Breakfast at the Bez Kantów was across the road at a little cafe, the Sucre, which was delightful. Your breakfast voucher gives you plenty of choices, Mrs Y choosing scrambled eggs with bread and I chose the French option, a croissant with scrambled eggs, both coming with tea/coffee and a bottle of 100% orange juice. Very well cooked, fresh and well presented; a superb start to the day.
Well fed, we headed out into Warsaw for a day of sightseeing in the vague direction of the Old Town. Churches and Cathedrals are everywhere, but none were particularly inspiring. Dripping in gold and overly ornate we were overwhelmed by how these churches could have spent this money more wisely by helping their communities with it.
The Old Town was lovely with cobbled streets and ornate buildings it really was a pretty place to walk around. The surprise was that you it was actually a new town, built following the almost total destruction of the original Old Town in 1944. All external facades were painstakingly recreated using original photographs etc. Unless you knew this, it would be very hard to tell.
First stop on our walk was a pottery shop, Galeria Bolesławiec– Warszawa, traditional Polish designs on all sorts of ceramics. From plates, cups, bowls and decorations. Mrs Y was taken with one of their ceramic Christmas decorations which is now waiting for a tree!
Our route took us out along an old piece of the city wall giving us a really nice view over the Vistula river and the historical district of Praga beyond.
Exiting the Barbican Gate, the end of the Old Town, we continued walking with no particular direction, stumbling into the Warsaw Uprising Monument, in Krasiński Square; a very moving and powerful installation.
Following all this walking we needed some refreshment, finding a coffee shop, Pozegnanie z Afryka, which turned out to be a very well stocked shop with coffees and teas from all over the world.
Looking for a vegetarian lunch venue, our walk turned out to be fruitless but the local street market was a great find spotting stalls selling ONLY mushrooms; not realsing Poland had so many different varities; the same being true of some stalls selling only eggs!
We sauntered back towards the old Town, finally eating lunch back in Sucre!
Our evening started off with a concert at Time For Chopin, one of several venues in the city that celebrate their local boy, Frédéric Chopin. We enjoyed an hour of delightful piano music played by local pianist Wojciech Pyrć, also taking an intermission for a glass of local honey wine.
Our concert ended early which gave us time to look around for dinner, Polish dumplings or course, taken in a nearby restaurant called Karmnik, great service, great food and good local wheat beer.
Declining dessert we sauntered back to the Pozegnanie z Afryka coffee shop enjoying a drink along with a slice of apple cake and a chunk of orange cake, both were a delicious end to our day especially after clocking up 16.3km on our walk.
mrandmrsyoung 