Walk around Ochota district
Occupies land that once belonged to the royal village of Wielka Wola. It owes its unusual name to the Ochota inn, which in the 19th century stood by the Kraków road that passed through the area. The settlement gained in importance due to the Warsaw-Vienna rail line, which opened in 1848, and the Warsaw Water Filters, opened in 1886, which still provide water to Varsovians. In 1901, the Hospital of the Baby Jesus was also built here, the biggest hospital building in the capital at the time. The district blossomed in the 1920s inter-war period when the Staszic and Lubecki residential estates were established. The historic tenement buildings, once inhabited by the wealthy middle class, have lost none of their charm. During World War II, the order was signed in one of the tenements initiating the Warsaw Uprising and the land currently occupied by Hala Banacha was the site of the largest transit camp for Warsaw prisoners.
Today’s Ochota district is the perfect place for active outdoor recreation. Here you will find the largest part of Pole Mokotowskie, known as Warsaw’s Central Park, as well as Szczęśliwicka Hill with its year-round artificial ski slope. Literature buffs can take advantage of the abundant collections of the National Library and the district’s colour is added to by one of Warsaw’s two mosques, the small but atmospheric Icon Museum and the permanent Invisible Exhibition, which is curated by blind guides.
Plac Zawiszy and environs
Imagine that at the site of this bustling roundabout horse-drawn carts used to stop before entering the city. This was the crossroads of the oldest routes leading from Warsaw to Kraków and the approach road to the Jewish village of Nowa Jerozolima, today’s Aleje Jerozolimskie. Following the suppression of the November Uprising, the plaza became the site of public executions, at one of which Artur Zawisza, after whom today’s roundabout is named, was hanged in 1833.
Can you spot the glazed building by the avenue with the characteristic bow-shaped roof? It is the pavilion of the modernistic PKP Ochota railway station, opened in 1963 on the Warsaw cross-city line, intersecting the capital from west to east. The roof’s so-called shell construction allowed a high degree of weight-bearing with minimal thickness.
If you are ready for a journey into a world of complete darkness, cross over to the other side of the avenue. The over 100-metre-high distinctive blue and white building houses the ‘Invisible Exhibition’. Under the care of blind guides you will learn how the world is perceived without vision.
To start a visit to the district, cross over to the Radisson Blu Sobieski Hotel and take a walk along Tarczyńska Street, built in the 19th century and for several decades the route of the Commuter Railway, known today as the WKD. Here, in a private apartment in building number 11, an avant-garde theatre operated during the ‘50s in which Miron Białoszewski, author of the famous ‘A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising’, staged his first plays.
Plac Narutowicza and surroundings
Created as an element of the borough’s expansion plan, it was named in 1923 after Poland’s first President, Gabriel Narutowicz, who was murdered a year earlier. The medieval-looking place of worship standing next to it is the Church of the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary, known as Saint Jakub’s after the patron saint of the parish. It was actually built between 1910 and 1939 and is considered an outstanding work of Polish modernism. In July 1924, after running away from home and coming to Warsaw, Helena Kowalska, a Christian mystic known as St. Faustyna, made her way there. Go inside and see the 25 stained glass windows dedicated to the history of the Home Army and Polish Armed Forces in the West, the first work of its kind in Poland, made before the fall of communism.
On Filtrowa Street, leading from the square, you will notice a distinctive four-storey tenement building with a red façade. It is one of the first big residential buildings constructed in Ochota in the years 1925-26 for workers of the Postal Savings Bank. Above the entrance gate you will see beautiful decorations in the Baroque style. During the Second World War, the headquarters of the Home Army’s Warsaw district were sited in one of these apartments. On July 31, 1944, at around 19.00, Colonel Antoni Chruściel, a.k.a. ‘Monter’, signed the order here that launched the Warsaw Uprising.
Cross the road and turn into Akademicka Street. It leads you to the ‘Akademik’ Student Halls of Residence of Warsaw Polytechnic – one of Warsaw’s largest pre-war buildings and the main building of the oldest student accommodation complex in Poland. After its completion in 1930, it housed a kitchen for 2,500 people, a mechanical laundry and a bathhouse with underground swimming pool. Writer Witold Gombrowicz mentioned it in his novel ‘Ferdydurke’ and the the word ‘Akademik’ came into the Polish language and now is a popular term for a hall of residence. During the war years, the Germans used it as a prison. This fact, along with the structure’s size and austere appearance as well as the presence of an emblem, have led its residents to call it Alcatraz.
Warsaw Filters and vicinity
Did you know that the slow water filters, completed in 1886, are the only facility of their type still operating in the world today? Together with the rapid filters and ozonation station built later, they supply water to more than half the Warsaw agglomeration. You can only visit them a few times a year, during open days or the Long Night of Museums. In the course of a 90-minute tour you will visit the disused water tower, see the slow sand filters and the art deco rapid sand filters building – the same one in which Magda Karwowska worked in the 70s serial ‘Czterdziestolatek’ – as well as visiting the modern, multimedia museum of waterworks and sewage systems.
