My (Big) Warsaw Guide

Here are my beloved addresses in the booming Polish capital.

View at the Palace of Culture and Science from MSN.

For those who don’t know, I live in Poznań - a semi-big city in Poland which is closer to Berlin than to Warsaw. As it’s just two hours by car to get to Berlin, I naturally always been a Berlin-person, since childhood. But the German capital kind of flops lately (something is definitely off, and many people - even Berliners - agree), and since last year, mainly due to professional reasons, I’m more and more often visiting Warsaw. And I’m actually (re)discovering it with every train arrival.

I started to love its beautiful contradictions: dynamic, even aggressive contemporary urgency (perfectly embodied by the architecture of the newly-opened Museum of Modern Art) meets gritty, troubled, yet somewhat romantic past. I genuinely find so much inspiration in the visual collage of Warsaw, especially because it still sparks so many bold (even polarizing) discussions - especially among Poles.

MSN.

But it’s also super exciting to hear and see how Warsaw-based creatives start to look at their city with a fresh perspective, with a new-found admiration.

This place isn’t up-and-coming - it’s already there (and the issue of Financial Times’ How To Spend It, released in earlier this year, dedicated solely to Warsaw, is the best proof).

With no further ado, sharing some of my favorite Warsaw places below: