Warsaw, Poland
We arrived in Warsaw via train from Krakow. It was early evening by the time we checked into our hotel so we headed out towards the Old Town to explore a bit but we didn’t get too far because it started to rain quite soon after we’d left. Instead we dashed into the closest restaurant around for dinner. During dinner we saw the most ridiculously huge ice cream sundaes being delivered to customers. We were too full to indulge in any ice cream that night but little did we know that Warsaw is some sort of ice cream capital.
The hotel we stayed at in Warsaw was a bit swankier than our previous hotels and lived up to the Cathy and Cecilia European breakfast trifecta: smoked salmon, nutella and cappuccinos. We were in breakfast heaven.
In the morning we had a half day tour of Warsaw. We had a driver and a guide for this tour since we visited some sights that weren’t within walking distance of our hotel. We visited a former summer palace of one of the Polish kings, a monument to the Jewish ghetto that was destroyed by the Nazis and the Royal Palace. We also had a late morning ice cream while on our tour at what our guide told us was the best ice cream shop in Warsaw. We thought we’d be able to remember this particular shop because it had “Lody” written outside which we assumed was the shop name. It turns out lody means ice cream in Polish so this wasn’t exactly a distinguishing characteristic! There was literally an ice cream on every corner in the Old Town. Below is a picture of the Mermaid statue that sits in the center of the Old Town Market Place. Unlike Krakow, Warsaw was almost entirely destroyed during WWII. Here’s an image what the market place looked like in 1945.
In the afternoon we walked through the Old Town into the New Town and visited the Maria Skłodowska-Curie museum. The museum is housed in the building where she was born. Although the collection wasn’t large it was very interesting. I guess Mom and I must be big Marie Curie’s fans because we visited her tomb in the Pantheon when were Paris two years ago
As a side note the Dalai Lama had lunch in our hotel on this day. We secretly think he might have been staying there too but we have no confirmation other than miscellaneous security looking guys hanging around in the lobby. Also we were unable to visit the ballroom at the Royal Castle because he had received honorary Warsaw citizenship there earlier in the day.
We had a very leisurely second day in Warsaw. It was the last full day of our vacation and were were all about underachieving. First we lingered over a multi course breakfast. Then we walked down Warsaw’s “Royal Way” for an hour until we reached the Park Łazienkowski where there are both peacocks and squirrels. Our guide on the previous day had been very excited about the prospect of seeing squirrels. We spent about an hour in the park (relaxing and working on a cryptic crossword) and then walked back to our hotel for a late lunch of salads and cappuccinos.
In the afternoon we read and napped (well one of us napped, you can guess who). Later we went for our dinner at a traditional Polish restaurant in the New Town and then stopped off to buy ice cream cones which we ate while sauntering back to our hotel savouring our last night in Europe.
The next morning we were up early to have breakfast and then catch our ride to the airport. We flew to Frankfurt and then on to Ottawa. While the airline agent was checking my passport before admitting me to the waiting lounge he actually noticed that today was my birthday and wished me a happy birthday! I was impressed. Dad and Alli had flown in from Vancouver arriving in Ottawa about 30 minutes before us so they were there to great us when we arrived.