Explore Old City in Warsaw: Castle Square, Market Place & More

[Borek]

To buy postcards I had to visit Old City in Warsaw. We went there (with my better half) last Saturday. We took cameras with us. Stupid feeling, to behave like a tourist in your own city

Castle Square with Zygmunt's Column. That's the view you will find everywhere, in every book about Warsaw. Column was erected in 1644. To the right - barely visible - Royal Castle.

Corner of the Old Town Market Place. Can't say I like city pictures with newlyweds, I always find these artificial and arranged, just to show that city is young blah blah blah... But it was Saturday, there are many churches around and the most popular place in Warsaw to get married - Old Town Wedding Palace. They were everywhere and we have them on at least two pictures.*

While this is Old City, new parts of the city hang over it.*

So so view.

City walls.

To the left - Vistula River, not visible on the picture. Old City lies on the river bank, in some places about twice as step as here.

Same river bank. This is Mostowa Street - most means bridge. Yes, there was a bridge here, built around 1570. First in Warsaw. It didn't lasted long.*

Following pictures are - technically - not from Old City, but from New City. New City lies outside city walls and was built somewhere between 14^th and 15^th century.

Towers of St. Hyacinth's Church.

Kościelna Street and tower of St. Mary's Church - built 1409-1411, one of the oldest in Warsaw.

Freta Street and view on the Church of the Holy Spirit.

St. Kazimierz Church on the New City Market Square.*

Droshky (dorożka). One of several. Mainly for tourists.*

Souvenir stalls don't differ much from any other place in the world... Drink Coca Cola.*

One final remark. While it is called Old City, it is slightly older than 50 years After Warsaw Uprising capitulation Hitler ordered to wipe Warsaw from the Earth surface. That's what was left in 1945:

So everything on these pictures have been rebuilt or built from scratch in early fifties.

1 hour to select and prepare pictures, 1.5 hour to edit a single message. I think I may need some treatment.

*Taken by Marzena.

 

[Cyrus]

Lovely place. You'd never know the buildings were so young by looking at them.

 

[Borek]

Do you mean they already look as if they were going to fall, or do you mean the reconstruction was succesfull?

Egad, in both cases you are more or less right.

 

[Cyrus]

Do you mean they already look as if they were going to fall, or do you mean the reconstruction was succesfull?

Egad, in both cases you are more or less right.

If you told me they were from 1800s I would take you at your word.

Most of america looks like this:

http://www.peterpaulsplumbing.com/nss-folder/pictures/Strip%20Mall-Gilmer%20Rd.JPG

Strip malls everywhere...

Unless your in a major city, the architecture is garbage and the city planning sporadic. I hate suburbs.

 

[scorpa]

Great pictures Borek! I would love to go there someday.

 

[dlgoff]

Thanks for sharing Borek. Very nice.

 

[cristo]

Great pics, Borek. One thing that jumps out immediately is the lack of people. Pictures taken in almost any area of London on a Saturday would be packed full of people. It looks lovely and peaceful there!

 

[lisab]

Wonderful pictures - very charming. Thanks Borek and Marzena!

You're right, Cyrus. No thought at all is given to architecture in the US. Look at Warsaw's old town - the architecture say, "Come on in, look around a bit, find a nice cafe or pub and relax!" Now look at the very typical picture you posted - it says, "Move along people, nothing to see here."

 

[Astronuc]

Wonderful pictures, Borek! I love the European cities on the continent.

The pictures from Warsaw remind me of Salzburg, Austria, and parts of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and other historic cities.

 

[Evo]

The pictures from Warsaw remind me of Salzburg, Austria, and parts of Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, and other historic cities.

Yikes, to compare what happened to Warsaw to German and Austrian cities? You forget who destroyed Warsaw.

 

[waht]

Very nice Borek. Been in Warsaw way back when, but didn't get a chance to see the old city.

 

[Kurdt]

Yikes, to compare what happened to Warsaw to German and Austrian cities? You forget who destroyed Warsaw.

I don't think Astro was referring to just the final picture Evo, just the overall style of buildings.

Very pretty place though.

 

[Integral]

Thank you, very nice to take a short trip to a old and facinating city.

 

[Astronuc]

Yikes, to compare what happened to Warsaw to German and Austrian cities? You forget who destroyed Warsaw.

I was reflecting on and commenting with respect to the buildings, the colors, the high-pitched tile roofs, and cobble stone and brick lined streets. The top 3 pictures look like images I've seen in a number of northern and eastern European cities. I like to old charm as opposed to modern asphalt and concrete.

WWII was a period about which I studied quite extensively in my teenage and university years. It's one of the reasons I oppose war.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rothenburg_ob_der_Tauber
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salzburg

Another very cool city is Budapest - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Budapest

 

[Cyrus]

Pictures like these are why I wish I lived in europe. Take more.

