My parents and little sister paid me a short visit at the beginning of October. This visit took four days, the first one was more concerned about picking-up my parents and sister from the airport and the last day bringing them back to the airport safely. In this time, we had a little while of being together and I could show them a few places in Warsaw. I will tell you about the places we went and maybe you will get some ideas of places to go to when your friends or family visit you in Warsaw.

Old town

It may sound obvious, at
their first full day here, I
took my family to Old
town. It is beautiful and
a cosy place to go to. It has
some nicely (rebuild) old
buildings and a nice view
on the national stadium.

We took a walk from the centre to the Old town on Nowy Swiat, which is of
course the most popular street in Warsaw, so my parents could not miss it.
There, I also showed the campus of the University ofWarsaw, where I have only been twice because of digital classes. They really liked the gate and the buildings, and it is a good thing to show them where you go to school, I think every parent wants to know where their kids go to school or work.

Typical polish Pierogi

For lunch, we went to Zapiecek a restaurant with Polish food, which is mainly focussed on tourists. They have really tasty food, and you can find them through the whole Old town and centre. My dad had Polish sausages for his lunch and my mom, sister and I took some soup. They have much more things to try like potato pancakes and of course pierogi and more.

After lunch, I took them to the old town. We walked through the small streets and looked at the amber shops, which are a lot there. We went to look at the river, my dad really liked the view over the river, at some places you have a nice view of the river and the Praga district.
We walked on the market square and took some pictures of the mermaid statue.

From Oldtown, you walk directly into the New Town, so I showed them this part too. We walked then back to the square with the royal place following the city walls. When we came there, we climbed on a church tower where we had a nice view of the city. At the end of the afternoon, we took a ride with a carriage through Old and New town.

Center

Center of Warsaw

In my personal opinion is the centre of Warsaw not that cosy or interesting. It misses the nice shopping streets, which I always see in the Netherlands. My sister wanted to take a look for music, so I said we could take a look at the centre. The weather was not that nice that day, so walking in the centre was not a big problem, because we could walk dry. The advantage of shopping in Poland is that the prices are lower than in the Netherlands. There are a lot of the same shops and a lot of clothing stores, and these are a little boring. I like the shops with a lot of different things where you can find things you don’t expect and maybe do not need, but buy them anyway, because it is cool.
We had there a nice ice-cream too, we could choose from different flavours than in the Netherlands.

Palace of culture and science

Next to the centre is the palace of culture and science, and it is an impressive and huge building. We were not in there, but from people who did, I heard that you have a nice view on top of it. I looked at a travel website and it had some weird facts one of them was that Polish people say that you have the best view from the top of it, because you are not able the palace of culture and science itself.

Parks

Lazienki Royal Gardens in Warsaw

At the first day of my parent’s visit, we went to a park close to their hotel, I have no idea what the name of the park was. It was a nice and big park with a lot of things to do. You can even go skiing. We had there a nice coffee and tea and we walked around it. We saw two squirrels fighting, and we had a nice view over a pond.

I also showed my parents how I lived, maybe that is even more important for parents, knowing that you have a good place to live. So, when they visit you do not forget to do that.
After that, I took them to my favourite park: Park Skaryszewski in Praga. My sister wanted to see squirrels, and there are a lot of them. We did spot a lot of them, we went on a Monday when it was a little rainy, so there were not that many people.

In this park, we had lunch, with pierogi, for my parents and sister it was the first time they had eaten pierogi and they liked it.

I know there are more good places to go, so share them if you know them. The most important of that visit was, that we could be together for a few days. It does not matter then where you are and what you do. We were even lucky, a few hours after my parents came back to the Netherlands, the
The Dutch government gave negative travel advice for Poland because of the corona.