We stayed at Sheraton Warsaw Hotel. It is centrally located in the city and is within walking distance to shops and restaurants. Later in the trip, we found that all the hotels we stayed in were all conveniently located in the center of the city. Better yet, all had free in-room WIFI, except Hilton Vienna, which limits free WIFI to the lobby area. In the past, Rosaline and I usually spent upward of $200 for phone calls and WIFI when traveling overseas. This time, we spent almost none. We have to give lots of credit to Gate 1 Travel for such super lodging arrangement.
The building with a semicircular façade is our hotel, Sheraton Warsaw Hotel.
(Click on each picture to get the full-size view)
Today’s itinerary is to tour the Warsaw city proper in the morning, followed by an optional excursion to Wilanow Palace.
Poland, and Warsaw, in particular, has an unsettling past. The country was founded more than one thousand years ago, but over the years it has been ruled by others: Russian, Austrian, and Prussian. The country once ceased to exist for over 100 years until after WWI. Warsaw, being the capital of the country, has a much more turbulent history. The city went through Jewish Ghetto Uprising and 1944 Warsaw Uprising during Nazi Germany’s rule. Adolf Hitler was said to be so angry about Warsaw that he wanted the city to be wiped off the surface of the earth. When WWII ended, more than 80% of Warsaw was destroyed and two-thirds of its inhabitants had disappeared.
We had a Warsaw local tour guide today. We also met our bus driver, Garbo from Hungary, for the first time. Garbo drove us around town, passing many century-old palaces and government buildings. Warsaw is a very beautiful city with a strong European feel. There are lots of greenery with aged old palaces partially visible behind foliage. There are also remnants of Soviet-styled big grey monotonous buildings in many places.
There are numerous remarkable selfie-worthy buildings. Taken through the window on one side of a moving bus, here are some sample pictures:
Grand Theatre
Church of St. Albert and St. Andrzej
Field Cathedral of the Polish Army. This is the church for Polish armed forces.
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St. Anne’s Church in Neoclassical style
Palace of Commonwealth in Baroque style, now a part of Polish National Library. Commonwealth in Poland’s history means the union between Poland and Lithuania in 16th and 17th centuries
One particular tall building is the Palace of Culture and Science. This was built in the ’50s as a gift from Soviet to Polish people. Local residents thought otherwise. After pilfering many resources from Poland to Russia, using some scraps to build a Soviet-designed building in the city center is nothing but a territorial marking by Soviet. It wasn’t a gift, but an insult, to most Polish people. Most locals called it "the Stalin's penis".
Chopin was raised and got his start in Warsaw. Although the composer later moved to Paris and spent his final days there, he always had his heart in Warsaw. Before he died he actually instructed his sister to bury his body in Paris and to bring his heart back to Warsaw, symbolizing that he left his heart in Warsaw. (as Tony Bennett would later say “I left my heart in San Francisco”). The city is unmistakably a Chopin city. At a tourist information office, a poster reminds visitors that Chopin owns the city.
There are a park and a museum named after him. Here is the statue of the composer under a willow tree in the park.
Next to Chopin is a statue of another great composer, Franz Liszt. I don’t understand the reason for sitting a Liszt statue near Chopin. Both composers knew each other but allegedly they never got along well. Maybe that’s why there was bird excrement on Liszt’s head, in Chopin’s territory.
We drove by the US Embassy.
Red lanterns on the balcony, this must be the Chinese Embassy.
Warsaw used to have a very sizable Jewish population. When Nazi Germany occupied the city, Jews were rounded up, put in the ghetto, and later sent to concentration camps and death camps. The gathering place, where Jews were loaded up the train heading to the camp, is now a monument quietly sitting on the side of the street.
Life in the Jewish ghetto was oppressive and hard that some staged an ill-fated uprising against Nazi Germany. Here is the Monument to the Heroes of the Ghetto Uprising. This monument is located at the site of the old Jewish ghetto. The buildings in the background are housing units built by the Soviet when Poland was under communist rule.
