Walking Through Old Town Warsaw

Sigismund's Column at the entry into the not-so-old Old Town Warsaw

On the agenda for today was the Free Walking Tour of Warsaw. I love the free walking tours that they have in all the major tourist cities in Europe. The guides are usually knowledgeable and entertaining. The price is right (free!) (you pay in tips). They are a great way to learn about a new city.

So let's walk.

The tour met at the Copernicus Monument on Nowy Swiat (translation: "New World"), the Royal Route, and walked the short walk to Old Town.

Which, as we learned, it is not very old. It may be the newest "Old Town" anywhere as it was completely rebuilt after being completely destroyed in World War Two.

Above is the "castle."  A few of the stones are original, but it was completely rebuilt.

This is the cathedral, rebuilt in a much more utilitarian appearance than it was pre-war.

But it is amazing at all that the communists rebuilt a cathedral.

The Old Town Market Square, Rynek Starego Miasta Warszawa, was rebuilt to look much more like it's pre-war appearance. 

This square was complete rubble at the war's end. It was rebuilt to its original beauty because the rebuilding began without the communists.

This is the famous "mermaid" statute, a symbol of the City of Warsaw:

Eat your heart out Copenhagen because Warsaw's got a mermaid, too, This is an original, not a rebuilt replica, as it was securely hidden from the Nazis during World War Two.

Even the medieval fortifications around the Old Town were rebuilt. Somewhat.  This is the Barbican:

This shows that much of the energy and drive for rebuilding Warsaw came from a severe case of "Krakow envy." Krakow has a beautiful, medieval Old Town. Warsaw must rebuilt its beautiful Old Town. Krakow has a Barbican. Warsaw must have its old Barbican back.

What is a "barbican" you ask? It's the fortified entry way, guard point, inside a city's walls.

 

The tour guide photo-bombs the rebuilt medieval walls.

There was some sort of movie shoot happening nearby, so old cars were parked along the street:

And this is the house of Marie Curie:

Madame Curie, a Nobel laureate in two fields (physics and chemistry), the discoverer of two elements (polonium and radium), has had her Warsaw home turned into a museum. But, please, in Poland, do not call her only by her French name. She is "Maria Sklodowska-Curie." Please include the Polish maiden name.

Hansom cab alert.

We are in the Old Town. And now for something much less whimsical:

This is a marker for where the old "Jewish ghetto" walls stood during World War Two and the Nazi occupation. Almost none of the wall still stands. Again, the whole area was reduced to complete and total rubble during the war.

This is the Polish Supreme Court building:

Which is right next to ...

The Warsaw Uprising Monument, which is much more accessible on this day since the previous days events.

The monument is split into two parts, and shows the underground movement emerging into the streets of Warsaw on August 1, 1944.

The Uprising was, in the end, a deadly futile gesture. The Soviet Red Army was not going to aid the resistance because that meant they would have had to deal with the Resistance at the war's end. So they watched across the Vistula River (just on the other side of the river in the City of Warsaw) as the rebellion was crushed and, three weeks later, the Soviet Red Army moved in to "liberate" Warsaw and crush the Nazis.

Need something happier?

This is a "Chopin bench." There are 16 or so of these throughout the city. You press the button (far right side in this picture) and you can sit on the bench and listen to some lovely Chopin music.

If the batteries are charged. Which this ones were not. No Chopin for you!

 

Unless we venture back to Holy Cross Church on the Nowy Swiat, where the heart of Chopin is buried.

 

Inside is a lovely church, with an ornate altar.

And, inside, within one of the pillars, lies the heart of Chopin.

Let's have a closer look.

When Chopin died, Warsaw was controlled by the Russians after the notorious Partition of Poland. It was impossible to smuggle his whole body back from France when Chopin died (at age 38, of tuberculosis), so they smuggled in his heart and buried it here. Chopin's heart was placed in storage somewhere in the Polish countryside during the Nazi occupation, while Warsaw was being reduced to rubble.

But now Chopin (well, at least his heart) is back where he belongs. In the church across the street from where he gave his first public recital,

Whatever You Think Warsaw Would Be Like, You'd Be Wrong

Nicolaus Copernicus, sphere in hand, stares down the Royal Route from atop his perch

Warsaw is very evocative. We all have pictures in our mind of what Warsaw would be like. And those pictures, whatever they are, are wrong.

What are you images? Drab? Depressing? Oppressive? Dark? Destruction? Emotionless? None of the above!

I am staying at the Hotel Indigo, which is an international chain of hispter business class hotels. I'm staying here not because I am a hip international businessman, but because of the central location, right on the Royal Route, a mile south of Old Town, but in the heart of international business Warsaw.

There is interesting statuary all over Warsaw, as I could see from my taxi ride in from the airport (named for Polish composer Chopin) and my short walk about town this afternoon.

August 1 was an interesting day to be in Warsaw:

Why were all these people (and a movie camera) at the intersection in front of my hipster international business chain hotel?  It is an interesting intersection, as it has both the Jerusalem Palm:

This is a metal statue of a date palm created by a Polish artist to commemorate Warsaw's Jewish communities (and, as an aside, maybe no Jewish community anywhere -- not even in the Holy Land in Roman times -- has suffered like the Polish Jewish community in Warsaw), And, right across the street, Aleje Jerozolimskie (Jerusalem Avenue) is a big ol' Charles de Gaulle.

