(#11) A SUMMER WEEKEND IN WASAW.

Our friends often ask us what we do on the weekends in Warsaw, truth be told nobody has actually asked this question it just seemed like a good lead-in to this Blog. I also may or may not have once been asked what we do for entertainment in a country where we don’t speak the language, so since everyone is all up in our business asking such questions I thought that I would share what Ginny and I got up to this past weekend.

So to make a short story long…..

This past Friday evening we enjoyed a nice dinner at home and decided to venture out in to the city and see what kind of fun we could find. Having absolutely no plans for the evening other than to get out of the apartment we headed to the part of the city that we find to be a magical part of town, Old Town Warsaw or specifically Castle Square. Castle square is actually not a square but more of a triangular shape and yes there is a castle near by, in fact the square or triangle as it were is located right in front of the historic Royal Castle, the former official residence of Polish monarchs. You will find Castle square at the end of Krakowskie Przedmieście, this is one of the best known and most prestigious streets of Warsaw. Most evenings you will find this area packed with people wandering around enjoying the beautiful architecture, amazing restaurants and the street performers or buskers, this area is especially active on the weekends in the summer.

Some of the first words that I learned in Poland I learned in Old Town Warsaw, these are two of the most important words in the Polish language, for me anyway, these magical words are lody i gofry and this means, wait for it, ice cream and waffles! I told you these were important words to learn!

CASTLE SQUARE, I took this photo from the viewing deck on top of St. Annes Church.

Krakowskie Przedmieście, I took this photo from the viewing deck on top of St. Annes Church.

Parking in this area is sometimes a challenge, the goal is to get as close to the square as possible and we often do because I tend to have good parking karma, combine good parking karma with a mini cooper and you have yourself a winning combination. This past Friday evening we had to park a couple of kilometers away which is no big deal because it is such a pleasant part of town to stroll through. At 8:00 pm we parked the car and started our walk through the city, as we wandered through the streets we heard the sound of live music wafting from a few blocks away and followed our ears until we found the source of the music. We discovered that a new restaurant called Stolica had a three piece band playing on the outdoor patio, the band was comprised of an accordion, a stand up bass and a clarinet and they were playing jazz standards, dixieland jazz as well as some wonderful Polish jazz. We could have enjoyed the music from the street and hung out with the drunk guy sitting on the cobblestones doing his own karaoke version of the song but it was such a pleasant evening, and frankly cobblestones are not very comfortable unless you are a drunk guy so we chose to sit and enjoy a nice glass of wine while listening to the music. I couldn’t have picked a more romantic setting for Ginny and I, A glass of wine in one hand and a three piece band in the corner as the sun was going down over one of the most beautiful parts of Warsaw. Combine that setting with the live music, the soft glow of the setting sun and the company of my lovely wife equals a lovely and magical ambiance, a perfect moment that shall not soon be forgotten!

As the band finished its last set of the night we noticed that the street was full of people and they were all heading in the same direction, I thanked the band by dropping a tip in the tip jar, I offered a nod of the head and a poorly pronounced dziękuję ci bardzo and we joined the flow of people to a destination unknown. At 9:30 we found ourselves at a place called Multimedialny Park Fontann, we visited this park before and it was a nice fountain with a couple of lights but what we found this night was nothing less than spectacular. Unbeknownst to us during the summer months on Friday and Saturday night at 9:30 there is a special show that combined music, lights, lasers and water to create a water movie screen. Surrounded by thousands of Varsovians as well as Polish and foreign tourists we were treated to a truly amazing show “ The Bear Prince, A beautiful touching story of love intertwined with a spectacular dance of fountains to the rhythm of music in the company of colorful lasers”. It was a very entertaining event which I highly recommend to anyone who visits Warsaw in the summer. After the show we wandered the streets for another hour or so before we made it back to our car and after a lovely summers eve in Warsaw we headed back home to our apartment.

