After a wonderful few days in Krakow, we’d arrived into Warsaw and our apartment at close to 7pm the night before so we were keen to go out and explore in daylight. Unfortunately the day started with an exploding coffee maker, so luckily we had our back-up travel one….. and a mess to clean up!
A quiet and chilly Old Town
It was 2 degrees and rain was forecast by lunch timeb so we thought we’d see how much sightseeing we got done before the weather got the better of us. We created our walking map of all the sights we wanted to hit for the day and head out.
Our apartment is located in the Old Town. The Old Town area is very small so we wandered the streets near our apartment first. Just behind our apartment there were views down to the Vistula river and across to the Praga district.
In the small square near our apartment is the ice skating rink that had immediately caught the kids attention when we arrived the previous night. Plans were made to come back later in the day.
The Old Town was full of beautiful buildings in a array of colours. The old town was rebuilt after mostly being destroyed in WWII, so is not actually that ‘old’ but is very pretty and there are plenty of things to look at. It was also very quiet at this time of the as there was hardly anyone around, and we wandered the streets, seeing barely another soul.
If you wanted to catch a Chopin concert this was the place to do it. There were people out selling tickets on pretty much all the Old Town streets. We were tempted to drag the kids along for some culture if we weren’t too tired one night!
We found the ‘Wishing Bell’ not far from our apartment. The legend is that if you touch the bell, make a wish and walk around 3 times, your wish comes true. Quite a few of us wished for a bed with good pillows… It had been almost 6 weeks and we were missing our own beds.
There were still plenty of Christmas decorations all through the streets of Warsaw. It was now January 8 but they were carrying Christmas on well into the new year! The streets were still very festive and there were some beautiful decorations and lights throughout the city.
We had to laugh at the tiny ‘Alkohole’ stores everywhere! Meanwhile the Old Town also had it’s share of churches, and statues for us to check out.
The City Walls…..
We made our way down to the old city walls and the Barbican in the north part of the Old Town. The walls were originally built between the 13th and 16th centuries but were restored between 1950 and 1963 after destruction during WWII.
Castle Square…..
Soon we made it Castle Square, named after the Royal Castle which dominates the large square. The middle of the square happened to have a very large Christmas tree at the moment, and plenty of lights still up. In the middle of the square is Sigismund’s Column which honours King Sigismund III who relocated Poland’s capital from Krakow to Warsaw.
The castle looks far less castle-like than many in Europe but is till a rather large building. The kids were more interested in the Christmas decorations and enjoyed checking out the carriage and pretending to drive a horse and carraige!
From Castle Square we head towards Nowe Miastro (New Town). The New Town was originally constructed in the 14th century, just outside the city walls and existed as a separate city outside Warsaw’s defensive walls. At the moment it was full of wonderful and bright Christmas decorations.
Warsaw certainly did Christmas well! We also weren’t having to fight the crowds like we did in some other cities. It might have had something to do with the fact that it was 2 degrees and there was an icy wind 🙂
Off to the New Town……
Soren was pleased to find yet another city model that was better than the one in Basel that we had trooped around in the rain to find!
There are no less than 6 historic churches in the New Town, as well as the Taras Widocky Tower, that the kids voted they did not want to climb up today!
As we wandered through Nowe Miasto there were plenty of beautiful buildings to admire. There are also plenty of lights and decorations. The lack of bright sunshine here means you can clearly see the lights at even 10am. We played on plenty of sculptures, horses and carriages and carousels that you push yourself and they play music.
Soon we were at the Presidential Palace (which was heavily guarded). We did not want to be messing with those guards! The palace is the official residence of the Polish head of state and president.
After a bit more walking we made a visit to the tomb of the unknown soldier (which was also guarded). This monument is dedicated to the unknown soldiers who have given their lives for Poland. It is one of many such national tombs of unknowns that were erected after World War I. We notice the guards get heated foot pads to help with the cold and standing around for hours on end.
Next to the tomb of the unknown soldier is a lovely park, although it was still too cold to have fountains on as they would all be frozen!
Heading back through the New Town, there were plenty of expensive looking hotels, the Warsaw University campus and the impressive Church of the Holy Cross.
We also found Chopin’s bench and got it to play various tunes for us. The kids were quite enjoying discovering more about Chopin. Or, as Soren called him ‘Chopp-in’. We gave him grief about this for the entire trip!
We were wandering back towards the Old Town but on the other side of the wide avenue to give us some different views. There still weren’t many people around but the cafes and stores lining the streets were starting to catch our interest as our tummies were rumbling.
Some Polish lunch with a view….
After we’d covered most of our Old Town and New Town sights we decided we were hungry as the wind was quite cold and we’d covered plenty of distance. It was back to the Old Town for some warm and hearty Polish lunch.
