“Look how lifelike he is – you can even bend the ears.” 

The curator’s pride in the expensive new silicon figure was evident.

It was our last morning in Warsaw, and we were spending it in Lazienki Park – once the hunting reserve of the Dukes of Mazowske, and later a royal residence. Sadly, whilst we could admire the baroque architecture from the outside, the Palace on the Water was closed to visitors that day. We found ourselves instead at the Museum of Hunting and Horsemanship in a 19^th century Barracks building.  Although the supposed subject matter did not particularly appeal to us, we thought we would have a look anyway. 

It turned out to be very far from the dull display of saddles, whips and hunting rifles I had anticipated. There were of course many stuffed trophy animals, but it was more like a natural history museum. In the first room we entered, stuffed animals and birds were displayed without glass cases in a forest setting, with a birdsong soundtrack.  The curator was very knowledgeable about the habits and habitats.  It transpired that most of their visitors are school parties learning about conservation. The ‘Eye to Eye’ room displayed trophies of a famous Polish hunter, Roman Hubert Hupalowski (1905-1990), but this too was designed to provide an educational experience, with species from three different climate zones allowing comparisons about how their appearance is influenced by their lifestyle and habitat. The final room we saw was that of the habitat of the hunter: it was dressed as a 19^th century nobleman’s study with hunting rifles and trophies, and the figure of ‘Eustachy’, complete with his realistic bendy ears, seated at the desk. 

With only two full days in Warsaw we had managed to fit in a lot of museum visits, despite visiting only one museum proper (the Warsaw Museum) during the first day, which was devoted to exploration of the Old Town.  The rest of our time was spent on a self-guided walking tour and a visit to the Royal Castle, taking advantage of the free admission on Wednesdays. The Castle is a reconstruction of the eighteenth-century building, the original having been blown up after the Warsaw Rising in 1944.

Perhaps not surprisingly, our first stop the next day was to the Museum of the Warsaw Rising, dedicated on the sixtieth anniversary of the beginning of the insurrection against the German occupation in August 1944. It is a modern multimedia experience in which visitors follow events from before the rising, through the events of August and September to the eventual surrender.  A large central hall includes a replica of a B24J Liberator aircraft.  It was interesting and informative, but also overwhelming, and we found ourselves suffering from sensory overload from the noise and images, so left earlier than planned.

We took advantage of the excellent Metro system to get to the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, another modern multimedia museum. This museum aimed to tell a 1,000-year story, of which the Holocaust was only a part.   There was a lot to interest my inner medievalist in the early sections and this tour of Jewish history ended on a positive note with a resurgence in Jewish culture. The multimedia here was less intrusive, and it was easier to follow the story.

Later, after a lunch of traditional Polish dumplings, we dropped in the Marie Curie Museum. This was a complete contrast – a traditional museum in a couple of rooms of her former family home in Warsaw’s Old Town.  It was small but worth a visit to appreciate the achievement of a woman who won two Nobel prizes (in Physics and Chemistry) at a time when women were generally expected to confine themselves to the domestic sphere.

Our final visit of the day was to the Chopin Museum, where multimedia, activated by smartcard ticket, was extremely well done and added to the experience.  I was particularly interested in the section on his travels around Europe, including letters concerning his stay on Majorca with the writer George Sand. The final room of the visit, the ‘concert hall’ allows visitors to sit and listen to a range of Chopin’s works via individual multimedia stations.

Warsaw is often seen as less interesting as a short break destination than Krakow, but we found lots of interest for a three-night stay.  As well as the museums listed above, we also found time to fit in a visit to Warsaw zoo, a walk in the botanical gardens and take a ride to the top of the Palace of Culture and Science.

I visited Warsaw in April 2019