Our Travels: Warsaw in Spring

In May 2018, my wife and I spent a long weekend in Warsaw, Poland. The weather could not have been better. Not including flight days, we spent 3 whole days there. Without a doubt you need at least twice that, but sadly we only had the few days, so we made the most of it.

Let's start with some basic information about the city:

The Currency used is called the Polish złoty.
The public transport is very good. They have Taxis, buses, trams, and an underground. Uber there is very cheap. We used it a lot. It's very convenient and saves a lot of time.
Data and WiFi is common. For tourists, prepaid sim cards are very cheap. I paid 9 zlotys for 5GB. It was more than enough.
The hotel we stayed at was Hampton by Hilton Warsaw City Center. It's a three star hotel. It's very well located. It provided us with what we needed, a nice room, a comfy bed, a hot shower, a decent breakfast, free WiFi and a safe. There's no fridge, and in our room there were no shelves to put our clothes on, so we were literally in and out of our suitcase.
While there's no shortage of rain in this season, temperatures are very comfortable. The average is about 20-22C in the day, but down to 10-12 at night. There's light from about 04:30 and it gets dark around 20:30.
There are shopping malls everywhere. Prices are cheap, depending where you want to shop. We weren't there during Sale season so clothes weren't too cheap. But pharmaceuticals are cheap and food is very cheap there.

On with our vacation...

Thursday

We said good bye to the kids, took a cab to the airport, and after 40 minutes of the cab driver not shutting up for a second, we arrived at the airport. Everything went smoothly and we took off. We flew with LOT airlines.

We arrived at Chopin airport in Warsaw at about 14:30. We took our luggage, bought a sim card for my phone, and took an Uber to the hotel. A half hour uder drive cost us about 22 Zloty. That's about 6$ US.

At about 16:30 we left the hotel and went for a walk. Five minutes later, we were at the Palace of Culture and Science. A soviet era high-rise, which apparently the locals really don't like. On the 30th floor there is an observation deck with an incredible view of the whole city.

3 minutes from the palace is the Zloty Tarasy mall. A huge, and new, mall with hundreds of shops. We walked around shopped until our feet hurt.

By this time we were pretty hungry. There's a Hard Rock cafe in the mall. We sat there and had a great meal. When the check arrived we were surprised just how cheap the food is here. It cost about half of a similar meal in a restaurant back home.

It had been a long day. We returned to the hotel and fell asleep exhausted :)

Friday

The light seeped in from behind the curtain at 04:30. But I went back to sleep.

We woke up to a nice but cloudy day. It was a little chilly. We had breakfast at the Hotel dining room and went on out way. The forecast said rain, so we bought a couple of umbrellas, and of course it didn't rain a drop.

The first part of the day was a tour of Jewish locations. Up until WWII, Poland had the largest Jewish population in Europe. By the end of the war, and the Holocaust, millions had perished, including members of my family.

The group for the tour met by the Marriott Hotel, just a few minutes walk from our hotel. Our guide was a very nice med student called Ma'ayan. We got on the tour bus and headed for the first stop.

For those who are interested, It's recommended to take a guided tour rather than see the site yourself. First, you get more information, but also, the different sites are not within walking distance. With this tour, we had a bus which took us to all the places.

The first stop was the Monument to the heroes, also known as the Rapaport monument, which commemorates the Warsaw Ghetto uprising in 1943. The monument is situated just outside the Museum of the History of Polish Jews (We went there another day).

From the monument we saw other important Jewish sites such as remains of the Ghetto wall, the monument at Umschlagplatz (where hundreds of thousands of Jews were loaded on to cattle carts a sent to the death camps), the old Jewish Cemetery (which goes back hundred of years), remains of Ghetto apartments, the Janusz Korczak, and others.
The tour was very interesting, very emotional, and very recommended.

The tour ended by the Nożyk Synagogue at about 15:00.

From there we took an uber to Lazienki Park. It's a very nice park. There you can see the monument to Chopin, walk along the paths, feed the squirrels (If you see any. We were told that they are there), and visit the Palace on the Water. On Sundays, weather permitting, they have free concerts by the Chopin monument.

From the park, we had a bit more time, so we caught an uber, and went to the Blue City mall for a bit more shopping. We had dinner there at a restaurant called Sphinx (not bad at all).

Saturday
Today was about the old town. After WWII, the old town of Warsaw was in complete ruins, over the decades since, it has been rebuilt in an attempt to make it look as close as possible to what it looked like before.

We woke up to another nice day. We caught an Uber to the old town. It's about a 10 minutes drive (45 minute walk). We arrived there at about 10:00. We took a tour here as well. There are a number of free tours such as the orange umbrellas and the yellow umbrellas. Now, the tours are called free, but the guides do this for a living, so it's customary to leave a tip. Be generous. For those who aren't interested in a tour, there's no problem. The old town isn't big and you can get to all the sections by foot.

Our tour guide was Eliza, and over two hours, she took us all over the old town where we saw Sigmund's Column, the Basilica of John the Baptist, the Wishing Bell, a view of the river, the old market square (with the famous statue of the little mermaid..no not the one from Copenhagen), the Barbican, the Beer alley, and more.

After the tour, we stayed in the old town and walked around a bit more through the alleys and had lunch at one of the local restaurants there.

We decided to walk back to the hotel, and headed down Krakowskie Przedmieście. A famous street filled with shops, restaurants, street art, museums, and churches. On the way, the street turned into Nowy Świat, also known for its many shops and restaurants.

On the way, we passed through the Zloty Terasy mall again, and then back to the hotel for a rest.

In the evening, we returned to the Old City area where they have the Multimedia Fountain Park. During the day, it's a big pretty fountain, but on Friday and Saturday evenings, at 21:30, they have a very impressive water and light show.

We didn't have time for dinner before the show, so we walked back to the old market square and sat down at one of their restaurants. It was a bit cold, but the restaurant provides its diners with warm blankets.

After dinner, we walked around the old city again. It's very pretty at night too.

Sunday
We really got lucky with the weather. Today was even nicer than yesterday. We got up and took an Uber to the Wilanow Palace and gardens. We spent the morning there, mostly just walking around and looking.

After the palace, we returned to Nowy Świat, to a sweet making shop called Manufaktura Cukierków. On the hour every hour you get to see how they make their sweets. It was quite mesmerizing.

From there we caught an Uber to Mr. Pancake for lunch which was recommenced to us. I wasn't in the mood for something sweet so I just had a Pizza. It did not disappoint. My wife did have some pancakes and she said it was delicious, though it was too sweet for her to finish.