The light was doing that thing it only does in August, but I was determined not to let it become a cliché. I'd spent seven days chasing Warsaw's headline acts: the Uprising Museum, the neon revival, the food halls. For my last full day, I wanted the city's quieter B-side. No itinerary, just a few threads to pull and see where they led.
My first stop was breakfast in Żoliborz. It's a district I'd only glimpsed from the tram, all leafy streets and pre-war modernist villas, and it felt a world away from the tourist crush around the Stare Miasto. I found a seat at a café near the Plac Wilsona metro stop, ordered a cappuccino and a pastry, and watched the neighbourhood wake up. The coffee cost me about fourteen zloty, which is around three and a half dollars, and it came with a view of parents walking kids to summer camp and old men reading newspapers on benches. It tasted like ordinary life, which, after a week of paperwork and monuments, was exactly what I needed.
I pulled out my phone to check the tram schedule, and that's when a notification reminded me it was August 8th. A whole week since I'd landed with two suitcases and a folder of documents. It felt like a lifetime ago. That first frantic day of getting my PESEL number, the confused trip to a bank branch in the city centre, the relief of finally getting a SIM card that worked. All that bureaucratic fog had cleared, and in its place was something I hadn't expected: a routine.
I finished my coffee and decided to walk down towards the river. My plan was to find the beach I'd heard about, the one on the Vistula's right bank, past the National Stadium. I wasn't going to make it to Praga this trip, but the wildness of the river seemed like a fitting place to say goodbye. As I walked, I passed a small grocer and grabbed a bottle of water and a loaf of bread. It set me back maybe seven zloty total — about two dollars — which still feels startlingly cheap for a city this size.
The walk to the river took me through a residential stretch of Mokotów, past the university library with its incredible rooftop garden, and then down a steep escarpment towards the water. The air changed as I descended, getting cooler and damper, carrying the scent of wet sand and river weed. It's hard to overstate how strange this place is. You're in the middle of a capital city of nearly two million people, yet the Vistula here is wide, wild, and almost completely unregulated. There are no concrete embankments for long stretches, just sandy banks and meadow islands where you can see herons standing still as statues.
I found a spot on the beach, not far from a cluster of families and a few people flying kites. The sand was a little grey, but the vibe was pure summer. I took off my shoes, sat down, and just watched the water move. It was hypnotic. I thought about how this river has always been Warsaw's spine, its reason for existing, but for decades the city turned its back on it. Now, in the summer, these banks are some of the most popular places in the city, with pop-up bars, kayak rentals, and impromptu volleyball games.
I remembered reading that the ferry across the river, part of the Vistula River festival that had happened earlier in August, was free. I couldn't verify if the festival was still running, but the normal public ferry service should be. I checked the ZTM app — I'd finally downloaded it and bought a 75-minute ticket for about four and a half zloty — and saw there was a stop nearby. A quick ride on a small wooden boat across the river felt like the right kind of adventure, a small way to cap off my time here.
The boat was a flat-bottomed thing, and I shared it with a few cyclists and a woman with a stroller. The crossing took all of five minutes, but from the middle of the river, Warsaw looked different. The skyscrapers of Wola, including the needle-like Varso Tower, rose up like a glass mountain range behind the old town's red roofs and the Palace of Culture's hulking silhouette. It was a city of stark contrasts, and from the water, it all seemed to make a strange kind of sense.
I got off on the left bank, near the Vistula Boulevards, a long promenade that was buzzing with life. The concrete amphitheatre steps were packed with people enjoying the late-afternoon sun. I walked north, past the Copernicus Science Centre, and found a quiet bench where I could watch the river traffic. A guy was trying to paddleboard against the current, making very little progress. I felt a strange pang of sadness. This wasn't just a stopover anymore; I was beginning to know this city, to understand its rhythms.
For my last meal in Warsaw, I wanted something that wasn't a milk bar and wasn't a trendy food hall. I wanted a proper sit-down dinner, the kind you have when you're celebrating a small victory. I'd walked past Soul Kitchen earlier in the week and it had looked inviting, so I headed there. It was early enough that I got a table without a wait, and I ordered a plate of pierogi and a local beer. The pierogi were filled with potato and cheese, fried until they were crispy on the bottom, and served with a dollop of sour cream and some fried onions. It was simple, perfect food, and the bill came to about sixty-five zloty, which is maybe sixteen dollars. It felt like a small luxury, and a well-earned one.
As I ate, I thought about the practicalities of the last week. The rent on the flat I'd looked at in Mokotów, a modest one-bedroom, was quoted at around three thousand zloty a month. That's a significant chunk of the average salary, and I knew the city's housing market is squeezed. But for now, I had a place to stay and a life to build. I also thought about the practical advice I'd picked up along the way: how the BLIK system is the only way to pay for half the things in this country, how a monthly transit pass for around a hundred and ten zloty was the best investment I'd made, and how the simple act of registering my address at the local urząd dzielnicy had unlocked the whole system, giving me my PESEL number and access to e-government.
After dinner, the sky started to do that beautiful, slow fade from blue to orange. I decided to take one last walk through the Old Town. The crowds from the afternoon had thinned out, replaced by couples holding hands and street musicians packing up their gear. I walked past the Royal Castle, its illuminated façade glowing against the twilight, and out onto Castle Square, where Sigismund's Column stood tall. I stood there for a long time, listening to the hubbub of voices in Polish, the clatter of restaurant cutlery, the distant hum of trams.
This was the city that had been eighty-five percent destroyed, and here it was, living its best life on a summer evening. I looked up at the sky again, and I knew I had to leave. My train north to the lake district was early the next morning. But I wasn't leaving the chaos of arrival behind; I was taking a new sense of stillness with me.
I walked back to my guesthouse, past the lit windows of apartments and the late-night corner shops. I stopped at a little kiosk to buy a bottle of water for the morning, and the cashier, an older woman with kind eyes, said, 'Dobrej nocy' as I paid. 'Goodnight.' It was such a small thing, but hearing the language directed at me, and understanding it, felt like a milestone. I was no longer just a visitor passing through. I was a resident, or at least I was becoming one.
In my room, I packed my bag for the fourth time, checking the train ticket for the morning. The window was open, letting in the cool night air and the faint sound of music from a bar down the street. Tomorrow, I'd be in a completely different Poland, surrounded by lakes and forests. But tonight, this was home. And for the first time since I'd landed, I felt a pang of regret about leaving a place, not for what it held, but for the version of myself I was leaving behind. The one who didn't know his way around a tram map. The one who was intimidated by a bank form. That guy was gone. In his place was someone who could order a beer, pay with his phone, and say thanks to a cashier without thinking twice. It's a good feeling, that. It feels like arriving.
I closed the window, lay down on the bed, and listened to the city's hum. My time in Warsaw was up, but the adventure was just beginning. The next day, I'd head north to the Masurian Lake District, to swim and sail and think. But I knew I'd be back. This city had its hooks in me now, and I was pretty sure that was the point of this whole journey. It's not about seeing a country; it's about letting it change you, one small, ordinary day at a time. Dobranoc, Warszawa. See you soon.