WARSAW
A walk through the Polish capital
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Warsaw served as a stopover on our way home from Portugal. Our flight from Lisbon arrived late in the evening at the small Modlin Airport, a hub typically used by low-cost carriers. Located north of the Polish capital, it is about an hour’s bus ride from Warsaw’s city center. For the night, we had booked a small hotel that was not only the closest to the airport but also the most affordable. It was 12:30 a.m.; the GPS showed a distance of two and a half kilometers, so we set off for our accommodation on foot. After about five hundred meters, the sidewalk ended, and we stepped onto a dark highway.
There was no lighting—just pitch darkness and two solitary travelers trudging toward their next adventure. And the adventure didn't take long to find us. A police car with flashing lights appeared up ahead, drove past, then suddenly made a U-turn and headed straight for us. Then came the classic routine: "Hands on the hood," "Who are you?", "Show us your ID," and "What are you doing out here in the middle of the night?"
At first, I answered in Russian, but I saw no sign of understanding in their eyes. When I switched to Ukrainian, the police officers began to understand about seventy percent of what I was saying. Eventually, they put us in their car, drove us about a hundred meters forward, and stopped by a sign indicating that pedestrians were prohibited on that stretch of road. When I objected—asking how we could have known about the ban since we hadn't reached the sign yet—the officers announced that we were going to the station to be fined twenty dollars each for walking on the highway.
Can you imagine the disappointment of budget travelers who flew from Lisbon to Warsaw for fifteen dollars a head, only to have to pay twenty just to cover the two kilometers from the airport to their hotel?! On top of that, we have a bus to Warsaw city center booked for 8:00 AM; it’s already nearly 1:00 AM, and we’re facing a trip to the police station. We were disheartened, not knowing when we’d be released, how we’d get from the station to the hotel in the middle of the night, or whether we’d have any time left to actually sleep there—or if we’d simply wasted our money booking it in the first place...
After much persuasion, we managed to convince the police officers that we were budget travelers who hadn't seen the sign; we explained that back home, people routinely walk along the shoulders of highways, and we couldn't even imagine that such an activity might be prohibited anywhere. Taking pity on us, the officers agreed to reduce the fine to ten dollars, noting on the ticket that we had simply crossed the road in an unauthorized spot. Realizing they had softened and didn't view us as dangerous offenders, we continued to argue persuasively against imposing such a huge fine on impoverished travelers like ourselves. In the end, a Polish word was spoken that we would remember forever: *kamizelka*. To be precise, the police officer said, "Nie masz kamizelki." Not quite grasping where the conversation was heading, I sighed ruefully and agreed—yes, it was a shame, I didn't have a *kamizelka*. It turned out they had opted for the smallest possible fine—ten zlotys per person, which amounted to about four dollars at the time. And for that eight-dollar total, they wrote up a citation stating we had been on the roadway without a reflective vest (*kamizelka*), while also agreeing to drive us to our hotel. We agreed immediately.
After handing us the fine slips, the police drove us to the hotel—a trip that took just a minute. As we got out of the police car, the first officer joked that eight dollars was the actual taxi fare from the airport to the hotel, so it turned out we had simply used the police as a taxi service. The second officer then asked where these poor tourists had flown in from. "From Lisbon!" I cheerfully shouted back, and we disappeared through the hotel doors. Since the hotel was a budget-friendly accommodation option, the shower was located in the hallway. By the time we had taken turns washing up, it was already past two in the morning. We lay down and closed our eyes, only for the alarm to go off immediately, signaling a 7 a.m. wake-up call. We were severely sleep-deprived after the previous day's adventures, yet a walk around Warsaw lay ahead of us. This is what our room looked like when we left.
I took the trouble to step out onto the balcony and photograph the view from the window. The hotel receptionist called us a taxi to the airport, since the bus to Warsaw departs from there. The taxi cost us the familiar eight dollars.
Warsaw’s city center greeted us with a "Stalinist skyscraper." Seven of these were built in Moscow, and one each in Warsaw, Riga, and Kyiv—examples of Soviet Art Deco, so to speak.
Modern high-rises were also visible around the square, where buses from all the outskirts of Warsaw were arriving.
We took a walk along the avenue. For the most part, it looked like this: 9- to 12-story buildings, beautiful flowerbeds, and very wide streets.
Our feet led us to Saxon Park, where—on an unusually hot day for early May—we, as sleep-deprived travelers, sought relief from the heat in the cool spray of the fountains.
The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is located at the edge of the park. We happened to be there at noon and were able to watch the changing of the guard.
We not only watched this ceremonial event but also filmed it for our readers and YouTube channel viewers. Take a look, and don't forget to like the video and subscribe to the channel. We have plenty of interesting videos there that we’ve filmed while traveling to various countries.
We had planned to visit the Old Town next, but our path was blocked by protesters demanding that their rights be respected.
Based on our observations, Polish civil society is highly organized. We have encountered people fighting for their rights in Kraków and Sopot, and now in Warsaw as well.
After the demonstration had passed, we spotted a tourist train offering a tour of the Old Town’s key landmarks for fifteen zlotys (six dollars per person). Since it was already 1:00 PM and our bus to Kyiv was departing at 4:00 PM from a different part of the city, we decided to take a quick tour of the architectural sights aboard the tourist vehicle.
The route was short but varied. The train even ventured outside the old town, traveling for part of the way along a highway alongside regular traffic before "diving" back into the Polish capital's historic district. Incidentally, for those who don't know: no actual historic district exists here—Warsaw suffered devastating damage from bombing raids during World War II. This means that virtually all the historic buildings are modern reconstructions—painstakingly restored (or rather, rebuilt from scratch) based on surviving blueprints and photographs.
Our "cruise" came to an end in the very heart of the Old Town. There it is—the view that is firmly associated with the word "Warsaw."
We were greeted in the main square by a newlywed couple dancing—bouncing spiritedly and performing various playful steps. Seeing something like that guarantees a good mood for the rest of the day.
We caught a glimpse of the next interesting scene quite by chance. A pair of police officers was stationed in one part of the square, stopping passing cyclists to issue fines. They would flag down unsuspecting riders, point to the "no entry" sign at the entrance, and demand payment—essentially just standing there and shaking down cyclists, much like stereotypical traffic cops. We felt really sorry for a young woman caught by these "hunters"; they were demanding she pay a fine for the "serious offense" of riding her bike into the square. There were actually quite a few cyclists in the area, but the others simply got lucky by passing well out of the officers' reach.
However, there are no barriers or obstacles here for horses and carriages; in the Old Town, they are the undisputed masters of the streets and squares.
After wandering around and getting quite overheated by the bright, scorching sun, we slowly began making our way from the Old Town toward the bus station. We walked past the fortress wall in the direction of the Barbican.
We took a picture of a dragon near a tiled roof, having learned that a dragon had lived somewhere other than just Kraków.
On the way, we took photos of the monuments to the tortured officers of the Polish Army and to Jan Kiliński, a participant in the 1794 uprising.
After that, we took one last look at the rooftops of Warsaw’s Old Town, hailed a passing taxi, and twenty minutes later arrived at the bus station, where the bus to Kyiv was already waiting for us.