Its part of the reason why I like DC so much. The buildings are 100 years old, the momuments are old. Its not a cookie cutter suburb town with strip malls all over the place...

 

[physics girl phd]

So pretty you make me cry! (In the good way of course!)

 

[Moonbear]

Those photos bring back wonderful memories of my visit there! I have pictures somewhere of my choir in front of Zygmunt's Column. That was our daily meeting place to start the day's activities for the half of our trip we were in Warsaw.

Parking seems more orderly than when I visited. I remember cars parked anywhere and everywhere. No place on the street? Park on the sidewalk! The cars look bigger too. Except maybe that yellow one in the picture of Mostowa St.

 

[Borek]

Thank you all

Great pics, Borek. One thing that jumps out immediately is the lack of people. Pictures taken in almost any area of London on a Saturday would be packed full of people. It looks lovely and peaceful there!

Mostly on New City pictures, Old City Market Place was crowded. Mid October is not a high season in Warsaw and we were rather early in the day, that helped. In July or August you can't move. But I prefer it quiet.

Those photos bring back wonderful memories of my visit there! I have pictures somewhere of my choir in front of Zygmunt's Column. That was our daily meeting place to start the day's activities for the half of our trip we were in Warsaw.

Good point to start - both easy to locate and not far from many important places in Warsaw. But bussines center is somewhere else.

Parking seems more orderly than when I visited. I remember cars parked anywhere and everywhere. No place on the street? Park on the sidewalk! The cars look bigger too. Except maybe that yellow one in the picture of Mostowa St.

A little bit more orderly... perhaps. These pictures don't tell whole story. You can't drive nor park in the Old City area, there are restrictions in New City as well, although inhabitants have some privileges. That's why there are no cars on most of the pictures. And at the moment cars in Warsaw are 95% not different from any other European city. This little yellow one - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fiat_126 - is a cult car here - almost everyone had one at some point. My first was green, second was red But that's much longer story about peculiarities of socialist economy

 

[Monique]

One final remark. While it is called Old City, it is slightly older than 50 years After Warsaw Uprising capitulation Hitler ordered to wipe Warsaw from the Earth surface. That's what was left in 1945:

So everything on these pictures have been rebuilt or built from scratch in early fifties.

I was just going to comment that it looked so new, they did a good job rebuilding the city in a characteristic style. When they re-build Rotterdam the spirit of the city got lost, which really is a pity.

 

[Borek]

they did a good job rebuilding the city in a characteristic style.

There were many discussions about rebuilding. General idea was to rebuild the Old City so that it looked not as exactly before the war, but in the 18^th century shape, at the peak of its prosperity. As you may imagine it stirred many controversies, as there were not enough information to do it reliably.

Generally speaking many things done after the war to the city (Warsaw per se, not just the Old City) were not dictated by logic or needs, but by socialist propaganda. Many buildings that were in relatively good shape, but they were owned or built by known entrepreneurs and bussinesmen, were destroyed, as Warsaw has to be a proletariat city, without traces of capitalism/bourgeoisie. As they say - what Hitler didn't have time to destroy during war was destroyed after war by communists. That's exaggeration, but to some extent that's true.

 

[Gokul43201]

Wonderful pictures, Borek!

If I ever get a chance to visit Eastern Europe, I'm going to make sure I look you up!

 

[Borek]

If I ever get a chance to visit Eastern Europe, I'm going to make sure I look you up!

No problem, but we will need a lot of paper as I am better reading and writing then speaking

 

[Andre]

No problem, but we will need a lot of paper as I am better reading and writing then speaking

errrm,... it's 'than', I think. But you wouldn't notice, 'speaking' it.

 

[Borek]

Oops

 

[turbo]

Great pictures, and thanks to both of you for the look at Warsaw. I don't think that such rebuilding would have been possible in the US - the trade skills have declined to the point that stone masons are a dying breed. Even in the 1950's it probably would have been necessary to import skilled craftsmen to do the work.

 

[Borek]

Great pictures, and thanks to both of you for the look at Warsaw.

Thank you

the trade skills have declined to the point that stone masons are a dying breed

Same happens here. No experience with stone masons, but I have a belt that I got from my Dad back in seventies, and the leather wore out. I was looking for a leatherworker in Warsaw to make a new belt using the old buckle. No way. There was an old man that was ready to make the belt - but he had no leather. Finally I found one in Gdańsk.

 

[turbo]

The last stone house built in the last town I lived in was built by my friend and me, with his father (a mason) supervising us until he was satisfied that we knew what we were doing. Donnie had just gotten married and he and his wife didn't have much money and they were living with his parents. He put in a septic system and well, and poured a concrete slab and we spent every evening after work and every weekend working on the house. The property was grown-over farmland with field-stone walls all through the woods, so we tore down walls, hauled the stones back to the build-site and laid up the walls little by little using a small gas-powered mixer to make up our mortar. That was in 1981 when I was in a bit better shape than today.

