Attractions in Warsaw

Attraction

Stare Miasto (Warsaw)

Warsaw's Old Town was rebuilt from rubble after World War II so faithfully that UNESCO added it to the World Heritage list. Its Market Square is lined with pastel merchant houses and centred on the bronze Mermaid statue, the city's symbol.

Attraction

Muzeum Powstania Warszawskiego

The Warsaw Uprising Museum documents the 63-day insurrection of 1944 through survivor recordings, a replica Liberator bomber, and a beating-heart sound installation. It sits in a former tram power station in the Wola district.

Attraction

Old Town Market Square

The reconstructed heart of Warsaw Old Town, a UNESCO-listed feat of post-war rebuilding ringed by colourful townhouses.

Attraction

Palac w Wilanowie

Wilanow Palace was the baroque summer residence of King Jan III Sobieski and survived the war intact, earning it the nickname the Polish Versailles. Its formal gardens and gilded interiors draw crowds year round.

Attraction

Palac Kultury i Nauki

The Palace of Culture and Science is Poland's tallest building at 237 metres, a Stalinist gift from the Soviet Union completed in 1955. Its 30th-floor terrace offers the best panorama of the modern skyline.

Attraction

Krakowskie Przedmiescie (Warsaw)

This elegant Royal Route boulevard links the Old Town to the university and is lined with churches, palaces and the Presidential Palace. The Holy Cross Church here holds an urn containing Fryderyk Chopin's heart.

Attraction

Centrum Nauki Kopernik

The Copernicus Science Centre on the Vistula riverbank offers hundreds of hands-on physics and biology exhibits plus a planetarium under a spherical dome. It is one of the most visited interactive science museums in Europe.

Attraction

Castle Square and Sigismund's Column

Castle Square is the triangular plaza at the entrance to Warsaw's Old Town, centred on Sigismund's Column, the city's oldest secular monument and one of its most recognisable landmarks.

Attraction

St. John's Archcathedral

St. John's Archcathedral is Warsaw's oldest church, a Masovian Gothic cathedral in the Old Town where Poland's 1791 constitution was sworn and Masovian dukes were crowned and buried.

Attraction

Warsaw Barbican (Barbakan)

The Warsaw Barbican is a semicircular brick fortress gate from around 1540 and one of the last surviving pieces of the city's medieval walls. It stands between the Old and New Towns, where street artists and vendors gather.

Attraction

St. Anne's Church

One of Warsaw's finest Baroque churches, set beside Castle Square, with a richly decorated interior and a bell tower you can climb for wide views over the Old Town.

Attraction

Warsaw Mermaid Statue (Pomnik Syrenki)

The bronze mermaid at the centre of Warsaw's Old Town Market Square is the city's emblem and legendary guardian, shown raising a sword and shield.

Attraction

Multimedia Fountain Park

Multimedia Fountain Park sits just north of Warsaw's Old Town near the Vistula, where free summer evening shows combine water, light, laser and music.

Attraction

Holy Cross Church (Kosciol sw. Krzyza)

A major Baroque church on Warsaw's Royal Route, best known as the resting place of Frederic Chopin's embalmed heart, sealed inside a pillar of the nave.

Attraction

University of Warsaw Library Roof Garden

A free rooftop garden atop the University of Warsaw Library in Powisle, ranking among the largest of its kind in Europe, with open views over the Vistula and the city skyline.

Attraction

Nowy Swiat Street (Ulica Nowy Swiat)

Nowy Swiat is one of Warsaw's most elegant historic streets, a largely pedestrian promenade of pastel Neoclassical townhouses lined with cafes, shops and restaurants along the Royal Route.

Attraction

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and Saxon Garden

A national war memorial with an eternal flame and round-the-clock honour guard on Pilsudski Square, backed by one of Warsaw's oldest public parks.

Attraction

National Museum in Warsaw

One of Poland's largest art museums, founded in 1862 and home to Polish painting, European old masters and the Faras Gallery of early Christian frescoes from Sudan.

Attraction

Ghetto Heroes Monument

A 1948 memorial in Warsaw's Muranow district honouring the Jews who fought and died in the 1943 Warsaw Ghetto Uprising, and the site of Willy Brandt's famous 1970 gesture of contrition.

Attraction

Neon Museum

The Neon Museum in Warsaw preserves the glowing signs of Poland's communist era, with more than 100 restored neons on display at its home in the Palace of Culture and Science.

Attraction

Praga District

Praga is Warsaw's district on the eastern bank of the Vistula, one of the few areas to survive the war intact, now a centre for artists, galleries and nightlife set among genuine pre-war tenements.

Attraction

Warsaw Zoo

Warsaw's municipal zoo sits on the Praga bank of the Vistula and is known both for its thousands of animals and for the wartime rescue story behind 'The Zookeeper's Wife'.

Attraction

PGE Narodowy (National Stadium)

Warsaw's national stadium is Poland's largest football arena, built for Euro 2012 and known for its red-and-white latticework facade and retractable roof.

Attraction

Powazki Cemetery

Founded in 1790, Powazki is Warsaw's oldest and most famous cemetery, an open-air gallery of funerary sculpture spread across roughly 43 hectares in the Wola district.

Attraction

Nozyk Synagogue

The Nozyk Synagogue on Twarda Street is the only pre-war Jewish house of prayer in Warsaw to survive World War II, and it still functions as an active Orthodox synagogue.

Attraction

Warsaw Uprising Monument

A large bronze monument on Krasinski Square commemorating the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, the 63-day fight by the Polish resistance against German occupation.

Attraction

Presidential Palace (Palac Prezydencki)

Warsaw's largest palace and the official seat of the President of Poland, a Neoclassical landmark on the Royal Route fronted by Thorvaldsen's statue of Prince Jozef Poniatowski.