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Polish Army Field Cathedral
Ul Długa leads southwest from ul Freta (the New Town's main street) past the Polish Army Field Cathedral, the soldiers' place of worship. There's no homage to the glory of war here; inside the main doors, which feature bas-reliefs of major battles fought by Polish forces, is a gruesome crucifix, with heads protruding from solid metal blocks on all sides of a ruined Jesus. Inside there are numerous plaques to fallen Polish soldiers.
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Polish Army Museum
Next door to the National Museum, and housed in the same building, is the Polish Army Museum, which presents the history of the Polish army from the creation of the Polish state until WWII. Heavy armour, tanks and fighter planes from WWII are displayed in the park adjoining the museum.
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Poster Museum
Standing separately from the rest of the Wilanów complex just outside the palace gates is the Poster Museum. Its vaults house a massive 55,000 posters - one of the largest collections in the world - but only a fraction of this is shown at one time. Exhibitions change regularly, making it a museum to visit time and time again.
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Praga
Crossing the Vistula from the Old Town into Praga, Warsaw's eastern suburb, is like entering another city. Clean, level streets and renovated buildings are replaced by broken roads and crumbling façades, and much of the populace is working class and poor. Despite the grit, Praga is the place to be. The area is slowly being gentrified as artists, musicians, and entrepreneurs move in, attracted by its pre-WWII buildings (as it was not directly involved in the battles of 1944, Praga didn't suffer much damage) and cheap rent. Ventures open and close on a regular basis but the list of established places grows steadily longer.
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Radziwiłł Palace
The neoclassical Radziwiłł Palace is guarded by four stone lions and an equestrian Statue of Prince Józef Poniatowski. The prince was the nephew of the last Polish king, Stanisław August Poniatowski, and commander in chief of the Polish army of the Duchy of Warsaw created by Napoleon. Today the palace is the official residence of the president.
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Royal Castle
It's a simple exercise moving on from Castle Square (the natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town) to the Royal Castle; just turn east and you're there.
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Saxon Gardens
The magnificent Saxon Gardens date from the early 18th century and were the city's first public park. Modelled on the French gardens at Versailles, the gardens are filled with chestnut trees and Baroque statues (allegories of the Virtues, the Sciences and the Elements), and there's an ornamental lake overlooked by a 19th-century water tower in the form of a circular Greek temple.
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Sigismund III Vasa Column
A natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town is triangular Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy). Attracting snap-happy tourists by the hundreds each day is the square's centrepiece, the Sigismund III Vasa Column. This lofty 22m-high monument to the king who moved the capital from Kraków to Warsaw was erected by the king's son in 1644 and is Poland's second-oldest secular monument (after Gdańsk's Neptune). It was knocked down during WWII, but the statue survived and was placed on a new column four years after the war. The original, shrapnel-scarred granite column now lies along the south wall of the Royal Castle.
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St Alexander's Church
As the Royal Way leaves ul Nowy Świat it becomes Al Ujazdowskie, a wide, tree-lined boulevard with many an old mansion now home to embassies of foreign powers. Near its northern section the road passes through Plac Trzech Krzyży (Three Crosses Sq), a square centred on 19th-century St Alexander's Church, which is modelled on the Roman Pantheon.
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St Anne's Church
This wide boulevard of ul Krakowskie Przedmieście, running from Castle Sq to Nowy Świat, is the start of the Royal Way. It begins proudly with St Anne's Church , which is arguably the most ornate church in the city. It miraculously escaped major damage during WWII, which explains why it sports an original trompe l'œil ceiling, a Rococo high altar and gorgeous organ.
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St John's Cathedral
Back towards Castle Sq stands the restored neo-Gothic façade of St John's Cathedral. The oldest of Warsaw's churches, it was built at the beginning of the 15th century on the site of a wooden church, and subsequently remodelled several times.
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Teatr Wielki
The broad expanse of Plac Teatralny (Theatre Square) is bordered on the south by the colossal Teatr Wielki. This neoclassical edifice was designed by Antonio Corazzi and constructed between 1825 and 1833. After it was burnt out during WWII, only the façade was restored; the rest was reshaped to suit modern needs. The theatre contains a small museum (admission free; h - Tue-Fri) inside.