Before you manage to obtain a sought-after ticket, take a walk around the Staszic Colony – a residential estate built in 1922-26 between Wawelska, Sędziowska, Nowowiejska and Krzywickiego streets. Here you will find historic villas and terraced houses with characteristic mansard roofs, built for civil servants, the military and the police. During the German occupation, the famous composer Władysław Szpilman hid in the attic of a tenement building at Aleja Niepodległości 223 for a year. His story was later portrayed in the Roman Polański film ‘The Pianist’.
At Filtrowa 57 you will come across a monumental building resembling a magnate’s residence – this was the Warsaw Provincial Office, occupied today by the Supreme Audit Office. It is located on another pre-war estate – the Lubecki Colony. Several exquisite tenements have been preserved in it – look for them while heading further in the direction of Plac Narutowicza.
Pole Mokotowskie and nearby
No, it’s no mistake; the greater part of one of Warsaw’s most popular parks lies in Ochota. Its name comes from the 19th century when it occupied three times the area and was a military range situated between Warsaw and Mokotów. The land was once home to Warsaw’s first airport, from where from 1920 regular passenger flights took off for Bucharest, Athens, Helsinki and even Beirut. Today you can run or rollerskate here and in the summer heat waves cool off by the lake or lie on the grass watching the dogs frolic. They love the place – that’s surely why in 2004 the Happy Dog Statue was erected here. A golden retriever working as a therapeutic dog posed for it.
You really have to walk the two-kilometre Ryszard Kapuściński trail. One of Poland’s most famous reporters and writers lived in a Finnish-style wooden house located in the northern part of the park, which was his favourite place to walk.
Do not neglect to also visit the National Library – the biggest archive of Polish writing. Its collections number almost 10 million texts from various eras, from Medieval prints through handwritten manuscripts of renowned writers to works of contemporary literature. You do not need to be a bibliophile to find something to your tastes here. In the elegant, spacious interior of the reading room you can browse the latest papers and magazines in peace.
To finish, make your way to the crossroads of Żwirki i Wigury and Wawelska streets to see the famous Pomnik Lotnika, or Pilot’s Statue. It’s a replica of one of the most wonderful works of the inter-war period, unveiled on November 11 1932 on Plac Unii Lebelskiej. Pilot Major Leonard Zbigniew Lepszy posed for it. During World War II a scout, Jan Gut, and Jan ‘Rudy’ Bytnar, independently of one another, painted ‘anchors’ on his pedestal – a symbol of Poland’s fight in the Warsaw Uprising.
Park Szczęśliwicki
No other park in the capital can boast such a variety of attractions. Here you will find: the highest ski slope in Warsaw, an open-air swimming pool with massage equipment and flumes and a pond full of fish, beloved of anglers.
Situated on one of the gentler slopes of Szczęślikicki Hill, the over 200-metre high all-year-round course will help you learn to ski.
In the spring and summer, a ride on the hill’s roller coaster will provide you with plenty of thrills. The two-person cars reach speeds of almost 40 km/h.
The hill’s elevation of over 40 metres makes a great vantage point. Did you know that it was made from the ruins left of the city after the Second World War?
A few hundred metres further on is the open-air lido that operates during the summer and the canal running alongside it connects two charming ponds. The Glinianki Szczęśliwickie (Szczęśliwickie clays) as they are called were created as a result of clay mining by the brickworks that were here before the war. That is why the area’s oldest residents sometimes call the park the Glinki.
Traces of other cultures
In the neighbourhood of the bustling Rondo Zesłańców Syberyskich you will notice a modern building with a tower crowned with… a crescent moon. This is the Islamic Cultural Centre in Warsaw with a real mosque, the construction of which was financed by an Arab Sheikh. It houses Poland’s biggest prayer hall, for about 500 people, with a wooden recess, or Mihrab, facing Mecca. You can view the exotic interior daily outside of Friday prayer times, when the hall is divided into special sections for men and women. However, it is best to visit the site during the annual Long Night of Museums. Then you can attend a lecture on Islam, see the library and observe the Muslims’ evening prayers. You can also take advantage of a group tour with an Imam organised by the Warsaw Friends Association. Take the opportunity to check out what the Arabic delicatessen or on-site restaurant offer.
Fort Ordona – a famous stronghold from the times of the November Uprising, described by national poet Adam Mickiewicz – once stood on the land adjacent to the mosque. The fort is commemorated by a mural painted on the wall of a neighbouring building at Aleja Bohaterów Września 19.
A little over a kilometre from here, at ul. Lelechowska 5, in the building of a former boiler house, is situated… an Orthodox chapel with one of Poland’s three icon museums. You can visit it after services held on Saturdays and Sundays, or on other days after making an appointment by phone. Among the many icons at the altar, you will see a figure of a man and woman. This is Saint Nino, who introduced Christianity to Georgia, and a pre-war University of Warsaw professor and Orthodox Georgian priest, Grzegorz Peradze. The fabulously colourful, dusky atmosphere of the interior is added to by stained-glass windows by Adam Stalony-Dobrzański, a lecturer at the Kraków Academy of Fine Arts. Apart from icons, you will also see reproductions of frescoes by Jerzy Nowosielski, old prints and liturgical materials. Take part in events organised by the museum or visit the temporary exhibition.