We found a restaurant with great views over the old town and watched the rain as it started to fall.
The kids continued their love of steak tartare, dumplings and potato pancakes. I found an au gratin containing spinach (yay, a vegetable!). The mulled wine here comes with the addition of vodka, this is needed to warm you up no doubt!
Our lunch was delicious and we all felt better for some calories and warmth!
After we finished lunch it was raining quite a bit and the apparent temperature was now minus 2 so we wandered via a supermarket for more milk to make coffees and hot chocolates, to warm up and some quiet time back in the apartment.
Afternoon exploring in the rain and dark….
A couple of hours in apartment with coffee and afternoon snacksb and kids filling in travel diaries gave us time to warm up and rest our legs before tackling the next lot of walking.
We head out a bit after 3pm, to try and use the last bit of daylight. The early sunset means there is very limited time for daylight exploring. Even at 3pm when we left our apartment and went into Old Town market square it was getting rather dark. This meant the lights were all on and everything was feeling festive.
The afternoon agenda was a walk to the Warsaw Uprising Monument which is in Kraskinski square, just outside the old town. We head down to the city walls and they looked different all lit up!
The rain had mostly stopped but it was still only 2 degrees, so it definitely hadn’t been a warm day. There were however, far more people out and about now than there had been earlier in the day.
The Uprising Monument and Jewish Ghetto Monuments…
Our first stop was The Warsaw Uprising Monument. This is a large monument dedicated to the Warsaw uprising of 1944. The Uprising had led to the destruction of 90% of Warsaw’s buildings during the hostilities and destruction of much of the city by the Germans after the Uprising. The Uprising monument was opened in 1989 and is one of the most visited landmarks in Poland.
The Uprising Monument is located on the southern side of Krasinski square and is huge and rather impressive and should be seen in person, to appreciate the scale of it.
The Krasinski square area has the Krasinski Palace, the Supreme Court building and the Field Cathedral of the Polish Army.
We then continued on to the Jewish Ghetto Monument which is outside the Polin museum. The monument commemorates Jewish insurgents from the Warsaw Ghetto and is another fairly impressive monument.
The Polin museum is meant to be excellent. However, the kids were not up for a museum so we checked out the monuments and then head back to the old town as ice skating was on the agenda.
On the way back we passed over markers of the borders of the Jewish Ghetto. Jews living in the territories occupied by Nazi Germany during the Second World War were placed in separated ghettos. From 1942 Jews living there were taken to death camps. The residents put up a fight which led to the Jewish Uprising.
As we made our way back to the Old Town, it was now definitely very dark and only 4.30pm! The lights were well and truly on and the cobbled streets and city walls looked very pretty all lit up.
Soon we were back at the skating rink in the Old Town market square. It was still about 2 degrees but the rain had stopped so it wasn’t as bad as earlier in the day.
The rink in the square outside our apartment is free for skating, you just pay 10 Zloty for skate hire (a bit under $4AUD) so it was quite cheap for an hours skating. All the kids wanted to skate today but the adults were happy to watch and drink the grazane wino (mulled wine) which is unfortunately twice the price of vodka……but we weren’t sure on vodka shots at this time of day (well I guess it was night?).
Having never skated before this trip, Zinnia’s skating is coming along very well and Astrid was also showing more competence. Soren, being Soren crashed a lot but was building up some confidence. We refused to hired them skate animals so they had to fend for themselves today and were all doing something resembling skating…… some of the time at least!
They all but had plenty of fun and only a few smashes into the walls. Our Polish was still terrible but we did figure out when they told everyone to change direction. Once our hot wine ran out we thought it was time to extract the kids from the skating but were met with plenty of resistance.
Once they had used up their hour of skate time we did manage to convince them to come and look at the lights through the Old Town. We went back to Castle Square, which was only a few hundred metres walk, and all those decorations looked rather spectacular all lit up.
Astrid was keen to show off her horse and carriage driving skills. Then we went to check out the giant Christmas tree all lit up!
It had been fun walking through this area during the day but it looked rather spectacular in the dark! Warsaw had impressed with the Christmas lights and decorations….
All tired, the kids voted for take away dinner rather than going out to a restaurant. We head back to the market square as it’s metres from our apartment and where there were plenty of food options. We grabbed burgers, hot dogs and the only vegetarian option for me – a baguette with cheese, mushroom and tomato sauce. It was not a taste sensation! I probably won’t be keen to repeat that one in a hurry.
By now it was almost 7pm and 1 degree feels, like minus 3, so time to head in for the night! We’d covered off a huge amount of Warsaw sightseeing in one day but had plenty more planned for the next day.
Up next…..
A snowy Warsaw, exploring the Praga neighbourhood, the Polish Vodka museum and plenty of Vodka shots!