The next day we had made arrangements to join a group called Warsaw Social for a kayaking trip on the Vistula river, at just over 1000 kilometers long the Vistula river is the longest and largest river in Poland. Warsaw Social is an online group that caters mostly to expats who are living in or visiting Warsaw. Created just over three years ago Warsaw Social holds events weekly or sometimes daily for people that don’t necessarily know the city and want to get out and do new things or meet new people. Over the past 8 months that we have been in Warsaw we have been members of this group but haven’t actually participated in any of the events. Since our arrival in Warsaw we have been exploring Poland by ourselves, as much as we have been enjoying exploring by ourselves we have missed socializing with others so when we saw that a kayaking trip had been arranged we knew that this was our chance to get out and meet some new friends while doing an activity that we both enjoy. On Saturday at noon A group of 12 met in front of the Hard Rock restaurant to begin our kayaking adventure. From the Hard Rock we boarded a tram that would take us to a second tram and from there to a place by the river where we would meet up with the guys with the kayaks. We are lucky enough to have a car in Warsaw so this was our first public transportation experience and it was actually a very simple process and a good learning experience. Once we arrived at our destination we had a short walk to the river where we climbed into our kayaks and spent a couple of hours cruising down river.

It was a wonderful afternoon of kayaking and as we meandered down river we not only enjoyed the scenery but also the conversations that we had with our fellow kayakers. We have spent many hours in the past months walking and riding bikes along this river but seeing the river from a kayak was a completely different perspective. The view from our boat was quite beautiful, the banks on both sides are lined with green trees and bushes with an occasional fisherman or family just hanging out and enjoying the day. We passed under a few large bridges as we made our way back into the city and the view of the city as we rounded a bend in the river was quite spectacular.

At the end of our journey we joined three of our new friends for a wonderful Turkish meal at a local restaurant. With our meal I tried a Turkish alcohol called Raki, Raki is flavored by aniseed and is similar to ouzo. You add a small amount of the clear Raki to a glass and top it off with water which makes it turn into a cloudy drink with a very strong flavor or licorice.

It was a wonderful meal with our new friends. Finally after over half a year in Warsaw we made some new friends!

After our kayaking trip and our Turkish dinner we weren’t quite ready to head back to the apartment so we once again headed to Krakowskie Przedmieście street in Old Town. During the summer in Old Town Square there are a number of free concerts and we were planning to check out a jazz concert after kayaking but we had so much fun with our new friends that we missed the concert. Even though we missed the concert we actually had a great time wandering the street and enjoying the local street performers, there were all kinds of interesting acts, we listened to some great solo musicians, my favorite was a guy playing flamenco guitar but the most entertaining part of his act was the random guys behind him dancing to the music.

There were a few acts that were fire spinners also known as poi spinning, our favorite being a couple of goth kids. The music they were playing was pretty bad but they had some skills and did a good job of entertaining a fairly large group of people.

So we walked around for a couple of hours and on our way back to the car we had one final surprise, I noticed a small animal slowly moving in the shadow of a tree and upon further inspection I discovery a little hedgehog guy, we said hello to the little guy and made sure that he made it away from the street and safely in to the park.

The following day was Sunday and we made plans to meet our kayaking buddy Ram and a friend of his at Łazienki Kròlewski, Łazienki Park is the largest park in Warsaw, the park which was originally designed in the 17th century is our favorite park in Warsaw, it is a huge beautiful park with many water features including fountains, ponds and canals. There are a number of palaces including one that was built in 1680 on an island and is called strangely enough Palace on the Isle There is an amphitheater inspired by ancient Greek and Roman architecture, an Egyptian temple built in 1822, a water tower built in 1777, there are so many beautiful building in and around the park and many of them offer tours for a small fee. There bridges and a small Japanese area that has a couple of Japanese style Pagodas that are quite beautiful. There are beautiful red squirrels and birds everywhere, some of the most beautiful ducks that I have ever seen like to hang out in the ponds and you can even find peacocks roaming around the park. It really is an amazing park, It would take days to fully explore the park, we have yet to find all of its secrets. At the top of the park is a huge memorial to Chopin and on the weekends in the summer you can see free Chopin concerts twice a day. We arranged to meet with Ram to see our first Chopin in the park concert. In the early afternoon we met in the park and found a nice shady spot amongst the trees, we put our blanket down and opened a nice bottle of white wine, not totally legal but we were surrounded by people drinking booze so it was safe enough. There were over a thousand people spread out around the park, they were all there to listen to a single pianist play Chopin for an hour long concert. It was a fairly large group of people that had settled in to hear the concert and I was surprised and impressed at how quiet everyone was once the music started. As soon as the music started everyone stopped talking and just sat quietly and listened. It was such a special event, to be able to lay down on a blanket in a park and watch the leaves of the trees rustle in the wind while listening to a professional pianist play Chopin in the park with a thousand other people who were enjoying the concert as much as we were was. Truly a special and magical event.