Poland – Warsaw

Warsaw, Poland

The place where I met the Manager and coach of the German National Football Team ….at our hotel in the lift ! Big city, completely restored after WW2. So much is not original, but you would never know by how carefully they recreated this impressive old city. Walk the main street from top to bottom and you come across most of the important sites. Divert into the fortified walled area and you are back into Mozart’s days, with the beautiful buildings and sights. Don’t forget to visit any of the many Jewish memorial sites to read about the horrific treatment of this community in the ghetto under Nazi rule.

Warsaw is a visit in itself and it also has cheap flights into the city with several budget airlines.

From Warsaw it’s easy to then make onwards travel to next door Belarus or Lithuania, See here for my posts on Minsk, Belarus or alternatively on Vilnius in Lithuania

To fly into Warsaw means that you arrive at one of two airports – Modlin Airport in the north about 40 km from the city centre or Chopin Airport about 9 km to the south. Each have advantages and disadvantages.

Modlin Airport, Warsaw

Modlin Airport (info here), is generally used by cheaper budget airlines, I heard only Ryanair and a couple of others now uses it, thus a cheaper flight but is further away.

To get to Warsaw central train station, (info here), from Modlin Airport, involves catching a shuttle bus (takes 10 mins and they coincide with arrivals and departures), to Modlin town train station and then a frequent train (takes about 30 mins) from there to Warsaw.

So the trip is quite easy just a bit time consuming with the wait between bus and train connection.

Alternatively ModlinBus (info here), has direct coach connections to Warsaw city centre (Plac Defilad, opposite the entrance to the Palace of Culture and Science), near Centrum and the Central train station. It takes about 40 minutes. There are frequent buses and they depart/arrive to coincide with flights. You can buy tickets online, at the airport and on the bus in cash or card.

Chopin Airport, Warsaw

Chopin Airport, (click for info here), is closer to the city centre, bigger, more airlines fly to it and is served by frequent buses and trains and generally take about 20-30 mins to arrive at several central locations including the Central train station.

Taxis

Taxis are available at both airports but I have never used them, finding that a pre-booked online car transfer was actually very affordable and easy to book. It took the same 40 mins to get to the centre.

Much of Warsaw was heavily bombed during WW2.

Even if you see lovely buildings, the chances are that they are replicas. There was a conscious effort, post war, to rebuild and return Warsaw back to the old town it once was, within reason. If you ever get to the Royal Palace they have a small exhibition that shows the central city area before, devastated and rebuilt after the war. You would honestly never realise the extent of the destruction and what you now think are wonderful 200 year old buildings.

Where I stayed in Warsaw.

Warsaw Jewish Ghetto.

Two sites near my hotel were first on my list and they were both within walking distance or a quick bus ride. The Jewish ghetto was Europe largest Jewish ghetto installed by the Nazis in 1940 and was in the area surrounding my hotel. Several the streets in the old ghetto area have been preserved almost as they were, but abandoned, with derelict buildings and falling down houses.

300,000 Jews were incarcerated there in an area only 3.4 km sq. The rooms and buildings were drastically overcrowded and they were forced into slave labour and starvation. The area is large so I downloaded an old map from Google and basically mentally overlaid it onto modern Warsaw. The street pattern has largely changed but many streets still had the same name and some were still as they were.

Get info, if you can from the web and YouTube and walk the areas and see the old buildings.  Some have commemorative plaques fixed the the outer walls and some are just ruins and in a very bad state. Remember to look out for the various memorials eg the one that shows where the entrance to the underground sewer system is, that the Jewish resistance used to get around underground, almost undetected.

Warsaw Uprising Museum

I visited the Warsaw Uprising Museum, (click for info here) and it was a moving experience that left me saddened at man’s inhumanity to man. It had original video footage of the Uprising and of the ghetto with many original artefacts.

There are many, some small some big, monuments and memorials to the massacre of the Jewish population and who before WW2 made up a third of the population of Warsaw. I visited a mass Jewish grave in gardens near houses. It had a commemorative mound, as the central point of the memorial, situated at the crossroads of Mila and Dubois streets – look it up.

Umschlagplatz Monument

I also visited a monument in the marshalling area of a train station (now gone) on the corner of Stawki and Dzika streets called the Umschlagplatz Monument. Here Jews were herded into cattle carriages for the journey to Treblinka concentration camp. The monument is a simple concrete representation of a cattle truck but it’s a very moving tribute, knowing that so many went to their deaths from here.

