Beautiful city, it just happens to be new since it was 85% destroyed in WWII.

The group tour this morning starts off with a quick city tour in the bus. First up, right around the corner from our hotel, we pass the Palace of Culture and Science, a mammoth art deco building that is the 2nd tallest in all of Poland. From there, we circle around to Ujazdow park to walk past the Josef Pilsudski statue (considered the father of modern Poland) and on into the park to gaze up at the impressive Chopin memorial, whimsically sitting at the head of a lovely fountain area.

Working our way back through the city, we pass the Umschlagplatz Monument located in the holding area where the Jews were assembled to be shipped out to concentration camps, and then onto the POLIN Museum of History of Polish Jews. This is only a rest stop though, we aren’t actually visiting the museum proper, just the upper lobby with the Righteous Among the Nations medal, then it is outside to the courtyard area for an explanation of the Ghetto monument in front of the complex.

Finally, we head on into the Old Town, Stare Miasto, for a walk through all the streets and sights we’ve seen before, past the fantastic, albeit all new architecture, on to the Sigismund’s Column at the head of the old town, then into the Archikatedralna Basilica, the royal cathedral and into the Rynek Starego Miasto, the main old square of Warsaw. We finish out the tour at the Barbakan, the defensive walls built around the city, which is ringed by blossoming cherry trees and picture perfect. Even though we have done all this on our previous trip to Warsaw, it is nice to refresh our memories, and the local guide is fabulous.  He’s funny and sweet and full of interesting stories.  He was also totally impressed when Ed mentioned something about Esperanto – the artificial language created in the late 1800s with the idea to create a 2nd international language. He apparently has studied Esperanto, and while disappointed Ed couldn’t speak it, he was still impressed that it came up at all as he didn’t know of anyone else who was that aware of the project.

We left the rest of the group after the tour and began our wandering around Warsaw, filling in the gaps of places we didn’t see 8 years ago. First the Museum of Warsaw, right on the corner of the Rynek Starego Miasto, which had a great overview of the history of Warsaw, a fantastic progression of the building, destruction and reconstruction of three burgher houses, a rather bizarre and eclectic collection of large stone sculptures, ostensibly taken from buildings, along with a complete recreation of a typical room of a prominent Polish family, the Schieles, from the 1930s.

Plus a magnificent view of the main square on one side, then across the rooftops to the new city on the other side of the 5th floor viewpoint. Nice find.

Now, we’re off to find lunch.