World City Guide

Key Attractions

Zamek Krolewski (Royal Castle)
Walking through the Royal Castle, one has to constantly remind oneself that most of it was reconstructed between 1971 and 1984, although the darker elements of the decor were actually salvaged from the ruins. The castle, located on a plateau overlooking the Vistula River, was built for the Dukes of Mazovia and expanded when King Zygmunt III Vasa moved the capital to Warsaw. From the early 17th until the late 18th century, this was the seat of the Polish kings. It subsequently housed the parliament and is now a museum displaying tapestries, period furniture, coffin portraits and collections of porcelain and other decorative arts. Work is underway to recreate the castle gardens, set on the slopes of the Vistula River, which were also badly scarred when the Nazis levelled the rest of the castle complex.

Plac Zamkovy 4 (ticket office situated at ulica Swietojanska 2)
Tel: (022) 657 2170 or 2338, ticket office. Fax: (022) 635 7260.
E-mail: zamek@zamek-krolewski.art.pl
Website: www.zamek-krolewski.art.pl
Transport: Tram 4, 13, 26 or 32; bus 125, 170 or 190.
Opening hours: Tues-Sat 1000-1800, Sun and Mon 1100-1800 (Jul-Sep); Tues-Sat 1000-1600, Sun 1100-1600 (Oct-Jun).
Admission: Z8 (permanent exhibits); Z14 (royal apartments); Z70 (English-speaking guide); free on Sun; concessions available.

Lazienki Park
In addition to a number of palaces, Lazienki Park contains the Chopin Monument – where the annual Chopin Festival is held each summer – and the Orangerie, set within extensive 18th-century gardens. Palac Lazienkowski (Palace on the Water) is best viewed from near the monument to Jan Sobiewski, on the bridge where ulica Agrykola crosses the water. Originally built in 1624, for King Zygmunt III Vasa, Zamek Ujazdowski (Ujazdowski Castle) now houses the Centre of Contemporary Art. The 1764 Palac Belweder (Belvedere Palace) was the residence of King Stanislaus Augustus Poniatowski and later of Poland’s 20th-century presidents. On warm summer days, rowing boats offer short cruises around the park’s lake. Cycling is banned in the park.

Ulica Agrykola 1
Tel: (022) 621 8212.
Transport: Bus 114, 116, 118, 151 or 195.
Opening hours: Tues-Sun 0900-1500; park closes at sunset.
Admission: Free (park); Z10, free on Sat (Palace on the Water); Z5, free on Tues (Orangerie); Z4, free on Sat (Belvedere Palace); concessions available.

Wilanow Palace
In the mid-1600s, King Jan III Sobieski commissioned Augustyn Locci to build the Baroque palace and garden of Wilanow for his summer residence. Construction continued from 1677 until the king’s death in 1696. It remained popular with subsequent monarchs. Visitors can tour the interior and the gallery, which features portraits of famous Poles. Artistic handicrafts are on display in the Orangerie. Also here is the Muzeum Plaktau w Wilanowie (Poster Museum at Wilanow), the first of its kind in the world. Entrance to the palace requires a guide, for a group of one to 35 people, although the park is open to unaccompanied visitors. Restoration work, the speed and scale of which is determined by current funding levels, is ongoing but affects few visits.

Ulica St. Potockiego 1
Tel: (022) 842 8101.
E-mail: wilanowm@mercury.ci.uw.edu.pl
Website: www.wilanow-palac.art.pl
Transport: Bus 116, 130, 164 or 180.
Opening hours: Mon, Wed-Sat 0930-1400, Sun 0930-1800; park closes at sunset.
Admission: Z4 (park); Z115 (palace – with English-speaking guide), Z23 per person (palace – for a group of six or more people with English-speaking guide); free on Thurs (park, Orangerie and temporary exhibitions); concessions available.

Pawiak Prison
This eerie old prison symbolises the oppression that has haunted Varsovians over the last two centuries. Originally built in the 1830s, at the order of the ruling Czars, the prison incarcerated many victims of the Nazi reign of terror from 1939-1944, when it served as the largest political prison in Poland. A third of the estimated 100,000 detainees never made it out alive. The Nazis tried to dynamite the evidence of their crimes as they left but Pawiak is back as a museum and a testament to the city’s seemingly endless ability to suffer and survive.

