Destination Poland: Sunday (afternoon)

It's Sunday. Any ideas on how to fill a Sunday in Warsaw?

A gray day. A cold day. The kind of day I think chills me more than any other: damp, freezing, windy.

(Dreadfully bleak, isn’t it? Isn’t it?)

When I was very little and then again, as a teen, I’d head for the park on Sundays. First with my sister and father, later with my boyfriends or girlfriends. That is what one did.

(Sounds miserable in a month such as December.)

The thing is, it was always wonderful. I have said this to anyone who’ll listen: Warsaw has the most beautiful park in the entire world: a park with wide alleys and curving paths, a summer palace (rebuilt, naturally – remember, we are in the capital of war rubble) and a lake, an orangerie with peacocks wandering freely, a rose garden surrounding Chopin’s statue…

(Lovely. Did you smell the roses?)

No roses in December.
And people. The park is always full of people. Strolling people, older younger, people feeding birds, squirrels, ducks, swans, peacocks (it’s the primary activity for little kids). And it has an open terrace where you can sip coffee and eat sweets.

(You sat in an open terrace? How exciting. How cold.)

Naturally the terrace is closed for the winter, but the café still sells rurki z kremem (a rolled wafer stuffed with fresh whipped cream) to strollers.

Lazineki park is where you exhale before Monday places demands on you all over again. You take it slowly, it’s meant to be savored. It is, for me, Warsaw’s greatest treasure. It doesn’t carry any history with it, you make up your own personal one and in a city like Warsaw, that is so refreshing, it hurts.