A walk around Warsaw

It’s a great feeling, dispelling myths and other people’s perceptions regarding Warsaw. As most people outside Poland haven’t visited the city, they seem to find it hard to believe me when I tell them that it is actually a very pleasant place to be when summer makes an appearance. This weekend was a good one for myth dispelling. With the temperature at 20 degrees, a large proportion of the population headed out to the Parks for a stroll.

On Saturday we caught the tram to Saski Park (at Marszałkowksa end) and walked through to the large fountain (a key feature in Warsaw). It’s the oldest park in the city and covers around 15 hectares. The Parks are well maintained and this is no exception as you can see from the photos below:

From here we carried onto the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier - another famous landmark in Warsaw. Dedicated to the unknown soldiers who gave their lives for Poland, it is guarded 24 hours by an honor guard consisting of two soldiers. A bit of history: on April 4th 1925, the Polish Ministry of War selected a battlefield from which the ashes of an unknown soldier would be brought to Warsaw. In October 1925, three coffins were exhumed from Lwów’s Łyczakowski Cemetery,: those of an unknown sergeant, corporal and private. The coffin that was to be transported to Warsaw was chosen by Jadwiga Zarugiewiczowa, the mother of a soldier who had fallen at Zadwórze and whose body had never been found.

On November 2nd, 1925, the coffin was brought to its final resting place and buried together with 14 urns containing soil from as many battlegrounds and a Virtuti Militari medal. Apart from when Poland was under German occupation, it has been continuously guarded.

After watching the soldiers take a quick march around the tomb for exercise and return to their original motionless positions, we headed down ul. Ossolińskich to Krakowskie Przedmieście, which connects Nowy Swiat with Plac Zamkowy in the Old Town. Due to the sunny weather, the Old Town was quite busy, made moreso by the filming of a movie about Popiełuszko. Most of the Old Square was roped off, with cameras on booms and 80’s vehicles dotted about. As we arrived, they were shooting a scene which involved lots of extras running in costume, whilst flailing their arms and shouting madly, along the castle wall alongside ul. Podwale. I’d say about 70-100 people were involved in the short run, only to be told that they were running too fast, at which point they mooched extremely slowly back to their starting point. I wonder how many takes they had done before this one… If the director thought this was fast, when he shouted ‘break for lunch’, that’s when they really moved…

Here’s Przemek, my brother-in-law with two of the actors…

Further on near Nowy Swiat, they were filming for a wartime drama on Cichociemni. Here are a few pics I took as we passed by…

Finished our walk at Plac Trzech Krzyży (a place no foreigner is meant to pronounce) where we ordered a cab home. Another minor irritation I’ve found when ordering a cab in Warsaw is that 9 times out of 10 when there are six of you (including 1 baby and a pushchair), it costs you an extra 20 złoty for the extra seat. Fine - no problem. They then send a 6 seater with no boot, using the sixth seat for the pushchair. So transporting the pushchair cost us 20 zł. They could have sent us a normal taxi with a boot! Bez sensu.

By the time we got home, we all felt like all we wanted to do was this: