Warsaw

I’m now in Warsaw for around 2 days and leaving tomorrow. So what to say about Warsaw?

Warsaw is a nice and relaxing city. It was a good choice as the start for my 4 Week long trip. Warsaw has a nice old town called “Stare Miasto”. But most parts of this old town is not that old, simply because most of the buildings were destroyed in World War II and were after the end of the war, rebuilt from the scratch. In old town, you find many street performers, but mostly musicians (one really cool exception is the funny “Executioners Group”). Old town is that part of the city, why I call this city relaxing. Even though there are many tourist around, it’s nice to walk around or sit in the garden of a pub, have a drink or two. And it seems like there is music everywhere and if the street performers would not play only for money, but play because they love music. A small tip for budget travellers: There are not many restaurants in old town which are not very expensive. In general the prices for food & drinks in Warsaw are not that much cheaper than in Austria. But this city should also be the most expensive city in Poland. I will see.

As in many cities, there are many old & beautiful churches in Warsaw. One of the differences here in Warsaw (and probably also in the rest of Poland) is the admiration of the “Black Madonna” of Częstochowa. Also there are many monuments about the “Warsaw Uprising”, if you have time, take a look at the Warsaw Uprising Museum, it offers much information about this historical event.

Here in Warsaw, you also find big shopping & cinema centers, like Aupark in Bratislava or Donauzentrum/Donauplexx in Vienna. The strange thing here is that if you look at the shops, they are mostly the same chains as you find in Austria, except that they also open on sunday.

What didn’t I like about Warsaw? This city is (in some parts) a maze. This starts at the underground level of the Central Train Station and goes all the way to the old town. Why? None of the main train lines stop somewhere near the old town. Which would not be a big problem, if there wouldn’t be no signs pointing out where old town is. There are signs to old town, but they only start approximatley 5 minutes walking distance from old town. I think if that even if I would be here for one week, I still would get lost or have to ask people for direction, either in the underground or on my way to old town. 🙂
So that’s one of the advantages of Vienna, 3 main subway lines have stops in the first district, so no tourist can say it’s hard to find.

That’s all for the moment, thanks for reading this long text. Greetings to Vienna or wherever you are at the moment. Tomorrow I’m heading north to Gdansk and the baltic sea. Hopefully it doesn’t rain much the next days, wet beach is not that nice. Hope I will find time in Gdansk to upload some pictures, so stay tuned.

Greetings from Warsaw, Stefan