Children were sitting around the monument, being told by their teacher about the history and the memorial which seemed to convey hope that we will not forget those horrendous events.

Polin Museum

Nearby is also the Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews. This is a big modern structure with a paved square in front with a Memorial monument honouring those who died during the unsuccessful Warsaw Jewish Ghetto Uprising of 1943. Considering the barbaric treatment of one community in Warsaw by the Nazis and the inhuman events they suffered, it is no surprise that there are so many memorials to those horrendous events.

A walk along here is a highlight and there are just so many places to visit and see that I’ll just list them all and you look them up as they are all worthy. Many you cannot go into but they are all so wonderfully preserved and set in such beautiful surroundings that you need your camera with you ! Here are gloriously steepled churches, Art Museums, Palaces, University buildings, high end stores, and the Presidential Palace. The 5 star Raffles and Bristol Hotels stand facing one another with the Concert Hall just down the road.

I had to stop midway at the Bristol Hotel for coffee as my legs were aching and the café here is atmospheric with wonderful service.

It now is a Museum with glorious artworks of Rembrandt and Canaletto among many, with changing exhibitions. The inner courtyard is huge and the rooms gloriously restored. The whole building sits at the entrance to the historic old town, with its equally rebuilt buildings . Often entire streets were rebuilt after the bombing of WW2, to become replicas of what was there before.

You could also take the central road and walk the old streets via the Catholic Church. Then if you go right and do the same you will come across the Basilica Arch Cathedral with its stepped pyramid roof and plain interior.

From here, just wander the streets admiring the painted buildings. They have a mix of architectural styles, often contrasting with the next building.

Architectural features here are the embossed walls and plethora of restaurants, artisan shops and craft shops in original buildings. Yes, again many restored after the WW2 bombing, but you would never know. On any of the routes you must end up at Old Town Market Square.

In Summer, the square is full of small art and craft stalls, painting stalls and stands with tourist souvenir items. If you need refreshments then the many tables and chairs for the many restaurants on the outer edge of the square will welcome you.

This is indeed one place to stop and sit down with a cold beer or coffee and take in the atmosphere. There are sometimes street actors and mime artists here and abundant flower stalls.

The centre of the square has a famous statue - a mermaid - set inside a flat fountain. The symbol of the mermaid is on the city's coat of arms and is used as a representation of Warsaw. Why a mermaid? I don't know as it is a land locked city, maybe someone can tell me, let me know on my contact page!

New Town

Go back to the Barbican and cross the Barbican Gate into what is known as New Town. Why is it called New Town? Well, because it is newer than Old Town .... but still a few hundred years old. Wander the streets and the see the many churches, go in a few if open, some are very plain, some ornate but all lovingly restored and looked after .

My favourite was the one on New Town Square - The Catholic Church of Blessed Sacrament, lovely shape outside with its white walls, green doomed roof and lovely old houses surrounding it.

I wandered back down Freta street towards the Barbican when I had my fill of quaint buildings and atmospheric squares and churches, stopping off to look at the Marie Curie Museum building. This is where the most famous female scientist of Poland lived. The number of cafes and restaurants around this area is a huge and although many are catering to tourist needs, it is noticeable that they are also open in the evening and frequented by locals alike.

I carried on down the street and took a right at the white washed walls of the Church of The Holy Spirit onto Dluga Street. At the end of this street was something that I wanted to see.

This big memorial shows soldiers emerging from underground, full of fervour and hope. The Square it sits in also faces the beautiful Krasinski Palace. This baroque wonder from 1683 has lovely gardens behind with delightful trees, walkways, a fountain and just so relaxing and peaceful to sit in on a warm day in the centre of a major city.

My thoughts on Warsaw

I had the impression that Warsaw would be an old Soviet realism city full of monotonous, functionalist, concrete buildings thrown up under Soviet influence.

What I found was actually a grand, regal city with beautifully restored 17th and 18th century palace-like buildings and and serene architecture. The Old Town area (especially the Barbican area) was a complete surprise - more akin to a small town from the countryside in its style and peacefulness.

Yes, there are some huge 1950's monolith buildings, most of which have been remodelled slightly to soften the blow of their brutal style. These are more out of the central area however.

I have to admire the citizens who wanted to rebuild Warsaw as it was before rather than reform it it into a modern city centre. The charm and character there definitely is a major tourist pull and provides wonderful vistas and a charming atmosphere.

Oct, 2014.