But that's not what was going on.

Lots and lots of police and police cars. The police seemed to be there "just in case," as opposed to reasons of crowd management, as there was no traffic, to speak of, on the streets. At precisely 5:00 p.m., at least at this intersection, the fun began. Loud amplified speeches (in Polish) (I have no clue what was being said) (it is a bit of an impenetrable language). And smoke cannisters releasing red and white smoke.

 

Red and white being the colors of the Polish flag.

And there were lots of flags on the streets. What was going on? Here is all I know. All of town, they were commemorating the 77th anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising. The Warsaw Uprising is a horribly tragic (and heroic) moment in Poland's World War Two fight. Guerilla fighters poured into the streets to fight the weakened Nazis, hoping that the nearby Soviet Red Army (camped across the river) would aid them in throwing the Nazis out of Warsaw. The Polish fighters were slaughtered. Then, after the Polish rebellion was quashed and the Nazis exhausted with their victory, the Red Army swept in and "liberated" Warsaw.

Let's talk about happier history. Copernicus,

I decided to take a stroll north of the intersection (not sure if there were Warsaw Uprising goings-on elsewhere in the city) (there were). This is the Copernicus Monument, on the Royal Route. He is in front of Staszic Palace. This was one of the only statues of Polish heroes not destroyed by the Nazis during their occupation of Warsaw.

The Nazis considered Copernicus to be German.

And lots of police on the Royal Route heading northward. This is the Church of the Holy Cross.

It was not open for a tourist look-see, due to the Uprising.

These are the gates of the University of Warsaw:

I met a young scholar sitting on a bench:

Who is he? Why is he there? Maybe I will find out on tomorrow's walking tour. And here are four burly beefy Polish men holding up a building:

Church and statue of religious figure:

But of course THE religious figure in Polish history is Saint John Paul:

This cross was erected in commemoration of Pope John Paul II's visit to Warsaw in 1979.

This is Pidulski Square. It is packed with monuments and memorials, such as this monument, the Pomnik Ofiar Tragedii Smoleńskiej 2010:

This is the memorial to the Smolensk Air Disaster, an incident in 2010, where the Polish President, Lech Kaczynski, and a large number of very high-ranking Polish officials were killed in a plane crash near the Russian City of Smolensk. They were attending ceremonies commemorating the 70th anniversary of the very notorious Katyn massacre when the Soviets 22,000 (give or take) Polish intellectuals and military leaders in the Katyn Forest.

 

There is a lot of tragedy in Polish history. A lot.

Getting back to happy thoughts, the square opens up into a very large park.

Very green.

There was even a man making soap bubbles and lots of little kids running after the bubbles.

The square also contains Poland's Tomb of the Unknown Soldier:

Solemn, yes.

But a tourist site nonetheless. Just like our Tomb of the Unknown Soldier in Arlington cemetery outside Washington D.C.

On with the walk.

This is the statue of Adam Mickiewicz. Who's that?, you ask. You got google.

And there were a bunch of ping pong tables out on the street for people to play.

Was this a special "only today" or "only this weekend" thing? I'll find out. But who doesn't love a game of table tennis out in the open air?

I finally reached Old Town Square.

Full disclosure: Warsaw's Old Town is not old.

It was rebuilt after it was completely (as in "totally") destroyed by the Nazis in World War Two, It was rebuilt to look just like it did.

This is the famous Sigismund's Column, marking the entry into the Old Town.

And I believe these are castle walls. Let's have a look-see.

Why, yes, this would be the Jan Kilinski monument you see:

And this is the very famous statue of the Little Insurgent, a monument to the child-soldiers who fought for Poland throughout its history.

No surprise this would be a VERY popular gathering spot on a day like today.

Hansom cab alert:

Always have to photograph one of those when you see them. This was, surprisingly, the old hansom cab I saw in Old Town Warsaw. You would think the place would be lousy with them.

And, to end the walk, I went looking for the Warsaw Uprising monument.  I found it.

I couldn't get close because of the thick crowd.

And this crowd (and the police presence around the monument) was a little different. The police had riot shields for example. I didn't think anything would happen, but if it did, it would happen instantaneously. And since this was the one place the police thought they needed to display riot shields, I thought it best not to linger.

So I visited this old gentleman:

It was now suppertime in Warsaw, my first night in Poland. What to eat?

It's Poland. So it's pierogis.

I couldn't decide between savory or sweet, so I had both. The savory were served first. This was an assortment. The best flavor? Forest mushroom, without a doubt. The mushrooms were incredibly flavorful.

I could not get an assortment for the sweet, as they only had blueberry.

The blueberries were a bit tart for me and I really like tart fruit.

So my first night in Poland is in the books. Poland is now the 34th country that I have visited. Country #33, the Netherland, also went into the books this trip because, on the flight here, I had a layover in Amsterdam's Schipol airport (and I count airport layovers, especially when there is a passport stamp, as there was here).