Ulica Dzielna 24/26
Tel: (022) 831 9289. Fax: (022) 831 1317
Transport: Bus 1 and 8.
Opening hours: Wed 0900-1700, Thurs 0900-1600, Fri 1000-1700, Sat 0900-1600, Sun 1000-1600.
Admission: Free.

Narodowe (National Museum)
The National Museum’s impressive art collection dates from ancient times to the present day. Highlights include Jan Matejko’s monumental Battle of Grunwalkd, which celebrates the Polish victory over the Teutonic Knights in 1410, and a collection of Egyptian art, which is unique in Europe. Unusually, there are also galleries of Polish and European decorative arts. Frequent temporary exhibitions bring prized international works – from Andy Warhol to Caravaggio – to Warsaw.

Aleja Jerozolimskie 3
Tel: (022) 621 1031. Fax: (022) 622 8559
E-mail: muzeum@mnw.art.pl
Website: www.mnw.art.pl
Transport: Metro Centrum.
Opening hours: Tues, Wed and Fri 1000-1600, Thurs 1200-1700, Sat and Sun 1000-1700.
Admission: Z9; Z13 (temporary exhibitions); concessions available; free Sat.

Katedra sw. Jana (St John’s Cathedral)
St John’s claims to be the oldest church in Warsaw. Although a major church in the Mazovian Gothic style, completed in the 15th century, St John’s was only upgraded from a parish church to a cathedral in 1798. Destroyed during World War II, is has been reconstructed in its original style and features major Gothic art works by Wit Stwosz. The cathedral was used in 1764, for the coronation of the last Polish king (Stanislaw II) and for the swearing in of the Sejm (Polish Parliament) after the constitution of 1791. The covered footbridge connecting it to the Royal Palace was the result of a failed assassination attempt on King Zygmunt III.

Ulica Swietojanska 8.
Tel. (022) 831 0289.
Transport: North of the Royal Castle; tram 4, 13, 26 or 32; bus 125, 170 or 190.
Opening hours: Mon-Sat 1000-1800, Sun 1400-1800 (cathedral); daily 1000-1300 and 1500-1730 (crypt).
Admission: Free.

Getto Zydowskie (Jewish Ghetto)
What is markedly absent from Warsaw contributes as much to its history as anything that has been preserved or reconstructed. Pre-war Warsaw had a Jewish population second only to New York. After the Nazi invasion, some 400,000 Jews were rounded up and forced to stay in the Jewish ghetto. A three-metre-high (ten-foot) wall encircled the area, from the Palace of Culture and Science to the Umschlagplatz monument, corner of ulica Stawki and ulica Dzika. This stark monument, erected in the late 1980s, marks the place from where Jews were despatched by train to the Treblinka concentration camp, following the Ghetto Uprising of 19 April 1943. The centre of the ghetto is marked by the Monument to the Ghetto Heroes, ulica L Zamenhofa, which was erected on a sea of ruins in 1948. Other memorials are the Monument of the Killed and Murdered in the East, ulica Muranowska, and the 1944 Warsaw Uprising Monument, plac Krasinskich. Only three sections of the actual ghetto wall remain.

Further information about the Jewish Ghetto is available at the Jewish Historical Institute Gallery, located on the site of the former Great Synagogue. The Institute has a permanent display of work by Jewish artists, as well as photographs and documents relating to the Jewish ghetto, a bookshop (with copies in English) on the Jews of Eastern Europe and archives at the Ronald S. Lauder Foundation is located on the premises (entrance by appointment only). There are also plans for a brand new Jewish museum, which will be built on the site of the ghetto and funded by Jewish groups around the world.

Jewish Historical Institute and Ronald S. Lauder Foundation Genealogy Project
Ulica Tlomackie 3/5
Tel: (022) 827 9221. Fax: (022) 827 1843.
Website: www.jewishinstitute.org.pl
Transport: Bus 107, 111,166, 171, 180 or 512; tram 2, 4, 15. 18, 31 or 36.
Opening hours: Tues-Fri 0900-1500, Sat and Sun by prior appointment only.
Admission: Free.