Apparently our holiday destination this year was not what people expected. “You’re going on a trip? Cool. Where are you going?” “To Poland.” “Poland? What the hell are you doing in Poland?”

To be honest: Our first reason was pretty dumb. We met a Polish guy in Lisbon at our last year’s interrail tour and he told us that his home country was so much cheaper than there – even though we bought carrots for 27 cents per kilo and therefore some of our purchases cost us – believe it or not – horrible one cent. His words stayed in our minds and we knew something for sure: Sometime we have to go to Poland (again).
Well, at the beginning of September the time had come and we were off to our rail trip – and it was much more than we expected (even though the carrots were more expensive than in Lisbon, Marcel!)

Especially Warsaw turned out to be our all-time favourite city. And this is why.

The easiest way explaining is probably by sending you on a virtual tour on the tower of Pałac Kultury i Nauki (palace of culture and science). You go there by elevator and 42 floors later you stand on a huge, windy platform and see a part of the city through one of the windows. Your first thought: ‘Warsaw is a village’. It consists of a few houses and a huge shopping centre.  Then you turn 90 degree and your next few is on huge lawns and parks – Warsaw’s second face: A blooming, green city with trees as far as the eye can reach.
Another 90 degrees later Warsaw’s third face becomes visible: The financial district, Europe’s New York. And houses up to the horizon. Wow. No village anymore.

The very superficial look over the city shows you the wide range of different facets. And there are even more. Rundown, dirty streets follow cool and casual hipster districts and no matter where you are, really every cafe, pub or snack bar – no matter how ‘uncool’ – looks incredibly fancy (build something like that in Graz and you have 1000 of visitors a day for sure).
Side note: In contrast to many other cities I’ve been to people of all kind visit these places. Families, old ladies, young men. It doesn’t seem to be a cool and special thing, but just normal.

However, for us as travellers they were unique and noteworthy. We collected our favourites and will show them to you in the next days and weeks. 
But one thing is hopefully already clear: You HAVE to visit this city and see all the wonderful faces Warsaw can show you. 


Credits:
Idea, Photographs: Clarissa Kober and Diana Ranegger | Words: Diana Ranegger

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