Things to do
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Warsaw Old Town
Worth reaching early, when you have the Market Square almost to yourself and can see the painted facades without a crowd in front of them. After dark the square is lit and the restaurant tables come out.
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Łazienki Park
Walking through a royal summer garden in the middle of Warsaw, you reach a palace on its own island, hung with the king's paintings, and a monument to Chopin where pianists play on summer Sundays.
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Wilanów Palace
Wilanów Palace was King Jan III's summer residence, and you come for two things: Baroque painted ceilings among the most valuable in Poland, and gardens with rococo figures along the upper terrace.
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Palace on the Water, Łazienki Park
Stanisław August's island palace puts you inside a king's own picture gallery, hung in the eighteenth-century manner, with Dutch paintings the strongest group and the Łazienki lake outside the windows.
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POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews
From the first gallery to the last, you walk through a thousand years of Jewish life in Poland, told through original objects, a rebuilt synagogue interior and screens you can work yourself.
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Royal Castle
22 painted views of Warsaw by Bernardo Bellotto, the largest set of his work anywhere, cover the walls of one room here, and they are the reason you come. Rembrandt portraits and state rooms refilled with rescued art fill the rest.
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Barbican
Before you leave the Old Town by its northern edge, walk through the bastion that guards Warsaw's old gate and along the double ring of walls on either side.
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Castle Square
Start your Old Town walk here, beside Sigismund's Column: it is Warsaw's symbol, and it stands where Krakowskie Przedmieście reaches the castle and the Old Town.
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Hotel Bristol
A neo-Renaissance hotel on Krakowskie Przedmieście, opened in 1901 with the pianist Ignacy Paderewski among its founders. It came through the war damaged but standing, and the restored Viennese café and marble lobby face the Presidential Palace. Rooms at the front look over the Royal Route, so book ahead for those.
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Neon Museum
A hall of Cold War neon glows high in the Palace of Culture, a century after Warsaw's first neon sign went up in 1926, and you walk right up to milk bar and department store signs in Europe's first museum of its kind.
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Praga
You cross to Praga for the Warsaw that was never rebuilt: tenement gateways open onto courtyards with wartime shrines, and a museum on Targowa Street holds a painted Jewish prayer room.
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Raffles Europejski
A grand hotel from the 1850s facing the Saxon Garden and Piłsudski Square, reopened in 2018 after a long restoration. Rooms are large and hung with Polish art from the hotel's own collection, and the bar opens onto Krakowskie Przedmieście. Book ahead in the summer season, when the rooms fill early.
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St Anne's Church
Stepping in off Krakowskie Przedmieście, you leave the Royal Route for one of the most ornate churches in Warsaw, the city's academic church and a landmark in its skyline.
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St John's Archcathedral
Two things wait for you here: a bare brick Gothic nave rebuilt after the war, and beneath it a crypt you can walk through, past tombs that make this one of Poland's national pantheons.
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University of Warsaw Library Roof Garden
The rooftop garden is one of Europe's largest and was the first of its kind in Poland, and you can climb to its upper level for a view across the Vistula to Praga.
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Vistula Boulevards
A riverside promenade built on two levels, Warsaw's Vistula Boulevards are where you walk, cycle or sit by the water, with the Mermaid statue on the way.
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Palace of Culture and Science
Completed in 1955 in the style of the Moscow skyscrapers, the tower holds theatres, a cinema and a congress hall. A lift runs to the observation terrace on the 30th floor, which gives a 360-degree view of the city. The terrace is ticketed and best on a clear day. The Neon Museum is on the 4th floor.
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Warsaw Uprising Museum
Come here to understand the city you are walking through: the 1944 Rising is told at full scale, in objects you can stand beside and films you can sit and watch.
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National Museum
Nowhere else in Europe can you see medieval Nubian wall paintings on permanent display. The same visit puts you in front of Jan Matejko's Battle of Grunwald and Simmler's Death of Barbara Radziwiłł.
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Bazar Różycki
A short walk from Ząbkowska Street, this bazaar in Praga is an easy stop to fold into a walk of the district. It sits on the same route as the street's tenements and cafés, and the Koneser complex is in the same part of Praga.
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Copernicus Science Centre
Hands-on exhibits fill this science museum on the Vistula bank, and it is built for families with children. Entry is ticketed. Parts of it are aimed at younger visitors, so it suits a family day more than an adult one.
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Fryderyk Chopin Museum
Closed for all of 2026 for a major renovation, the museum is expected to reopen in 2027, the centenary year of the International Chopin Piano Competition.
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Koneser Centre
A former vodka distillery in Praga, the complex now holds restaurants, shops and a vodka museum. It suits a meal or a visit to the vodka museum, and it fits into the same afternoon walk of Praga as Ząbkowska Street and Bazar Różycki.
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Krakowskie Przedmieście
About a kilometre long, the street is the first leg of the Royal Route, which starts at Castle Square and runs south towards Wilanów. Palaces, churches and manor houses line both sides. The Presidential Palace stands here and is seen from the outside only. Past it, the route carries on south as Nowy Świat, towards the centre.
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Ząbkowska Street
Start a Praga walk here: the street is the district's spine, with pre-war tenements beside cafés and street art. Side streets such as Brzeska branch off towards murals and small courtyard shrines. In the evening the bars along it are dark and informal.