To get nice vertical-sided openings for windows and doors, we lined the stone rough openings with bricks trimmed to fit. We had some help from his family when it was time to put up the rafters and the roof, but essentially Donnie and I built that place alone. It was a very cold little house in the winter, and when he could afford it, he built on a wood-framed addition.

 

[SweatyFunSeek]

Yes that is a very nice place to vist. Like to go there myself whenever I have the time when I am visting family. If you like visiting old cities like the Old City in Warsaw I highly recommend going to Prague, that city has a very beautiful old town.

 

[Borek]

Yes, Prague is a very nice city. First of all, Prague (like Budapest, to concentrate on cities that were already mentioned) was not heavily destroyed during IIWW. To add to that, Prague bloomed in the second half of 19^th century, so it has a lot of beautifull buildings from this period. Warsaw at the time was under Russian control, and to punish Poles after January Uprising (1863) Russians did everything possible to slow down economic development in Poland (not that Poland existed on maps at the time). No new roads, no new buildings, no new bridges - unless they were required for Russia military needs. No wonder we have not much from this period.

 

[glondor]

Those photos are fantastic Borek. The older cities fascinate me. I am always impressed with the amount of work and care that went into them. The WWII photo is scary awesome. Poland really has had a rough history. Keep posting!

 

[SweatyFunSeek]

Also the Palace of Culture and Science is a place worth visiting too. I went there when the Einstein exhibit was up, but the exhibit really was not that satysfing, it was more for little children. If there are any adventurous tourists in Warsaw go and check out the Łazienki Park and the Wilanów Palace.

 

[Borek]

check out the Łazienki Park

Shhh, I am not done with posting

 

[JasonRox]

Pictures like these are why I wish I lived in europe. Take more.

You can go to Quebec City to get that experience and that's not too far. I have lots of pictures of the city.

Of course, it doesn't seem to look as nice as Warsaw though!

Here are some:

This is looking that in one direction down the street I lived on.
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/6923/img0610cj3.jpg

Turning around and looking the other way is this.
http://img373.imageshack.us/img373/3180/img0611qo9.jpg

Turning to look around the corner. (We had an apartment on the corner with windows on both sides.)
http://img235.imageshack.us/img235/7555/img0667vf5.jpg

This is a small part of the lower city (very small). The part filmed in "Catch me if you can" that was located in France was actually here. Not this exact location, but to the right from here.
http://img413.imageshack.us/img413/5678/img0679ed6.jpg

For anyone that lives in the upper east coast in the US, it's worth making the trip. I met a family from Maryland, where Cyrus is from (I think), and to no surprise they loved it. The city of Quebec has laws protecting the city from sky rises too.

Anyways, cheap trip for exactly what you're looking for.

 

[Borek]

Quebec, Quebec... These pictures are not exactly from Warsaw?

 

[Evo]

My imaginary best friend will be in Warsaw Tuesday.

 

[Borek]

What a coincidence, I am going to Warsaw on Tuesday, how can I recognize him - does he wear \sqrt -1 t-shirt or something?

 

[Evo]

What a coincidence, I am going to Warsaw on Tuesday, how can I recognize him - does he wear \sqrt -1 t-shirt or something?

He talks softly but carries a big stick. He'll be the Irish microbiologist surrounded by beer.

 

[JasonRox]

Quebec, Quebec... These pictures are not exactly from Warsaw?

I'd love to see Warsaw. Unfortunately, I saw that it was in Poland and wondered how freaking expensive it would be!

 

[Borek]

I'd love to see Warsaw. Unfortunately, I saw that it was in Poland and wondered how freaking expensive it would be!

Never tried that, but I feel like you should be able to visit Warsaw for about $40 a day without a problem, probably even less (1 beer a day included). That's assuming you don't need 5 star hotel, NOT assuming that you will sleep under the bridge (but if so, you may choose from 9).

Edit: 40 PLN for a bed in a 3 bed dorm, as of today that's about $15, for dinner - large pizza below 20 PLN or chineese food for 12 PLN. 10 PLN for bread/butter/cheese/sausages. Something like 8 PLN for a daily ticket for a public transport (cheaper if you buy a 7-day ticket). Plus beer or two. Less then $40.

Plus flight, but that's another story.

 

[Monique]

That's assuming you don't need 5 star hotel, NOT assuming that you will sleep under the bridge (but if so, you may choose from 9).

that's quite some choice

they may not have any stars, but you'll see a lot of stars

 

[waht]

Borek have you been in Palac Kultury?

