Warsaw was one of these very spontaneous trips that my sister and I took a year ago. We both always wanted to go, especially because our blood line somewhat originates from Poland and we both never been before. It is only a 5 hour train ride from Berlin, so it was the perfect destination for a short city trip over the weekend in August.

We stayed in the Patchwork Hostel Warsaw which is, at first, really hard to find if you don’t know your way around. The hostel itself is pretty chill, surrounded by bars and restaurants and right at the beginning of Warsaw’s old town. The staff was really nice and helpful and the rooms were alright, good enough for a weekend abroad. They also offer Pub crawls and all kind of activities, if you are interested in that.

We started our day by getting food (Pierogi) and of course some vodka. Even though the weather wasn’t as great during our first day, we decided to walk around the city after lunch and explore the city. We walked all the way to the old town, past the university, the parliament building and the royal castle and further to the city walls and the house of Marie Curie. The city is actually really nice (again, I heard that it’s not the nicest city and I have to disagree) and it was nice to walk around the entire day to kind of get a feel of the city. After going for some drinks in the bar right next to our hostel, we called it a night to be prepared for the next day.

On our second day, we decided to wake up early to get breakfast and go for a city walking tour (yellow umbrella) to get some extra insides considering that our time was limited (as I said before, it can either go great with these tours, or really bad – this time it was rather on the okish side). They have free walking tours going from the old market in front of the royal castle twice a day. Our guide walked us around all the most important sights and gave us some interesting insights about the history of the city. In the end, we got bread and vodka in one of the tiny restaurants and then we were free to go. On that day, the city celebrated the Warsaw Uprise during world war II during the day, so in the afternoon all the people gathered in front of the royal castle, had a minute of silence and then celebrated the occasion. It was really cool to watch, so we just sat down on the sidewalk and let it all sink in.

 

Later in the evening, we made our way all the way up to the Palac Kultury and the big mall thats up there, because we only walked around the old town up until then, so we wanted to check out other directions as well. The mall is alright, the palace is nice to look at, but there was not too much to do for us, so after chilling in front of the palace for a while, we decided to head back to the city center.

In the evening, we went for dinner and some drinks in the old town. Because the weather was so nice, everybody was out on the street and we listened to a street band quite a while before heading back to the hostel.

Because we still had some time to kill on Sunday, we decided to pay the royal castle a visit. After all we’ve heard the day before, we were curious to explore the insight a little more. If you do have enough time, go check it out. It’s just really interesting to walk around, considering that the building was almost completely destroyed back in the day.

So, if you ever want to go to Poland, Warsaw is a nice option. Even though everybody says Krakow is way nicer (we shall check this one out in 2017), I enjoyed the vibe of the city, the food is awesome anyways and there is lots of history, bars, nightlife and restaurants that the town has to offer, so I recommend you go and enjoy for a long weekend.