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Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
Inside the Saxon Gardens, the remnants of the Saxon Palace (Pałac Saski), which was destroyed during WWII, shelter the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. The guard is changed every hour, and groups of soldiers marching back and forth between the tomb and the Radziwiłł Palace are a regular sight, though the big event is the ceremonial changing of the guard that takes place every Sunday at noon.
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Ujazdów Castle
Ujazdów Castle is a fairy-tale-like edifice in its third incarnation. Erected in the 1620s for King Zygmunt III Waza as his summer residence, it was burned down by the Nazis in 1944, blown up by the communists in 1954 and eventually rebuilt in the 1970s. At the time of research it housed changing exhibitions of modern art from the Centre for Contemporary Art; a new centre is planned near the Palace of Culture & Science.
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Ul Nowy Świat
Running from the junction of ul Świętokrzyska and ul Krakowskie Przedmieście to Al Jerozolimskie, Ul Nowy Świat , or New World St, is the busiest street in Warsaw outside the Old Town, but here it's generally Poles who make up the masses.
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Ul Próżna
Ul Próżna, a short street leading off Plac Grzybowski, opposite the Teatr Żydowski (the Jewish Theatre), is an eerie and incongruous survivor of WWII. Its crumbling, unrestored redbrick façades, the ornamental stucco long since ripped away by bomb blasts, are still pockmarked with bullet and shrapnel scars. A few blocks to the south, in the courtyard of an apartment building at ul Sienna 55, stands one of the few surviving fragments of the redbrick wall that once surrounded the Warsaw Ghetto.
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Umschlagplatz Monument
The Umschlagplatz Monument marks the site of the umschlagplatz (literally, 'taking-away place'), the railway terminus from which Warsaw's Jews were transported to Treblinka. The rectangle monument's marble walls are carved with more than 3000 Jewish forenames, from Aba to Zygmunt, and the stark message: 'Along this path of suffering and death over 300,000 Jews were driven in 1942-43 from the Warsaw Ghetto to the gas chambers of the Nazi extermination camps'.
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Warsaw Rising Museum
On the southwestern edge of the former Jewish Ghetto stands the modern Warsaw Rising Museum . Housed in a beautifully restored redbrick power station, it traces the history of the Rising through three levels of interactive displays, photographs, film archives and the personal accounts of those who survived.
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Warsaw University
On the Royal Way (ul Krakowskie Przedmieście), a decorative gate topped with the Polish eagle marks a centre of studentdom. The central campus of Warsaw University was founded in 1816, although its oldest building, the Kazimierz Palace (Pałac Kazimierzowski), dates from 1634. With its leafy avenues and smiling students, it appears a peaceful place, but like any good university it has been a breeding ground for independent thought and the site of many student protests.
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Water Reservoir
In Łazienki Park, about halfway between the Palace on the Water and Al Ujazdowskie, is the circular Water Reservoir , which stored water for distribution through wooden pipes to the palace and its fountain; it now houses an art gallery.
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White House
A short walk north of the circular Water Reservoir in Łazienki Park you'll find the White House , which was erected in 1774 as a temporary residence for the king until the Palace on the Water was finished. It's incredibly small for a royal home and has managed to retain most of its original 18th-century interior.
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Wilanów
Warsaw's crowning glory in the park-palace arena is Wilanów (pronounced vee- lah -noof), some 6km south of Łazienki. Its origins date back to 1677, when king Jan III Sobieski bought the land and set about turning the existing manor house into an Italian Baroque villa (calling it in Italian 'villa nuova' from which the Polish name is derived) fit for a royal summer residence.
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Wilanów Gardens and Parks
The side gate next to the northern wing of the Wilanów palace leads to the Wilanów gardens and parks, which, like the palace itself, display a variety of styles. The central part comprises a manicured, two-level Baroque Italian garden, which extends from the palace down to the lake, the south is Anglo-Chinese in design, and the northern section is an English landscape park.
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Wilanów Orangery
The Wilanów Orangery , off the northern wing of the palace, features decorative art and sculpture from the 16th to 19th centuries.
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Wilanów Palace
The best place to start exploring the Wilanów complex is Wilanów Palace. Its highlights include the two-storey Grand Entrance Hall, the Grand Dining Room, and the Gallery of Polish Portraits, featuring a collection of paintings from the 16th to 19th centuries. Note the so-called coffin portraits - a very Polish feature - that are images painted on a piece of tin or copperplate personifying the deceased, then attached to the coffin during the funeral.
