick another place or two.…

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