KEY AREAS
Centrum Still overshadowed by the vast Stalinist Palace of Culture and Science, the city centre is nonetheless rapidly developing as a modern downtown financial district. Just a block away from Stalin’s 'gift to the people of Poland’, on al. Jana Pawla II, steel and glass office blocks are going up at a rate of about one a year. Among them is the Holiday Inn and the brand new InterContinental. The current darling of developers is the Golden Terraces (Zlote Tarasy), under construction behind the central railway station.
Stare Miasto Unlike most Eastern European cities, Warsaw’s 'Old Town’ isn’t located in the middle of the city. It can be found on the northern edge of the centre, perched picturesquely above the river.
This is the part of the city that attracts the tourists, with its narrow cobbled streets and squares and Royal Castle, and is the place to go for a pleasant afternoon drink or a slap-up evening meal. Restauracja Fukier on the Old Town Square is one of the most famous eateries in town. There are few indications that the district suffered 85% destruction during the war. Since its reconstruction in the 1950s, the Old Town has become a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Nowe Miasto Located just to the north of the Old Town, the 'New Town’ isn’t really new at all. Rather, it was the first suburb that grew around the old city in the early 15th century. Slightly off the tourist route but all the better for it, the main street, ul. Freta, has some attractive architecture and great bars and cafés which won’t cost you as much as those in the Old Town. Krakowskie Przedmiescie Leading south from the Old Town towards the centre proper is Cracow suburb, a grand thoroughfare lined with numerous statues, old churches, hotels and the university. At its southern end it becomes ul. Nowy Swiat (New World Street), Warsaw’s premier shopping street. Srodmiescie Poludnie Just to the south of the Centrum, this area (literally city centre south) is emerging as a fashionable clubbing district with a growing variety of pubs, bars and clubs—as well as a reputation as a red-light district.
Praga Warsaw’s right bank was once a rather unwanted attachment to the city. Until recently this area had nothing going for it but a grime-covered Orthodox church. Now it stands out as Warsaw’s bohemian quarter, with all the colourful characters and nightlife to match. Lazienki Park Arguably one of the most attractive city parks in Europe, Lazienki is the place Warsovians go to for a Sunday afternoon stroll. With its lakes and palaces, theatres, concert venues and cafés, the air of sophisticated culture is almost overwhelming.
GETTING AROUND
Warsaw has a fully integrated transport system of underground, trams and buses. Tickets can be bought from any of the news kiosks dotted about the city. A single ticket for any destination costs 2.40zl, and there are no returns. Better value tickets include a 24-hour pass for 7.20zl, a 3-day ticket for 12zl, a weekly ticket for 24zl and a monthly pass for 66zl. Warsaw only has one underground line running north to south through the entire city. It is still under construction and three more stations have yet to be opened. It’s modern, quick, clean and efficient, but only of limited use if you want to travel either east or west. Plans are in place for an east-west line, but don’t expect anything for at least a decade.
Trams range from rickety rust-buckets to slinky high-tech things decked out with digital read-outs and robotic voices. They can be very crowded at rush hour, but they run all over the city centre and are easy to use.
Buses aren’t usually the choice of the business traveller, but they’re convenient and reliable nonetheless.
Generally reliable and always affordable, taxis are a good transport option in Warsaw. If you make an advance reservation, you save 10%. Euro Taxi (Tel: 9662), OK Taxi (Tel: 9628) or, if you don’t mind paying a fraction more for a Mercedes, Sawa Taxis (Tel: 644 4444).
SHOPPING
The main shopping area in the city centre is located around ul. Nowy Swiat and ul. Chmielna. Fortunately this area remains reasonably free of international chains and one-off boutiques still predominate. The big brands can be found in Galeria Centrum, a huge department store on ul Marszalkowska.
Further from the centre, shopping malls are opening up at an astonishing rate. The newest, largest, plushest and generally most gorgeous is Arkadia at Rondo Zgrup AK Radoslaw. Complete with a multiplex cinema, this place is supposedly one of the biggest malls in Europe and sizzles with consumerist excess. It’s all there, from British department store Marks & Spencer and French hypermarket Carrefour to international clothing brands like H&M and Benetton. You’ll also find electronics retailers, hardware stores, bookshops, pet shops, chocolatiers, jewellers, cafés, banks, post offices and goodness knows what else.
On Sundays, a tram ride to the west into the district of Wola will get you to the outdoor antiques market on ul. Obozowa. Known as Gielda Retro, this can be a fascinating place to browse around. But be aware that you won’t be allowed to take certain items out of the country. Poland has tight restrictions on the export of antiques.
THINGS TO DO
Although the Palace of Culture and Science is the building most visitors to Warsaw take to be the city’s number one landmark, Warsovians themselves almost unanimously try to ignore it, seeing it as a symbol of Soviet oppression. For them, the city’s most iconic building is the Royal Castle on Plac Zamkowy in the Old Town (www.zamek-krolewski.art.pl). The 17th-century seat of the Polish kings was utterly demolished by the Nazis in 1944 in revenge for the Warsaw Uprising. Reconstruction did not begin until 1971 and the castle was completed in 1984. It’s symbolic of Warsaw’s rise from the ashes of the Second World War and the strength of will of the Polish nation.
