A trip To Warsaw, Poland

hellene8 (54)in #travel • 7 years ago

Hello steemit community,

today I'd like to present to you the story of a few days' trip to Warsaw Poland. In 2015 myself, @mariossap and another two friends of ours decided to organize a trip outside of Greece. We were on a tight budget and we were looking to travel to somewhere that wouldn't require too much money, neither were we looking to spend more than 3 days. We agreed to visit Warsaw in Poland. We had chosen a low-cost airline and we booked our flight. Afterwards we picked our hotel and booked two 2-single beds rooms. We also agreed to book a taxi that would take us from the airport to our hotel. I called the taxi company and made the arrangement.

The day of our departure arrived, we boarded the plane and arrived at Warsaw.

We landed at Warsaw Modlin Airport, which is located 35-40 minutes away from the city of Warsaw.

We arrived on a beautiful sunny day. We walked out of the terminal building and started looking for our booked taxi cab, which was nowhere to be seen. There was a taxi stand outside the building and we asked for a price to take us to the city, but we were given a higher price than the one I was given (by a different taxi company) on the phone when I booked it. I was a bit baffled by what had happened, so I ran to ask somebody for some information. Reaching the information desk inside the building, I was told that having booked a taxi from a company that doesn't have an agreement with the airport, you need to go ahead to the parking area, where taxis are allowed. Only a couple of taxi companies have an agreement with the airport, but our company wasn't one of those two. I remember I had read about it but had forgotten it. So I run back to the guys and we went ahead to the parking area, where indeed our booked taxi was driving in circles waiting for our group to appear.

It took us about 45 minutes covering a distance of 41 km to reach our hotel, a very nice hotel.

It was about time to check in.

We checked in and we entered the elevator to reach for our floors and our rooms.

I shared the room with my friend, while @mariossap shared his room with his friend. Entering our room for the first time

And a couple of photographs of the view from our room

We left our stuff in our rooms and we met downstairs in the lobby to head to the Warsaw Old Town. So, we entered the Underground Metro Station in order to go to the Old Town. Everything was in polish language and I thought we'd never find our way around. We used the metro, went out in a station and started walking along the Vistula River asking for instructions.

Getting close to our destination

We finally arrived at the Castle Square, which is just near the Old Town Market Square.

The time had passed and we had gotten hungry, it was time for dinner and polish beer no less.

Myself and @mariossap tried two polish beers, we started with

and continued with a better one

We finished our dinner and bought an ice cream from a nearby shop and then made a walk around the area to familiarize ourselves with the place

The Presidential Palace behind us.

Afterwards we returned to our hotel to sleep and rest. From the next day on I can't remember the right order of events to be honest. However, the next morning me and my friend George sharing the same room woke up and went out to get some breakfast. Marios and his friend Manthos had already woken up earlier than us and had visited the fitness center collaborating with our hotel

We got in touch with each other and we met to find a place to have breakfast and a coffee.

In that place we had delicious crepes that I was personally pleasantly surprised by their size and taste. Truly great.

Afterwards we decided to take a walk towards the Old Town. The distance from our hotel to the Old Town was a 25-minute walk, but we were somewhere in the middle of our way already, so we entered a beautiful park where at the other side there's the Warsaw's Unknown Soldiers' Grave.

Absolutely wonderful park on a wonderful sunny day

We arrived at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, which is located at Piłsudski Square, a vast open square that truly caught my eye by its size.

We kept on walking to enter Krakowskie Przedmieście road that leads to the Castle Square where we had been the previous evening when we arrived. A bit further there's the Old Town Market Square.

Changing the Guard procedure coming out of the Presidential Palace and heading to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

This road full of people and various happenings going on

Arrived at the beginning of the Castle Square in daylight this time

The building on the right of the photograph is Warsaw’s Royal Castle, which was reconstructed in the 1980s after World War II bombing and dominates the big Castle Square that marks the end of the historical Royal Route and the entry into the Old Town.

From the Castle Square is visible the National Stadium of Warsaw located at the other side of Vistula River.

This beautiful stadium brings to mind the opening match between Poland and Greece for the Euro 2012 tournament.

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Walking inside the Old Town

Here's the Old Town Market Square

@mariossap

Warsaw Old Town surrounded by the old medieval defensive walls

Inside the Old Town

We stopped to rest for a while and have a beer, @mariossap in his usual trolling mood

We kept walking around, left the Old Town and arrived at the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, where there's a statue of resistance fighter Jan Karski, who was a Polish World War II resistance movement fighter and later professor at Georgetown University.

Later on we headed back to the hotel by taxi to rest and in the afternoon we went out to have lunch. We arrived at a high-end shopping center, Zlote Tarasy which is located in the heart of the city.

I bought a couple of cds that I wanted to give as gifts and decided to sit at Hard Rock Cafe Warsaw for lunch. The restaurant tables are under the umbrellas shown.

Photographs of the city

During our stay in Warsaw it was also the night of the Champions League Final match between Juventus and Barcelona, so we went to a supermarket which was inside our hotel to buy supplies for the match, beers chips etc. Then we all came to the room where I and my friend were sharing to watch the game.

Me and Marios had been talking about searching for a rock / metal club to visit while in Warsaw and one evening we decided to go to one that we had written down from internet search. After a truly long walk and also having taken a taxi we finally arrived

Unfortunately it was nothing like you might expect to meet, it actually was a place in its demise. However, we sat down to have a beer and also Marios bought us shots of whiskey.