The sirens caught me off guard. At exactly five in the afternoon, the whole city stopped — trams halted, cars pulled over, people on the street stood still. It was the 82nd anniversary of the Warsaw Uprising, and for one minute, Warsaw remembered. I'd read about it, but standing there on the corner of Marszałkowska, watching a city hold its breath, was something else entirely.
That was yesterday, though. Today is the second of August, and I'm properly starting to feel like a resident. Not a tourist — a resident. Which means the to-do list is less about sights and more about logistics. So today, I've got two things on my plate: getting my phone sorted with a Polish SIM card, and opening a bank account. Both of those are easier than you'd think, but both have their quirks.
First, the SIM. Polish law requires registration, so you can't just grab one off a shelf and go. You need your passport, and you need to go to an official shop. I went to a Play store near the Palace of Culture — that massive Stalin-era tower that looms over the city centre. Within ten minutes I walked out with a pre-paid starter pack. It cost around 25 zloty, which is about six dollars, and it came with enough data to get me through the week. The whole thing was painless, and honestly, the hardest part was resisting the urge to stare at the Palace of Culture — it's so incongruous, this old Soviet wedding cake dropped into the middle of a modern European city.
Next, the bank. Polish banks have their apps in English, and they're actually quite good. I went with mBank, partially because I'd heard good things, and partially because the branch was conveniently near where I'm staying. I took my passport, and since I'd already gone through the PESEL process yesterday, that made things a bit smoother. It's an 11-digit number, your national ID essentially. If you're moving here, you'll need to register your address at the local urząd dzielnicy — the district office — and then they issue the PESEL. It's one of those things that sounds intimidating but is really just a bit of queuing. Within forty minutes, I had an account open. I even set up BLIK, which is this mobile payment system that everyone uses here. It's quicker than a card — you basically approve payments from your phone. The whole thing felt very 2030.
With the boring stuff done, I decided to reward myself with lunch. And not just any lunch — I wanted to start where Polish eating out began: the milk bar. A bar mleczny is a remnant of the communist era, a state-subsidised cafeteria that served cheap, hearty food to workers. Some of them are gone, but the ones that survive are beloved. I went to one near the Old Town — they're a bit like a museum and a canteen rolled into one. You shuffle along a counter, point at what you want, and then sit at a long table with strangers. I had a plate of pierogi ruskie, always a safe bet, and a bowl of żurek — that sour rye soup that's the ultimate comfort food. The whole thing cost me about 30 zloty. That's less than eight dollars. For a filling, delicious meal that could feed two people. In this city, a sit-down lunch at a fancy place will set you back three or four times that, easy, but the milk bar remains the great equaliser.
After lunch, I walked across the Vistula — because that's one of the great pleasures of Warsaw in the summer. The riverbanks are wild, unregulated, not some manicured promenade. There are beaches. There are kayaks. There are little bars built from shipping containers playing music into the evening. I crossed over to the Praga district, the right bank of the river, which used to be the rough part of town. Now, it's where you go for street art and studios and the kind of gritty creative energy that gets priced out of the centre. I wandered through the Koneser centre, a former vodka factory turned into a complex of galleries and cafes. It's a great example of how this city holds onto its history while building its future.
And speaking of food, the big story this summer is the food hall wave. Places like Elektrownia Powiśle have taken old industrial buildings and filled them with dozens of stalls — a Polish take on the global trend. I stopped for a coffee at STOR Café, a tiny place in the centre, and watched the city go about its day. The price of a cappuccino, by the way, is around 14 zloty. About four dollars. On one hand, that feels steep for a coffee; on the other, I've paid more in London. It's all about context.
I thought about how yesterday I'd been in the Old Town, wandering the cobblestones and admiring the pastel townhouses. They look so perfect, almost too perfect. And then you remember that 85% of this city was destroyed in the Second World War. The Old Town was rebuilt, brick by brick, from rubble. The Royal Castle, the churches, the tenements — all reconstructed. There's a reason it's a UNESCO site. It's not just a beautiful square; it's a statement. A monument to refusal. The uprising failed, the city was razed, and yet they rebuilt it. That's the story of Warsaw, and it's what makes the city so different from, say, Krakow, which was spared the worst. Krakow feels old; Warsaw feels rebuilt. And there's a profound difference.
Walking back towards the centre, I passed by the Warsaw Uprising Museum. It's housed in a former tram power station in Wola, and it's one of the most moving museums I've ever been to. It tells the story of the 1944 uprising in a way that's immersive and personal. I didn't have time to go in today — I'll come back — but just standing outside, looking at the rusted steel walls, was enough to remind me that the sirens yesterday weren't just for show.
There's also the POLIN Museum, on the site of the former Ghetto, which tells the thousand-year history of Polish Jews. One of those museums that redefines how you understand a country. This city has layers. It's not just the modern glass towers of Wola or the leafy parks of Żoliborz. Every district has a story, and every story seems to involve destruction and rebirth.
Tonight, I had dinner in Powiśle again, at the Elektrownia Powiśle food hall. It's in a converted power plant, which sounds odd, but it works. There's a place that does open-fire cooking, another for ramen, another for pierogi. I had a solid bowl of noodles and a Polish craft beer, and it set me back about 55 zloty. That's mid-range for the city. You could go cheaper, much cheaper, especially if you stuck to milk bars. But this is the new Warsaw — a bit more expensive, a bit more global, but still warm.
I'm staying in a kind of a quiet neighbourhood south of the centre, in Mokotów. It's green, residential, a bit posh. My temporary flat is a modest one-bedroom, and I'm told the rent would be around 2,900 zloty a month. That's some seven hundred and fifty dollars. For a furnished flat in a nice part of the capital, that's remarkably reasonable. Though the word on the street is that rents have been climbing fast — housing now eats up over 40% of the average salary here, so it's not all cheap. But still, by London or New York standards, it's a bargain.
I took the tram back home. A single ticket, the 75-minute one, costs about 4.40 zloty. About a dollar. And the network is excellent — trams, buses, two metro lines. I just tapped my bank card on the reader. That's another thing they've got sorted, no need to buy paper tickets. You just touch and go. Although, for the long term, I should probably get a monthly pass. Around 110 zloty. That's less than the price of a single month of coffee.
The evening light over the city was particularly golden. Summer in Warsaw, with the long days and the warm air, is something special. There were people out everywhere, kids playing, couples on blankets along the river. And in the background, the Palace of Culture loomed, floodlit, a little surreal, but somehow, it fits. It's become a part of the city's strange, contradictory charm.
Tomorrow I'm heading north, towards the lake district. But before I go, I want to leave you with a thought from today. If you're coming to Warsaw, don't just see the Old Town and the Royal Castle. Get a SIM card, open a bank account, eat a milk bar lunch, and then take a tram across the river. The more you do the mundane things, the more this city opens up. It's in the queues and the paperwork and the tram rides that you actually start to feel it. That's where the real Poland is — not in the tourist guides, but in the rhythm of daily life. Dzień dobry, and I'll see you out there.
Thanks for listening. If you're planning your own trip, or just curious about the practicalities, the show notes have everything I mentioned — costs, links to the apps, the names of the venues. And if you have questions, send them in. I'm just getting started, and I'd love to know what you'd like to hear next. Until the next stop on the road, stay curious. Na razie.