Luxury hotels in Warsaw

Warsaw guide

Warsaw: the Old Town reborn

A UNESCO old town rebuilt from rubble, the Royal Castle, Chopin and the POLIN Museum.

Warsaw's Old Town, almost entirely destroyed in 1944 and rebuilt from paintings and records, is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the city's most cited sight, with the Royal Castle and the colourful Market Square. The Warsaw Rising Museum tells the story of that destruction.

The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews is one of Europe's finest, and the Royal Łazienki Park hosts free Chopin concerts on summer Sundays beside his monument. The Royal Route links the Old Town to Wilanów Palace.

Łazienki Park and Chopin

Łazienki Królewskie, the royal park of Warsaw with the Palace on the Isle, built for King Stanisław August, is one of the city's most cited sights. On summer Sundays, from May to September, free piano recitals of Chopin's music are given beside his monument among the roses.

The Fryderyk Chopin Museum, in the Ostrogski Palace, is one of the best biographical museums in Europe, and the composer's heart rests in a pillar of the Holy Cross Church. Żelazowa Wola, his birthplace, is about an hour west.

The POLIN Museum and the Warsaw Rising Museum

The POLIN Museum of the History of Polish Jews, built on the site of the former Warsaw Ghetto, is one of the most cited museums in Europe, telling a thousand years of Jewish life in Poland, with a reconstructed painted ceiling of a wooden synagogue.

The Warsaw Rising Museum recounts the 63 days of the 1944 uprising against the German occupation through films, objects and testimonies, and explains why the city had to be rebuilt. Both visits are intense and deserve time.