Warsaw is full of history and entertainment if you know where to look, but first you have to get around the place to find what you want. How does one do this, and what are the insider tips? Read on…
Layout
Unlike the more manageable Krakow, Warsaw’s sights are spread out. Walking from The Uprising Museum in westerly Wola to Wilanow Palace at the southern end of the city, for example, would take about three hours and is out of the question.
The long Vistula river which cuts from north to south separating the arty areas of Praga and Saska Kepa from the city centre has only eight bridges and in winter, you’re guaranteed a cold if you’re thinking about walking over them.
If you’re feeling flush and lazy, taxis will look after you well in this confusing layout, and cost around 50p per kilometre during the day, with higher rates at night.
But if you want to be a bit more self-reliant and experience Warsaw properly, grab yourself a ZTM map from a station and keep it real. If you’ve got access to a computer, visit www.jakdojade.pl to find the quickest routes around the city – they even have a smartphone app for posh types.
Transport tickets
If you’re staying in Warsaw for just a couple of days, you’ll need to buy yourself a few single tickets. These are sold in 20-minute and 40-minute varieties, but most journeys around the centre can be made in 20 minutes.
Tickets cost about 60-80p at the moment, but prices have been jumping up sharply every January for the last few years, much to the chagrin of Varsovians.
Tickets can be bought from machines at stations and from just about all of the green newsagent kiosks dotted around the city.
If you’re staying for a week (and there’s plenty to see and do if you are), then forget the individual tickets and get yourself a proper travelcard known as the “karta miejska”. To get one, head to a ZTM office (there’s one in Centrum metro station and in Warsaw Central too) with your passport and a passport-sized photo and they’ll knock you one up in a couple minutes, offering you a choice of snazzy designs for the card to boot. You can charge the card there and then or at any station.
For a mere 100zl (£20), you can get a whole month’s travel across the whole of the city’s public transport system – probably one of the best deals for city travel in the world.
Trams and buses
The city has a very punctual system of trams and buses, the networks of which were around way before the city was destroyed in WWII and rebuilt. Unlike the Parisian-influenced Art Noveau trams before the 1940s, the trams still left over from the Communist era are drafty and full of sterile plastic and metal.
Newer trams with air conditioning and TV screens showing where stops are have been installed over the last ten years or so, but you never know which of the two will turn up when you’re waiting for one. Both types work in the deepest Warsaw winter, even at -20 degrees Celsius.
The buses, on the other hand, are generic and utilitarian with little to say about themselves. Both buses and trams rely on the honour system in that you must validate your own ticket when you step onto the vehicle.
If you have a karta miejska, you just get on and don’t worry about that validating nonsense.
The metro
There’s probably an alternate universe where Warsaw has the seven metro lines that it really needs, but unfortunately we currently live in the single-line universe.
The line runs from the once picturesque northern area of Mlociny to the southern edge of Kabaty where new building developments are constantly popping up. You have to take a note of these names because that’s how you’ll know whether you’re jumping onto a northern or southern-bound train. The line is sprightly and rarely suffers delays like in London, and even travels throughout the night on weekends.
A second metro line is due to open in 2015 that goes from west to east, opening up the less touristy eastern side of the river, but none of the inhabitants of Warsaw expect it to open any time soon due to the many delays that have already stymied the project.
In the meantime, there is the SKM, a skeletal old train system hidden under the centre that pops up in the east. It runs less regularly than the metro so you’ll need to check timings.
The bike scheme and ferries
During summer, getting around is made even easier with the bike rental scheme. Bike stations can be found in all the central areas and the system is cheap and easy to use. It doesn’t run during winter because the weather is too unpredictable – you can’t really ride a bike if there’s eight inches of seemingly-permanent frozen snow everywhere.
Also during the height of summer, are two ferry routes across the river that link eastern beaches by the Praga and Saska Kepa areas with central Warsaw’s beach on the west side. It’s not particularly quick, but they are a charming distraction and well worth it in good weather.
Final things to remember
For some reason, jaywalking is illegal in Poland, and if you’re caught using a crossing when there’s a red man, you’ll be given an on-the-spot fine of between 50 and 100zl. Lots of Varsovians still risk it, but if you’re visiting, it’s wiser to just follow the traffic light’s lead as a bored police officer may take particular umbrage if they find it’s a tourist who isn’t obeying the rules.
Most important of all: when walking around the city, don’t cut across grass patches, but stick to paths. It’s perfectly legal to walk on the grass, but they tend to have an alarmingly high amount of dog poos liberally scattered around.
Poles love dogs and there’s a high rate of canine ownership, but many don’t abide by the law about cleaning up after them. In winter, these little packages will also be encased under a lot of snow, along with a lot of other rubbish that doesn’t get cleared until it melts!
(Featured image: centralniak)
