2 Best Sights in Warsaw, Poland

It is very difficult to pinpoint where the Warsaw city center is. Varsovians differ in its definition. Some would say it is the area around the Palace of Culture and Science (and the Central Railway Station), which bustles with fashionable shops and hotels. Others would argue that plac Trzech Krzy?y is the center—or plac Zbawiciela. For many, it would be the area around the Royal Castle and the Old Town square; after all, it was at this location that a fishing hamlet was founded and eventually grew into Warsaw town.

For the visitor, the question is, happily, not so important because all these places are not at all far from one another, and Warsaw is an easy city to navigate. The Palace of Culture and Science will certainly provide you with a useful orientation point: to its north lies the Old Town, which encompasses most of the Royal Route; to its south, the Diplomatic Quarter and the ?azienki Park. West of the Old Town lie Muranów, Mirów, and Wola, neighborhoods in the former Jewish district. All these sights are on the left bank of the Vistula River.

On the right bank is the Praga District, a poorer quarter of workers and artisans that emerged from the war fairly intact. Today, Praga is becoming increasingly fashionable, and many visitors find its galleries, bars, and unique "provincial" flavor well worth the trip across the Vistula.

Jewish Cemetery

Behind a high brick wall on ulica Okopowa you will find Warsaw's Jewish Cemetery, an island of continuity amid so much destruction of the city's Jewish heritage. The cemetery, which is still in use, survived the war, and although it was neglected and became badly overgrown during the postwar period, it is gradually being restored. Here you will find 19th-century headstones and much that testifies to the Jewish community's role in Polish history and culture. Ludwik Zamenhof, the creator of the artificial language Esperanto, is buried here, as are Henryk Wohl, minister of the treasury in the national government during the 1864 uprising against Russian rule; Szymon Askenazy, the historian and diplomat; Hipolit Wawelberg, the cofounder of Warsaw Polytechnic; and poet Bolesław Leśmian. To reach the cemetery, you can take a bus (nos. 107, 111, 180) or a tram (nos. 1, 22, 27).

Powązki Cemetery

Dating from 1790, Warsaw's oldest cemetery is worth a visit if you are in a reflective mood. Many well-known Polish names appear on the often elaborate headstones and tombs. There is also a recent memorial to the victims of the Katyń Massacre, when 4,000 Polish servicemen, who had been taken prisoner when the Soviets were still aligned with the Nazis, were murdered by the Soviet army on orders from Stalin in 1940 in the Katyń Forest. Enter from ulica Powązkowska.

Warsaw

Warsaw

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