Temat Rzeka

As today is the first day of autumn, and the summer season officially has drawn to a close, I find it a fine time to write reviews about all of the summer spots down by the river. (While this may seem irrelevant, reviews are inherently retrospect anyway). Next year, each place will evolve and take on a different tone, so, like amber, I will attempt to preserve the essence of these places as they were in the summer of 2014.
This year, Temat Rzeka, while maintaining autonomy, was rather an extension of Plazowy. It was difficult to tell where one place ended and the other began, creating the sensation that the whole area was really one big playground with approximately four bars and as many dance floors. In fact, there was actually playground equiment closer to Temat’s domain, including a swing set and a magical wooden castle jungle gym. While not the best jungle gym in Warsaw — there is a wooden dinosaur up in Kabaty that enables the adventurous to enter into it’s cavernous belly — it provided endless entertainment when one decided to play Druken Pirate of the High Seas in that weird period of time between 1 and 5 am. There was also a skate ramp thing (sorry I don’t know the terminology as I try to avoid skateboards, rollerskates, rollerblades and most of all bicycles.)
Temat, by itself, comprised one bar, two dance floors, one food truck and the beach. As far as I remember there were far more foodtrucks last summer, but summer 2013 was the summer of foodtrucks — summer 2014 was the summer of the beach. I don’t remember any particular fun dance parties at Temat. Rather what I really liked about the venue this summer were the activites planned outside of the normal Firday/​Saturday night fare.
For example, one night a week Temat hosted a film night on the beach complete with a giant blow up screen. Among the films shown were Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan) and La grande bellezza (Paolo Sorrentino). They also screened World Cup matches on the beach. Besides films, the beach provided other entertainment such as live music, beach volleyball, and campfires. During the day many people came to lie out in the sun. Temat provided beach chairs and sun chairs for sunbathers up on its patio, and hired DJs to play during the day.
The whole area was much improved over last summer. Yet, the one thing that really made the experience so much more pleasant overall was the fact that Temat had the large public toilets at its disposal. Always the one drawback of the river, at Temat there is no need to wait in lines for stinky veal-​calf-​sweat-​box blue ceaspools of filth — aka the notorious ToiToi. At Temat, girls can urinate like civilized ladies. I would say that on that point alone I would rate it as the best place to party on the Wistula in 2014.
Really though, I felt really lucky to have a place like Temat at my back while I soaked up the sun on a beach in the middle of Warsaw, Poland. I don’t live in Italy, Spain, or Greece. I live in Poland. The grayest, rainiest, coldest place — at least that’s how it feels looking out of my window right now — and having sand to lie in while I sipped a cocktail in my new Ferrari yellow bikini this summer — priceless.