14 | July | 2024 | Tales from the Hutt

Tuesday, 18-June-2024

As I wandered Warsaw, I let my attention wander. I’ve mentioned how I’d realized that I needed a bit of a break, so I made a point to let myself explore the interesting sights that I saw, without stressing too much about following a schedule or meeting deadlines or anything.

One of the ways that manifested for me was finding the Galeria Kordegarda – A tiny gallery, really just a single room, sitting across from the presidential palace. I noticed it early on my adventures in Poland, while I was initially getting to know the area around my apartment, and took a few moments to walk through.

It’s a rotating gallery, it turns out, with the curators creating focused exhibits instead of broad galleries. The current exhibition was on an artist named Zbigniew Herbert, mainly know for his simple line-art sketches. I perused, I enjoyed, and I appreciated the quick glimpse into the artist’s work.

Thursday, 20-June-2024

I adore post-apocalyptic citycapes.

I mean, I adore landscapes in general. And even some contemporary cityscapes. But cityscapes of crumbling infrastructure, with plants reclaiming the world of iron, glass, and cement… Now that’s just a special kind of beautiful.

That’s actually the look that I aim for with my gardens, interestingly enough. “Plants reclaiming civilization” is the goal – that’s why I love rusted wrought iron, shattered ceramics, and crawling vines so much.

As I was exploring Warsaw, just wandering about and appreciating the calm and opportunity to walk without a goal, I saw a garden in the distance. A glass dome, specifically, with vines crawling up around it. It called to me, and I answered by curving my path and heading into the garden surrounding it.

I couldn’t have imagined just how amazing this garden would be… nor that it was actually part of the University of Warsaw!

It turns out – I first saw the University Library a bit earlier on my walk – the front facade is… well, it’s hard to describe, except that I feel like this is what the Library of Alexandria should have looked like. I’ll let my camera do the talking, here. You know what? I’ll just step back and let the camera paint you, my dear readers, a picture of the entire landscape: