EXPLORING THE BEST OF WARSAW’S EMERGING CREATIVE SPIRIT.
MORNING
Start the day by customizing your own hot chocolate in the historic E. Wedel Chocolate Lounge, where you first pick from three bases (bittersweet, milk or white), then add one of 12 flavors ranging from rose petal to chile, and finish with a topping like cream, sauce or rum. Then take a stroll along Mokotowska, where you’ll find cool Polish designers like the grungy Robert Kupisz or Loft 37 shoes, where you can design your own shoes, choosing the style, materials, colors and finishes. At Mo61, you can create your own perfume, picking scents from the rows of bottles on the shelves. With guidance from the staff, you first pick a base, such as sandalwood or sea salt, add a flower note layer such as jasmine or rose, and finish with an aromatic note like ginger or pink pepper.
MIDDAY
Head over to Charlotte for coffee and a spot of people-watching in this Frenchthemed cafe and bakery on Plac Zbawiciela (Savior Square) — nicknamed “hipster square” by locals. Order croissants and smother them with orange, strawberry or white chocolate spread from the huge jars on each table. Next, head over to the Old Town, a colorful area of the city that dates to the 13th century but was rebuilt after being destroyed in World War II and now has UNESCO status. It might be hard to believe that the colorful burgher houses in Old Town Square and the Royal Castle were completely reconstructed from photographs, with work finishing only in 1984. For a spot of lunch, handmade pierogi — dumplings filled with meat, cheese or vegetables — are a good bet at Zapicek (if you can handle the grandmotherly staff uniforms), or drop into a Milk Bar like Prasowy — one of the popular Soviet-era canteens that used to be state run, serving wholesome food to workers at low prices, and are now having a revival.
AFTERNOON
The Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews, set in a futuristic-looking building of glass, copper and concrete built on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, tells the history of Jews in Poland over 1,000 years rather than focusing solely on the Holocaust years. Its innovative way of taking visitors through the different time periods, via eight galleries with multimedia, animation and video storytelling, makes it unmissable and won it European Museum of the Year in 2016. Try interactive exhibits such as minting your own medieval coin or printing pages from historic books. Before dark, take a bus, tram or taxi to Praga, a formerly rundown district the east side of the Vistula River, which is now undergoing an artistic evolution. Soho Factory is a former factory that is being transformed with creative agencies, designers, studios and exhibition spaces, and here you’ll find the quirky Neon Museum, which has rescued some of the city’s beautiful neon signs from the past, with their eye-catching typography and graphics. Nearby at Museum Czar PRL, you’ll find memorabilia from the Polish People’s Republic years 1952 to 1990, when Poland was under communist control, but it’s also a nostalgia trip for anyone who grew up in the 1960s, ’70s or ’80s, with old household items like TVs, radios, phones and vacuum cleaners guaranteed to cause giggles for Millennials.
EVENING
Finish off the evening in Warszawa Wschodnia, a funky restaurant in a former warehouse in Soho Factory. The restaurant is divided in two, with a circular bar counter enclosing a food preparation space where you can watch the chefs prepare your food. After a day of interactive experiences, it’s nice to sit back and watch someone else do the work.