 

[Borek]

Borek have you been in Palac Kultury?

Hundreds of times. Museums, theaters, cinemas, Sala Kongresowa (Kongresowa Hall) and so on - many events each year, including fairs and concerts. I am not especially fond of frequenting such events, but now and then I have to. In fact it is difficult to live in Warsaw and never be there.

When I was teenager, back in seventies, I used to go to Palace of Youth (not sure about the name translation). It is located in the PKiN building. I was fencing, but there were many other sport sections - sailing, swimming, diving - as well as technical ones - like electronics, model building - and scientific, like biological.

The building is not loved here, see wiki article (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palace_of_Culture_and_Science,_Warsaw) for details. Some even want it bulldozed, although it won't happen, as it is in the heritage register. I don't have a clear opinion. I agree with those that say that we will be not able to build anything comparable. Doesn't matter if we like it or not, it became symbol of the city, so demolition doesn't make sense.

 

[JasonRox]

Plus flight, but that's another story.

That's what I'm talking about.

I'm going to the Caribbean in a 4-star hotel, all inclusive plus flight for $800CDN.

 

[turbo]

Jason has a good point for the east-coasters. You can enjoy the amenities of an old-world type city in a modern setting in Quebec. The old city is a pretty nice place, with nice bars, restaurants, etc.

I LOVED Winter Carnival in QC! I went twice, and both times, I got "adopted" temporarily by pretty bilingual girls who made sure that I got to get keyed-in to the stories and jokes of the francophiles. I got similar treatment when hanging with PQ bikers - I've always had fun in Canada. My family is French-Canadian on my mother's side, though my "command" of the language is poor. As a friend of mine says "when I go to Canada, I can speak enough French to order a hot dog and get my face slapped."

 

[JasonRox]

Jason has a good point for the east-coasters. You can enjoy the amenities of an old-world type city in a modern setting in Quebec. The old city is a pretty nice place, with nice bars, restaurants, etc.

I LOVED Winter Carnival in QC! I went twice, and both times, I got "adopted" temporarily by pretty bilingual girls who made sure that I got to get keyed-in to the stories and jokes of the francophiles. I got similar treatment when hanging with PQ bikers - I've always had fun in Canada. My family is French-Canadian on my mother's side, though my "command" of the language is poor. As a friend of mine says "when I go to Canada, I can speak enough French to order a hot dog and get my face slapped."

I've never been during the winter carnival! I hope to go this winter. :)

My supervisor already agreed that if I do good in my Master's, he will send me to Quebec City for my Ph.D! Dream come true! (Other great news of today!)

 

[Borek]

check out the Łazienki Park and the Wilanów Palace.

Shhh, I am not done with posting

OK, posting Warsaw pictures part two. Not necesarilly the last one

Łazienki Królewskie - name translates to Royal Baths (Park). Established in 17^th century, but it was remodelled in the second half of 18^th century. It is huge park and palace complex, now close to the center of Warsaw.

October 12^th was a very nice day.

Let's start with buildings.

Palace on the Water.

New Orangery. There is also an old one. There were more orangeries, as they were built and rebuilt several times.*

King Sobieski monument. In fact it is not in the park, but just behind the gate. Sobieski is well known for his defeat of Turks in the Battle of Vienna.

Then there is the park. It was sunny, and colors were beautiful.*

More colors.*

Even more colors.*

And some squirrels.

There are more buildings and monuments, including the famous Chopin monument. Unfortunately, some places were too crowded for a reasonably nice pictures

As usual, Marzena's pictures with *.

 

[Andre]

Wow, Borek, you're lucky with that autumn. Right here most trees seem to either green or leafless. No real colored spectacle. Well perhaps next year.

 

[Borek]

I would say this years autumn is particularly colorfull, I have been trying to catch nice colors for the last few years and with no success.

Still, compared to what Turbo shows we should all pretend to live on some other planet.

 

[turbo]

I would say this years autumn is particularly colorfull, I have been trying to catch nice colors for the last few years and with no success.

Still, compared to what Turbo shows we should all pretend to live on some other planet.

I'm lucky in that the area is heavily populated with sugar maples, aspen, etc that get nice bright colors. A few miles south of here is a hill where my wife and I once lived, and the woodland was almost all oak - NOT pretty in the fall.

Nice pictures, Borek, and I love Marzena's composition in the shot with the reflecting water. Luckily, there is a person in the photo for scale. Those trees are huge!

 

[Borek]

Nice pictures, Borek, and I love Marzena's composition in the shot with the reflecting water.

She is blushing

Luckily, there is a person in the photo for scale. Those trees are huge!

This park is over 300 years old, nothing strange they had time to grow.

Some other parts of Warsaw were not that lucky. During WWII many old trees were cut down and burnt, there were no other means of heating.