Open to visitors every day except Sunday, the building is a sight to behold. The pristine gold-leaf, the immaculate stucco ceilings and parquet floors, combined with the original paintings and ornaments, which were taken to safety during the war, give one a fascinating insight into how an historical building looks when it is new. There’s nothing dull and dusty here! An additional treat is the Bellotto paintings— views of old Warsaw which proved invaluable to the reconstruction work. Warsaw’s National Museum (al. Jerozolimskie 3) contains a wealth of artifacts from the ancient world and the European Renaissance as well as an impressive collection of paintings. All the great names of Polish paining are here, including Jan Matejko, Stanislaw Wyspianski and Jozef Chelmonski, to name just a few. And for those interested in military history, the Polish Army Museum is right next door.
You can’t say you know Polish culture without acknowledging the mastery of the nation’s greatest composer Frederic Chopin. Warsaw has a museum dedicated to the maestro at the Ostrogski Palace (ul. Okolnik 1, www.chopin.pl). There’s a mass of memorabilia, including a grand piano on which he composed many of his works. Concerts are also regularly held here.
A great new addition to the city’s museums is the Warsaw Uprising Museum (ul. Przyokopowa 28, www.1944. pl). Opened to commemorate the 60th anniversary of the 1944 insurrection against the Nazi occupiers, this place is a must for anyone who wishes to understand Warsaw’s recent history.
The building contains a multitude of extremely well presented photographs, films, weapons, uniforms, documentary evidence and explanation, as well as a café decorated in period style.
If you’re a modern art lover or aficionado of all things post-modern, check out Warsaw’s trendy Centre of Contemporary Art at Ujazdowski Castle near Lazienki Park (ul. Ujazdowski 6, www.csw.art.pl).
A full directory of Warsaw’s museums can be found at www.warsaw-life.com.
A great new venue for a stroll and the place to appreciate the city’s developing skyline is Warsaw University Library (ul. Dobra 55/56, www.buw.uw.edu.pl). The building opened in 1999 to great critical acclaim, and in 2002 a botanical garden was opened on the roof. Accessible every day of the year but closing at 3pm in winter, the garden is an imaginative combination of modernist architecture and the natural world. Ventilation ducts poke through banks of dwarf mountain pine while air-conditioning systems vie for attention with Siberian pea shrub. Highly recommended.
Opera lovers won’t want to miss the Grand Theatre and Polish National Opera (www.teatrwielki.pl)—world-class performances at a fraction of the price you’d pay in Western venues.
Warsaw’s Jewish heritage is another popular tourist attraction. Although the Jewish district (Muranow, Mirow) was razed to the ground by the Nazis, many monuments and commemorative plaques can be found in this area. The focal point is the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes on ul. Zamenhofa. Sites to have survived the Nazi destruction include the Nozyk Synagogue (ul. Twarda) and the Jewish Cemetery (ul. Okopowa).
EXCURSIONS
On the southern edge of the city, Wilanow palace and gardens make for a fine day out. Often referred to as the Polish Versailles, Wilanow has many similarities with its French cousin. Both were built by powerful Catholic monarchs who later assumed mythical status (Wilanow was the pet project of King Jan III Sobieski, defender of Vienna from the Turkish threat in 1683), and both were built at the same time in the same baroque style, near to yet deliberately outside their capitals. However, unlike Versailles, Wilanow was conceived as a private retreat for the king and his family, not the centre of government. Mercifully Wilanow survived the war intact, as did the majority of the stunning artworks inside. As a result it represents one of the finest palace complexes in Poland. Fans of poster art will delight in the magnificent poster museum in the adjoining building. Chopin’s birthplace, the village of Zelazowa Wola, is located 50kms west of the capital. Since 1931 the manor house in which he was born has been a museum and is now one of the most popular visitor attractions in Poland. The house has been restored to how it might have looked during the composer’s lifetime and is surrounded by beautiful gardens. In the summer, piano recitals are performed in the music room. The audience sits outside on the terrace.
Warsaw must be one of the few capital cities to boast a national park right on its doorstep. Kampinoska Forest has its boundaries on the north-western edge of the city and is the place to go for hiking, biking, bird watching and camping in the summer, mushroom picking in the autumn and cross-country skiing in the winter.
For an unforgettable weekend break, Cracow, Poland’s cultural capital, is the place to go. With more museums and galleries than you can shake a stick at, and more bars, cafés and restaurants per square inch than anywhere else in Europe, this town is not to be missed.
TOURIST TRAPS
The only part of Warsaw that receives tourist traffic on a par with European hot spots is the Old Town. There are a few overpriced restaurants and bars here which will charge you Western prices for nothing special, particularly in the Old Town Square (Rynek Starego Miasta) and Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy). But take a side street or go through the Old Town into ul. Freta in the New Town and you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the prices and quality.
The taxi mafia at the airport—avoid anyone who offers you a taxi in the Arrivals hall, they’re there to rip you off. Go outside and wait for a bona fide cab at the taxi rank, or phone for one.
If approached by beggars the best course of action is to ignore them. If they know you’re a foreigner they’ll start speaking to you in English, making it even harder to shake them off.
CONVENTION CENTRES
At present Warsaw has only one international exhibition and convention centre, located in the heart of the city in the enormous Stalinist edifice the Palace of Culture and Science (pl. Defilad 1, www.pkin.pl).
The following hotels are nearest the Palace of Culture and Science: Holiday Inn Warsaw, tel: 697 3999 www. ichotelsgroup.com The Intercontinental, tel: 328 8888 www. warsaw.intercontinental.com The Marriott, 630 6306 www.marriot. com/wawpl All the addresses are listed below.