On the other side of the monument is another sculpture depicting the persecution of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Next to the monument is the Museum of the History of Polish Jews POLIN.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0253474/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2n-JKGhrjt4
After the Solidarity Movement, led by Lech Wałęsa, toppled the Communist regime, Poland has been a free country. In front of its Supreme Court Building, there were many protesters camping out for whatever causes.
Nearby is the Warsaw Uprising Monument.
The highlight of this morning is to tour the Old Town of Warsaw. The area was completely decimated during WWII. After the war, Polish people with its resilience, a sense of history, and an unyielding will to survive, decided to rebuild its Old Town from scratch. Old building plans, photos, and communal memories were the blueprint for the reconstruction. The rebuilt effort was so successful that it impressed UNESCO to designate the area as a World Heritage Site.
Approaching the Old Town
The Castle Square, with Sigismund’s Column on the left, and the Royal Castle on the right.
King Sigismund’s Column is a prominent feature at the Royal Square. The king moved the Poland capital from Krakow to Warsaw.
The Royal Castle, where Polish monarchs used to reside, sits on one side of the Castle Square.
The castle was completely destroyed after the failed 1944 Warsaw Uprising. The current castle was rebuilt after the war and is now a museum.
St. John's Archcathedral in the Old Town. It served as the coronation and burial site for past monarchs. Ninety percent of the cathedral’s wall was blown up during the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, it was reconstructed to its 17th-century glory.
The Old Town Market Square, flanked by townhouses of renaissance and baroque styles
In the Old Town Market Square stands the statue of Mermaid of Warsaw. The mermaid is the protector of Warsaw.
Old Town is quaint and charming with cobblestone streets and elegant buildings
At one corner of the Castle Square
On the edge of the Old Town is the Barbican and City Walls.
A plaque marking Warsaw Old Town as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
In the afternoon, we joined an optional excursion to Wilanow Palace, a royal and nobleman residence since the 17th century.
This is the baroque entry to the palace. (It started to rain this afternoon. For strange reasons, my camera started to take grainy pictures)
The palace frontage.
The back façade of the palace.
At a corner of the garden.
Our group listened to the local tour guide (the one on the right with a black beard).
Wilanow Palace was majestic and beautiful. But we were somewhat disappointed as it was hailed as Poland’s Versailles. We’ve seen Versailles and this is not even close, Nevertheless, we were glad to have visited the palace and learned more about Polish history.
Warsaw has many statues. They are everywhere: street corners, in front of buildings, street intersections, center of roundabouts. And the statues don’t necessarily represent Polish heroes or notables. Here not too far from our hotel is a statue of Charles De Gaulle.
When we asked for direction to a restaurant for dinner, everyone referred to a palm tree as a reference for direction. It turned out the referred palm tree is an artificial tree and it even has a name. It’s called “Greetings from Jerusalem Avenue”. (this picture is taken from the internet)
Our tour director recommended a Polish restaurant for dinner. It’s not too far from our hotel. On our walk there we found the neighborhood around the restaurant vibrant and filled with young people. It was surrounded with lively nightlife and buzzing with activities. We felt very safe.
Here is a Polish restaurant for tonight. The food is very good and inexpensive.
https://www.yelp.com/biz/zapiecek-warszawa-4?search_key=67764
We felt exhausted after dinner. It’s only the first day of our tour and we already felt pleasantly overwhelmed with the rich history, the unusual scenery, and fascinating stories told by our tour guides. We eagerly awaited the inevitable sensory overloads that were yet to come in the coming days.
What a wonderful first day of our journey,-Joe
Warsaw is a battered, recovered, and newly fashionable beauty.
Chopin left his marks everywhere in the city,
So did Soviet with its numerous and monotonous housing units.
Old Town rightfully deserves its designation as a world heritage,
While the past sufferings of Poles and Jews are world tragedy.
We gained so much knowledge and formed new respects for the country,
Hope the atrocity never happens again and the world may live in forever peace.
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