Poland Travel: Warsaw's Wilanów Palace, Constitution Square, Praga & the Chopin Museum

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• published: 07 Sep 2012
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In the early afternoon of May 11, 2012, my guide Agnieszka and I drove to the Wilanów Palace, often referred to as the "Polish Versailles". This extensive palace complex was a second home to several Polish kings and was built in the late 1600s as the summer residence of King Jan III Sobieski. The palace also features an extensive rose garden. Agnieszka and I continued our sightseeing with a stop at Warsaw's Constitution Square south of the Old Town, a monumental square that was constructed from about 1949 to 1956. It features some outstanding examples of the imposing Socialist Realist architectural style and was intended to be the end point of the Labour Day parades. Then we continued to the historic Praga district on other side of the Vistula River. It was founded in the 1400s and remained an independent city from Warsaw until the late 1700s. St. Florian's Cathedral is an impressive Catholic church that was completed in 1904 and rebuilt between 1952 and 1972 after complete destruction in WWII. Praga is also where the Soviet army stopped in 1944 and watched the Warsaw Uprising against the Nazis on the other side of the Vistula River without coming to the help of the Polish resistance fighters. Today it is an up and coming artsy district with many gritty bars and clubs that is also often used for film shots. Our last sightseeing stop was the Chopin Museum that is dedicated to the great composer Frédéric Chopin who was born in a small village about 45 km west of Warsaw. The museum was established in 1954 and completely restructured in 2010 and now features modern interactive displays about the composer's life and work. There are many listening stations where visitors can use state-of-the-art facilities to sample Chopin's music. The museum also features original manuscripts and documents written by the composer, photographs and sculptures as well as his death mask, taken after the composer passed away in 1849 at the young age of 39 years. The Chopin Museum also hosts many special events, concerts and recitals and has become one of Warsaw's most popular attractions. I concluded the evening of my last full day in Warsaw with a stroll through the historic Old and New Town areas. It was a gorgeous warm evening and thousands of locals and visitors were out, enjoying the ambience of Warsaw's attractive city centre. The restaurants were full, Warsaw University was holding a special event for all the students, and street performers, jugglers and entertainers on stilts were amusing the crowd on Castle Square. Taking in the lively atmosphere of the city was a wonderful way of ending my sightseeing experiences in Warsaw.