After face planting on my bed at the end of my WarsawPass day, I decided to sleep in a little and woke up around noon to hit the 4-5 museums I hoped to visit. As soon as I pulled up the first one in Google Maps, I saw that every possible route had a large detour message that stated public demonstrations at the main square would be from 9a-noon but that bus service would be interrupted until 10pm. Unwilling to risk getting lost again and again for a second day, I decided to go with plan b and head to Old Town to explore. I remembered seeing at least one museum as I tried to find the Chopin concert the night before and figured with the short day, that would be enough.
I never worry if I don’t make it to all the main tourist attractions in a city, I see it as a valid excuse to come back.
The bus left me at the edge of an older part of Warsaw and luckily between my Under 30 Pole guides and google maps working intermittently, I schlepped up a graded but steep hill to the very entrance of Old Town.
Old Town extends well past where my pictures will show but I didn’t see the other half until I was on the bus on my way back to my apartment.
Once you cross a short bridge over an expressway, you reach the first of two large town squares.
Old town is not as overly touristy as you would think and there were the standard school groups touring as well as many locals enjoying the restaurants and shopping.
You can easily enter and exit the old town through a variety of entries in between the ancient walls.
It was 4 pm before I knew it, too late to really enjoy even the museum nearby before it closed at 5pm. This exit had a man dressed as a foaming beer mug advertising Podwale 25, so I decided to go back there for a late lunch/early dinner.
I’m not sure what this scale was used for, maybe next Wednesday’s shipment of Pork Knuckles or the patrons after they finish the Pork Knuckle special.
This time I scored a table within the restaurant and not the hallway.
After receiving the requisite sauerkraut and pickle appetizer, I decided to double down and try Bigos stew in a bread bowl, which turned out to be mostly sauerkraut with random meats mixed in with almost no broth. The stew was seasoned with multiple bay leaves (I pulled out at last 5 throughout the meal) whole peppercorns, thyme and smoked paprika. As with the pork knuckle, I had a hard time finishing half.
I skipped the meringue cake this time and happily took the one bus not on detour back to the apartment.
this is so dope!! Thank you