Warsaw Day II

I began Sunday by visiting Wilanow Palace, which was built in the 17th century and is located just South of Warsaw. It originally served as a residence of King Jan III Sobieski, and over the course of its history has been passed among Poland’s royal families and wealthy elites.

The palace survived both World Wars and was opened for public viewing during the 60s. During the tour they make you wear covers over your shoes, so you feel a bit like you’re in a hospital operating room.

Here are some additional pictures from the gardens outside.

And here is a nearby church.

After the visit to the palace I had a couple of hours before I needed to leave for the airport so I decided to visit a park that was on the way back to the hotel. Unfortunately, however, I couldn’t find a cab and my attempt at taking public transportation failed miserably.

The hotel had told me that there’s a bus that returns to the city center, so I walked to the nearby bus stop and asked the driver if he was indeed heading back there. He didn’t speak English, but based on his reaction when I pointed to where I wanted to go on my map (i.e., affirmative nodding), it appeared as though I was in the right place.

After the bus departed, things seemed to be going smoothly. We were indeed heading in the right direction and had gradually covered roughly half the distance back to the hotel. However, things shortly took a turn for the worse as we made an unexpected turn and never made it back to the course that I had expected.

To make a long story short, the bus definitely wasn’t heading to where I needed to go and I ended up being pretty far off course despite getting off the bus only a few (very long) stops after the fateful turn. Fortunately, though, there were two very helpful locals who were able to get me back on track. Nonetheless, the detour prevented my visit to the park that I wanted to see and upon returning to the hotel it was basically time to leave for the airport.