Warsaw tourist recommendations

If you make a flying visit to Warsaw, an obligatory place to see is the Old Town - a cultural lounge of the capital. During the tourist season, it becomes a stage for concerts in the open air, drama performances and art galleries. Romantic backstreets sloping down to the river and stylish cafés oozing background music are perfect places for a break from sightseeing. The Old Town is also a place of interest for the enthusiasts of sacred art. After having suffered a heavy war damage, the quarter was reconstructed with the fidelity that assured it a place in the list of UNESCO.
The next stage included in your itinerary should be a walk along the Royal Route – the most representative thoroughfare in the city, linking the Royal Castle with palaces in Å?azienki and Wilanów. The route, shaped by ages of history, captivates with the atmosphere of palaces, churches, bourgeois tenements and seats of government. Although a walk along the Royal Route takes only an hour, it is a journey through centuries, and a lesson in the history of this unusual city. An interesting point on the route is Wilanów and King Jan Sobieski III’s summer residence with lavishly embellished interiors. It is also worth taking a walk along its alleys of a historic park.
The Powązki Cemetery was founded in 1970, according to the project of D. Merlini – the court architect of king Stanislaw August Poniatowski. In catacombs are the burial place for persons from the environment of the king and his family. Also numerous historic tombs of artistic value have been preserved. At the back of the catacombs is the Avenue of Merit, where most prominent Poles lie.
Before World War II, Warsaw was the second in Europe and fourth in the world a city as far as the number of Jewish inhabitants is concerned. About 400 000 Jews lived here, which amounted nearly to 30 % of the total population of the city. After the Germans had devastated the Warsaw Jewish Ghetto, this world ceased to exist. The traces commemorating it are, among others, Jewish Cemetery, Nożyk Synagogue and Umschlagplatz memorializing the martyrdom of Jews – the site from where the Germans transported about 300 000 Jewish citizens to Treblinka Extermination Camp.
The image of quarters built after the World War II makes a different impression. The period 1949 – 1956 imposed on Polish architects a new style – “ Socialist in terms of contents and national in terms of form�, i.e., socialist realism, which called for the conformity of the world’s image with Marxist ideas, comprehensibility of the form, optimism, giving priority to subject matters like manual labour, class struggle and working class movement. For example, Marszałkowska Housing District (MDM) and Palace of Culture and Science constructed in 1952.