Warsaw was a last minute booking and my third visit to Poland after Gdańsk and Kraków. I was checking out activities for us to do whilst in Warsaw and there wasn’t that much jumping out to do. A lot of the museums in Warsaw close Monday/Tuesday, and we arrived Sunday afternoon and left midday Wednesday, so this was a small hiccup in our plan.
Our trip was in the run up to Christmas though, so I checked out the dates of the Christmas market in a “what’s on in Warsaw” event website and was pleasantly surprised to see one of my favourite bands (The National) playing the Monday of our trip. Since this European tour doesn’t include Ireland it would have been rude not to go.
Enough about the planning stages, time to talk about the trip! We arrived in Modlin airport at 2:00, and there was next to no public transport on a Sunday. I ordered an Uber to take us to our apartment (which conveniently worked out quicker AND cheaper than the bus from Modlin would have cost). Our apartment was just an office where we picked up the keys to our actual apartment in the middle of the old town. By the time we got into our actual apartment and dropped our bags off it was 3:30pm, and the Polish Army Museum closed at 4:00pm – so we conceded we weren’t going to have time to visit it.
Before long we were dressed up in layers to brave the 2°C weather and it was time to explore the old town.
We set out to find food and drink and within 5 minutes of leaving the apartment we were wandering around the old town square. One restaurant that caught our eye was Bazyliszek, I decided to try something I’ve never had before in pork knuckle (and it was very succulent), and Amy had chicken goulash with potato pancake. We were both delighted with our food and even more delighted when the bill came down and it cost less than £10 each for a filling meal and an accompanying pint.
After we filled up we set out to find a bar, when we stumbled across Elephant Belgian Bar, not far from the Barbakan entrance into the old town.
All the available beers were Belgian, and they had flavoured cherry beer (or kreik) for those who don’t like the more traditional beer types. Elephant was a great, warm base camp to take us out of the cold night.
A few rounds of Belgians finest beer perked us up enough to brave the cold to find something a bit more… Polish. We ended up in a karaoke bar. There was us, and a small group of 3 Polish chaps in the bar at the beginning, but a group from Scotland and the staff that served us earlier in Bazyliszek filtered in later. After some Dutch courage, or should I say Polish vodka, we attempted the karaoke and sang a wonderful performance of Oasis’ Champagne Supernova.
The next morning was a bit more touristy. We ventured through the Barbakan Christmas Market (it wasn’t great). It had a few stands filled with Knick knacks, magnets, hot chocolate, and a blacksmith making horseshoes. The most interesting one (in my opinion) was the one with the range of lollipops (see photo below).
And then partook in a walking tour through the old town. The walking tour was very Church heavy, and the main standouts from it were the fact Poland has been ravaged by war a lot. Notably World War 2, but they also had a lesser known war with Sweden which devastated the nation in the 1600s. In one of the churches, two Polish princes (the last 2 Masovian dukes) were buried, they both died in their 20s from alcohol poisoning allowing their small duchy to be absorbed into Greater Poland.
The guide Tomasz also kept reminding us that Marie Curie and Frédéric Chopin were Polish, and Warsaw natives, and not French as they are often mistaken.
The weather was FREEZING, so when the walking tour was finished, we were eager to venture somewhere warm. The Neon Muzeum was high on my to-do list, so that was the next stop.
The Museum was quite small and unassuming from the outside, it was literally a warehouse, and whilst the exhibition was small on the inside, it contained some very interesting pieces and some information about them, and how neon lights and advertisement were impacted in communist Poland. It was a cool experience
The museum was in a hip area with restaurants around it, so we grabbed a drink and a light bite to eat before going back to our apartment, stopping at a cool Oktoberfest themed bar called Bierhalle. When we arrived at our apartment, we quickly got changed and headed into the old town for food and drinks prior to the National.
The concert was in Torwar Hall, a small(ish) ice hockey stadium the opposite side of the road to Legia Warsaw’s Polish Army Stadium, and it was quite intimate. The National put on a fantastic performance belting out their classics, and food/drink in the stadium was incredibly cheap. I don’t want to go on too much about the band as this is not a music blog, but The National are great and I recommend you checking them out. Pints of Tyskie inside cost less than £2, and popcorn was roughly £1.50, I’d gladly return to Poland for a concert, as even the tickets were significantly cheaper than an equivalent show back home.
It was a bit of a struggle grabbing an Uber after the show, but we were having a good time and decided we’d like to try and find a nightclub. We ended up being the only people in ‘Luzztro’ that weren’t hanging around the toilets snorting what was presumably cocaine, and it was horrible. We left after one drink and called it a night.
Our last day was a bit shambolic too. We wanted to venture on a guided pub crawl, as I had done one in Gdańsk and met many fellow travellers and had a great time. We had signed up to one online and that was our plan for our last night. We thought we’d have our own pub crawl during the day to psyche us up…
We began in our favourite spot: Belgian Elephant Bar, and then ventured to some spots near the Royal Palace. Here we went to an ‘Irish’ bar that didn’t have functioning toilets. I was so irked by the place that I took the liberty to create a trip advisor account and reviewed the place – and then proceeded to publish a rant about Irish bars here. I don’t like the idea of me affecting someone’s livelihood; but I hope Molly Malone’s in Warsaw closes down.
After having a few drinks, some food and some more drinks, we embarked on the disastrous ‘pub crawl’.
First of all, we were the only people at the Copernicus statue for the pub crawl, and our guides weren’t there. Eventually they show up, and took us to our first pub, one of the guides was an outgoing tattoo artist from Lebanon, and the second was a reserved Jordanian student. After the first stop filled with awkward small talk, we were apprehensive. The second bar, Nora Bar, was more lively, filled with students and had an ongoing karaoke competition. After another bit of awkward small talk we told the guides we wanted to call it a night and that they could go home, we essentially didn’t want to waste our last night in Poland on the worst pub crawl going. The guides told us it’s normally busier at the weekend, in which case it should only operate at the weekend, or have contingency plans and cancel if the crowd is as small as it was when we did it. We remained in Nora Bar and performed Champagne Supernova again, though this time we were cut off after the first chorus. I guess I’m not the superstar singer I thought I was.
All in all, our trip to Warsaw was a disaster with a concert and the neon museum thrown in, but I really enjoyed my stay. Whilst Poland’s capital lacks the charm or history of Kraków or Gdańsk, it wasn’t expensive at all. Warsaw is perfect for a cheap, quick getaway filled with food and drink.
