Warsaw Walking Tour

I love the free walking tours in every city, mostly because they are   free  :) but actually because the tour guides are so knowledgeable. The Free Walking Tour company in Poland (look for a yellow umbrella or find them on Facebook) has authentic polish born and raised people leading their tours which makes a difference. It really is better to learn from a native. 

So today we walked around Warsaw's Old Town and New Town--areas that were 90% destroyed during World War ll .

Agatha was a grea tour guide! 

After the tour we went into the Royal Castle where all the artifacts are authentic but everything was completely rebuilt only about 30 years ago. Even more interesting, it was funded by donations from the public. The entire castle was leveled just like the rest of the city.

After the castle, Uncle Mark and I ventured to a "bar mlechny" or "milk bar" which serves cheap, delicious, no frills, food. They were popular during the communist regime and do not care well to tourists. (Actually it seems most Poles are not so kind to tourists.) but maybe it's hard to trust strangers after your country has been taken from you so many times. This place, Familijna, was super plain, everything was in Polish and so cheap-- 26 zloty for all the food on the table. (That's less than $8) and it was sooo good. 

After lunch, we moved on to the Warsaw Uprising Museum. It was cool,  very modern, and SO much information. The layout was all over the place and everywhere you turned there were more horrible facts about people who died during the uprising and how absolutely, horrifically, terrible, and disgusting WWII was. 

How can people be so messed up? It was really sad but even more just like....what the f***. It's bad language, but really, I can't think of any other way to describe the unimaginable tragedies.  

I'll end with a photo of a model showing a typical building in Warsaw after the war.