click to view more photos

All the rooms have an en suite bathroom with all necessary amenities, Poland has a long coastline and lots of rivers and canals, but passenger-boat services are limited and operate only in summer. Located in the centre of Old Town Gdansk, highly valued, the hotel offers individually designed rooms with panoramic views of old Gdansk and a free Wi-Fi, Warsaw has shaken the dust from its hair and has slicked it to impress. Each room in the hotel comes with an ultramodern design and furniture, Emerging like a phoenix from the ashes of WWII, Warsaw is essentially a post-war city. Its handful of historic precincts have been meticulously reconstructed, but most of its urban landscape is modern, from the dull products of the Stalin era to the more creative efforts of recent years. The restaurant specializes in european cuisine and also provides organic and seasonal food, Poland has great potential as a place to tour by bicycle - most of the country is fairly flat and you can throw your bike on a train to cover long distances quickly. Major roads carry pretty heavy traffic and are best avoided. Instead, you can easily plan your route along minor roads, which are usually much less crowded and in reasonable shape. Be warned that the standard of driving in Poland may not be what you're used to at home; nor are cyclists allowed to ride two abreast. There is a satellite TV in every room, LOT, which is www.lot.com, operates a comprehensive network of domestic routes. There are daily flights between Warsaw and Bydgoszcz, Gdańsk, Katowice, Kraków, Łódź, Poznań, Rzeszów, Szczecin, Wrocław and Zielona Góra. All flights between regional cities travel via Warsaw and connections aren't always convenient. Currently there is no domestic competition, but this may change if DirectFly, which is www.directfly.pl, resumes operations in the future. Café Mon Balzac, and above all, Hotel Artus restaurant, serves buffet breakfast every morning, Pre-20th-Century History. There is a plenty of dining and shopping opportunities in the nearest neighborhood, In most cities you can travel on the autobus, which is bus, and tramwaj, which is tram,, and some also have a trolejbus, which is trolleybus, . Warsaw is the only city with a metro. Room service is available, highly valued, as well as packed lunches, With a strongly Roman Catholic population, Christian celebrations are of huge importance in Poland. This is particularly evident at Christmas and Easter, but any Sunday is a good Sunday for getting a taste of Polish devoutness and religious fervour. All the churches, which is and they're truly in good supply, fill up beyond their capacity during the Sunday masses. Customers appreciate the hotel is situated in the very centre of Gdansk within a 5 minute walk from Bazylika Mariacka and Main Hall, There are direct flights to Warsaw from major European destinations, and Ryanair flies from London Stansted to eight regional Polish cities, which is Rzeszow, Krakow, Lodz, Wroclaw, Poznan, Gdansk, Bydgoszcz and Szczecin, . Flights to Warsaw also depart from US cities such as New York and Chicago, which have large Polish communities. There is no departure tax. Train and bus fares from some European destinations can be as expensive as discounted air fares, unless you have some kind of transport pass. Road connections with Poland are good and getting better, but there are still border delays, especially when crossing from other Eastern European countries. There are sea connections from Denmark and Sweden to Gdańsk, Gdynia and Świnoujście. All services have car-freighting facilities., By Polish standards, Warsaw is a young whippersnapper of a city. When other towns such as Kraków, Poznań, Wrocław or Gdańsk were close to celebrating their quincentenaries, the present-day capital was just beginning to emerge from the obscurity of the Mazovian forests. In the 14th century, the dukes of Mazovia built a stronghold on the site where the Royal Castle stands today, and made Warsaw their seat in 1413. Like most medieval Polish towns, it was planned on a grid around a central square and surrounded with fortified walls. In 1526, the last duke died without an heir, leaving Warsaw and the whole of Mazovia under the direct rule of the king in Kraków. After the unification of Poland and Lithuania in 1569, the Sejm voted to make the city the seat of their debates. Things continued to look up when, in 1596, King Zygmunt III Waza decided to move his capital from Kraków to Warsaw. Like the rest of Poland, Warsaw fell prey to the 1655-60 Swedish invasion, but quickly recovered and continued to develop. Paradoxically, the 18th century - a period of catastrophic decline for the Polish state - witnessed Warsaw's greatest prosperity. A wealth of great palaces and churches were erected and cultural and artistic life flourished. In 1791, Warsaw signed Europe's first constitution. In 1830, the Russians took control, ruling until WWI., Things to do in Warsaw ›, Travel insurance for Warsaw ›, The second half of the 19th century saw a steady rate of urban development and industrialisation, including a railway linking Warsaw with Vienna and St Petersburg. After WWI, Warsaw was reinstated as the capital of independent Poland and within 20 years made considerable advances in the fields of industry, education, science and culture. The population increased from about 750,000 in 1918 to nearly 1.3 million in 1939, of whom 380,000 were Jewish. Nazi bombs began to fall on 1 September 1939 and a week later the city was besieged. Despite brave resistance, Warsaw fell to the enemy on 28 September. This, however, turned out to be only the beginning of the tragedy. The five-year Nazi occupation, marked by constant arrests, executions and deportations, triggered two acts of heroic armed resistance, both cruelly crushed. The first was the Ghetto Uprising in April 1943, when heavily outnumbered and almost unarmed Jewish civilians fought fiercely for almost a month against overwhelming Nazi forces. The second was the Warsaw Uprising of 1944 which hoped to liberate the capital and set up an independent government before the arrival of the Red Army, which is which was already camped on the eastern bank of the Vistula River, . Street fighting began on 1 August, but after 63 days the insurgents were forced to capitulate. For the next three months the Nazis methodically razed the city to the ground. Only on 17 January 1945 did Soviet forces cross the river to 'liberate' Warsaw. About 85% of Warsaw's buildings were destroyed and 800,000 people - more than half of the city's pre-war population - perished. No other Polish city suffered such immense loss of life or such devastation in the war. Given the level of destruction, there were suggestions that the capital should be moved elsewhere, but instead it was decided to repair the pre-war urban fabric. According to the plan, the most valuable historic monuments, most notably the Old Town, would be restored to their previous appearance based on original drawings and photographs. The authorities also had to build from scratch a whole new city capable of providing housing and services to its inhabitants. This communist legacy was less impressive. The city centre was, until recently, a blend of bunker-like Stalinist structures and equally dull edifices of a later era, while the outer suburbs, home to the majority of Warsaw's inhabitants, were composed almost exclusively of anonymous prefabricated concrete blocks.