Okay maybe 'wild' is a bit of an exaggeration, but it caught your eye right? I'm pretty sure at some point we
mentioned that one of our goals for this year was to get a little
more cultured – and cultured we got. We decided that it was totally
time for a little getaway so with that in mind, we booked some days
off work and decided where to go. We rolled out a world map, closed
our eyes, pointed and our destination was decided. Okay, so maybe we
didn't do the latter but we did play a game of holiday roulette. We
booked a 'mystery' getaway online with a choice of over 70 places,
and found out later on we were headed to Warsaw, Poland!
The time had come to pack our bags,
jump in an Uber and head to Stansted! We landed in Warsaw on the
Thursday and knew we only had until the Sunday to cram in everything
we wanted to do – two and a half days was definitely not enough
time.
Thursday
Once we landed, we got a bus transfer
to Warsaw centre and located our hotel (Gromada Centrum). It was
super cute and the staff were mega friendly, although the lift
certainly took its time. We dumped our bags in our room, sat down for
10 minutes (travelling really takes it out of us) and decided what we
should do. We ventured back out into Warsaw town and came across the
Palace of Culture and Science (totes the tallest building in Poland).
We wandered around for a bit and then found out you could go to the
top for something like £3 – so of course, we did. The sites were
incredible and you could see for miles! Taking panoramas with our
phones was worrying though; didn't fancy dropping 'em did we?
After this, we headed over to the Hard
Rock Cafe. Okay okay, we admit it's hardly seeing the sites of what
Poland has to offer, but neither of us had been before so we thought
we might as well! We ate some great food, had some delicious
cocktails and revelled in the fact we were actually there. We noticed
that we walked past a Kinoteka (Polish for cinema) on the way to the
Hard Rock Cafe so of course, knowing how much we love the cinema, we
decided to check it out! We got to watch What We Do in the Shadows
which we wanted to see for AGES but never got round to it. Luckily
for us, the film was in original sound with Polish subtitles, so
understanding it was no issue!
Friday
After breakfast on
Friday, we mapped out our day. (We took an A3 map and stuck stickers
everywhere we wanted to go – organisation right there!). We started
off with heading to the Jewish Cemetery which is right up our street!
Some of the graves were beautifully crafted, and they ranged from
super old to fairly recent. It was so intriguing to see the different
styles of graves, right from gated communities (if you can call it that) to mausoleums. We got
lost in there for a fair few hours in awe of it all and after finding
our way out, we jumped in a taxi to our next location.
Pawiak Prison
Museum was next on our hit list after the Jewish Cemetery, and whilst
it wasn't as interesting as we'd hoped it would be, we're still glad
we went. Most of the information was about inmates there and how
they lived, but it was all in Polish so we didn't really understand
much. The other half of the museum was kept like a prison with
steel gates and cells meant for one person right up to cells that
could house three people, complete with foldaway beds - so this was
actually really interesting to see.
After the prison
museum we headed over to Warsaw Zoo which had EVERY animal you could
think of! Everything from owls to camels to elephants. Our favourites
were the polar bears - they just looked so cute and cuddly! I think
we ended up being there for about three hours, just staring at the
lions, tigers and every other animal the zoo had to offer. We
stumbled across a gift shop where Georgia bought a super cute tiger
teddy and named him Henryk. Karen invested in some awesome lobster
earrings (proceeded to name them Fish n Chips) and bought her friend
some fox ones.
After here, we
decided to head over to the Old Town to have a mooch and maybe find
something to eat. We got totally sidetracked by all the gorgeous
jewellery shops with some of the most amazing things we've ever seen
in! Karen bought two rings that fit perfectly with her already
awesome collection and Georgia bought one vintage silver signet ring
finished with some intricate cut out detailing. We then got
approached by someone in traditional Polish dress and advised us
about his restaurant that served traditional Polish food. We were
totally in! We ate some delish food and discovered the yumminess of
pierogies. Not quite sure what the best way to describe them would be
other than crispy dumpling like things filled with meat. Whatever,
they were INSANE. A bottle of wine with the meal got us right in the
mood to find out what Warsaw at night has to offer.
We headed back to
the hotel, picked up a bottle of vodka for something ridiculously
cheap, and got ready. We weren’t quite sure where we were going,
but heard of a strip not too far from our hotel. We walked down and
got various stamps and wristbands from loads of different places, but
settled on one that was giving out free samples of Thierry Mugler
'Angel'. Drinks weren't too expensive and the music was okay -
everyone seemed to love Icona Pop 'I Don't Care'. After here we
decided to call it a night and headed back to the hotel.
Saturday
We woke up feeling not so fresh but we
weren't about to let that stop us. After breakfast we took a taxi
down to Łazienki
Park. It was just a big open park but was actually really beautiful
with some gorgeous buildings. We ventured into Łazienki Palace which
was free (result!) and had a mooch round. It was decorated so
exquisitely and had similar features to that of Horace Walpole's gothic castle. After
wandering around for a bit, we decided to find our way out. On our
way we came across a cute cafe where we had some more pierogies and
tried something called zapiekanka – another traditional Polish
dish! It's just a halved baguette with grilled mushrooms and cheese
topped with ketchup but it was so yummy! We spent a while trying to
locate a taxi but whilst we were looking we came across some awesome
graffiti. We can totally see how people say it's art and not
vandalism – some of it was incredible!
We
then decided to try out the Copernicus Science Centre, but when we
got there the queue was so long we decided to bail. Karen had
previously seen a cool trainer shop so we decided to check that out
instead and grab a coffee. After this, we headed back to near our
hotel and had a mooch at some clothes stores; Mohito and Reserved
were our personal faves.
Finally,
as our last activity in Warsaw, we decided to try out the wonder of
4DX cinema at Cinema City (a cinema chain). Although we went to the
world premiere of Kingsman: The Secret Service, it was one of the
only films being shown in 4DX and we loved it so much we thought we
might as well! It was actually a crazy awesome experience and think
films like Jurassic World will be intense in it, but being hungover
probably wasn't the best choice. I did kind of feel like sickness
wrist bands might've been a good idea. It really did help set the
scene though, cold air hits you when its meant to, water puffs in
your face for effect – all in all it's such an amazing experience
and would definitely recommend you watch your next film in it.
Sunday
So
Sunday could only mean one thing – home time. We were super sad to leave
Warsaw but honestly, it was such an incredible experience and we
wouldn't have changed a thing, except maybe having longer time there!
Everyone was so nice and made us feel really welcome. It's definitely
given us the travel bug, so keep an eye out and hopefully it won't be
too long until our next overseas adventure.
