Culture

For the last few days a part of the main Piotrkowska Street was closed and turned into a construction site of a stage which hosted a big pop concert last night.
I won't delve into the details of the so-called stars taking part in this carnival-ending event, as it's not really my kind of entertainment. This post is supposed to be about culture, anyway. And, believe it or not, we've got plenty of it here in Lodz. We've got so much culture, that we have decided to compete for the title of the European Capital of Culture in 2016.



There are many cultural events taking place in Lodz throughout the year, among them many festivals. Let me list just a few. There's the Festival of Dialogue of Four Cultures in September, focusing on the multicultural past of the city, when Poles, Jews, Germans and Russians lived and built the city together, presenting music, theatre and other arts related to those cultures. The film traditions of Lodz are cultivated by Camerimage (November/December) - the one and only international festival honouring the art of cinematography, attended by international movie stars & directors. For photography fans there's the International FotoFestival in May. As we're talking about "-graphy" festivals, let's not forget about the International Festival of Comics - great place for all comic books fans. There's even more visual goodness at the Lodz Design festival.


I could go on and on and on about all those cultural events, as there's a host of other theatre, music, performance, and other art-related thingies happening all year round in Lodz. I'll update this post with more details when I feel like it.

Cycling

It's still a cold February, but I swear that a few days ago I could smell Spring in the air - so I cleaned the dust off my bicycle, and promised myself to ride it to work every day from now on.

So I thought I might post something about biking in Lodz. Saying that Lodz is a bicycle-friendly city would be a serious overstatement - especially in the dense city center - however things are beginning to change. Not only there are lots of people using this two-wheeled, muscle-propelled vehicle, (riding their bikes with style, depicted on Lodz Cycle Chic photoblog) , but there are also a few NGOs fighting their way through the hard heads of City Office clerks to improve the quality and quantity of bike lanes in the city.
And let us not forget about the popular transport on the main Piotrkowska street - the rickshaws! Fearless rickshawmen ride up and down the street even in the worst weather conditions. There's even a nice catchy song about them - "Lodzer Rickshaw Man" by Ziemowit Kosmowski sung in English.


Finally, the city is planning to introduce city bikes that you can rent in numerous stations located all over the city - a great idea for tourists who like to do some sightseeing on two wheels.

Oh, I forgot - I had to break my own promise, winter struck back, and I'm not such a cycling fanatic to ride a bike in a blizzard.

Industrial stuff

In my last post I mentioned something about the New City Centre. Imagine old industrial and railway station area turned into a new shiny centre of art, commerce and who knows what else. Add to that David Lynch and his film studio planned somewhere around this magnificent place:

...and you'll get a pretty nice outlook on the future of this area, which was once the first coal power plant in the city ("EC-1"), built in 1907.

However, if you're not really into such industrial-artsy-fartsy scenery, there's still the old city centre (which was once itself called "the New City" - long story) , full of charming vistas. More about that soon.

Geography

As today I'm on my way to the capital city of Warsaw, I thought it might be good to kill one and a half hour of train ride by composing a new post on my shiny new blog. For all those who thought Poland is all about polar bears, wooden huts, dense forests and vodka here's the news for you - as any other Central-European country we have trains, laptops and mobile Internet, so we can spam the InterSpace almost anytime and anywhere we want.

As you might probably have guessed, I expect the readers of this blog to be foreign (non-Polish) and planning to visit Poland, hence the basic important information stuff.

Did I write the word: "Warsaw"? Well, this blog is about Łódź, so I will not say anything more about that other city, other than that Łódź is located some 130km south-west of the capital, which means that on maps issued outside of Australia Łódź can be found to the lower left of Warsaw (If you haven't bothered to take a look at a map yet then here's a shortcut.). It takes about 1,5h to get here by train and about 2h or more if you use a car and don't get confused by the ridiculous road network that joins the two cities.

If you get here by train, you'll most probably end up here:

Take a good look at this old station building, because it might be the last time you'll be seeing it! The area around the station is destined to be the New City Centre and is soon supposed to turn into a big hole in the ground. What will happen to the old station? It will be either turned into rubble and replaced with something new and shiny or, if the Forces of Good prevail, saved and restored.

Don't forget that Łódź has its own international airport, so if you're lucky to find yourself in one of the destinations Łódź has a direct regular connection with, getting here will be easy.