WARSAW, POLAND (pt. II)

Although I am not a huge breakfast person I decided to see what the Hotel Bristol had to offer as breakfast was included with our rate as a part of AMEX FHR. The buffet had many options and was well maintained.







Next up on the list of things to do in Warsaw was the Warsaw Rising Museum. The museum was a short Uber away from our hotel and was already very busy when we arrived, only a few minutes after opening. You can buy tickets in-person, but I opted to purchase them online and after seeing the crowds would recommend going that route if possible.

The museum itself is certainly worth going to and you could easily spend upwards of 3 hours there. The museum is setup in a linear format where you progress from room to room following a mostly chronological story. The only issue I had with it is that there are many intersection points and it is sometimes difficult to figure out which room to go to next. Many people, myself included, seemingly had a difficult time figuring it out. To alleviate some of the issues caused by its confusing design I would recommend getting an audio guide. They are not included in a standard ticket, but are very helpful for understanding not only the museum layout, but the story being told.




Following that we took a short ride on Warsaw's metro towards the Palace of Culture and Science or PKiN. Warsaw's metro looks fairly modern and consists of two lines--red and blue. Tickets can be purchased with a credit card for as little as 3.4PLN (20min validity).

I found Warsaw to be very quiet overall and the metro was no exception to that--it was amazingly quiet.


After arriving at the PKiN station we walked a few minutes to SŁOIK for lunch. SŁOIK is about a 5 minute walk from PKiN and has some very good and reasonably priced food. Specifically we tried a few more types of pirogies and enjoyed all of them. Stara Kamienica is more upscale and, in my opinion, is the better restaurant, but SŁOIK is significantly more affordable and is still very good. You can't go wrong with either.





Back at PKiN there is an observation deck that you can visit for 25PLN. The line to purchase tickets in-person was quite long, but you can purchase tickets online that are valid for up to one year to avoid having to wait in the long queue. The elevator up to the top is quick and the view of the city is absolutely worth the cost in my opinion.








Viewing Terrace

Ground floor entrance of PKiN

With a few more hours to kill before needing to be back at the airport we decided to visit yet another museum, the POLIN museum. For those who do not know, the POLIN museum is a museum about Polish Jews located in the former Warsaw Ghetto. The museum includes multiple sections and follows the story of Polish Jews from the Middle Ages up to today and does not solely focus on the Holocaust. I again opted to purchase tickets online, but I believe they can be purchased in-person with minimal risk. The tickets also include a very intuitive audio guide that is essential to understanding the museum. Unlike most systems where you need to key in a number for each recording the audio guides automatically play based on where you are. The system worked flawlessly for me and made navigating the museum very easy--far far easier than it was at the Warsaw Rising Museum earlier in the day.

As with the Warsaw Rising Museum I don't have many pictures from the inside. Although many portions of the museum focus on what is inherently an extremely heavy and painful subject matter it is absolutely worth seeing and the museum does an excellent job presenting the past so people can learn from it and ensure it never repeats itself. If you are in Warsaw I would highly recommend you make time for visiting.

POLIN Museum

Gwoździec Synagogue reconstruction

Exterior of POLIN Museum

With the next leg of the RTW quickly approaching we got an Uber back to our hotel, grabbed our bags, and got another Uber to Warsaw Chopin International (WAW).

WAW-IST LOT Polish Airlines Flight# 137
Aircraft: ERJ-190 SP-LNC (Sliwka Naleczowska Livery)
Class: Business
Seat: 1A
Check-in at Warsaw Chopin Airport was relatively painless and there is both a dedicated check-in area and dedicated fast-track security for business class passengers.


As we were flying business, we had access to LOT’s non-Schengen business lounge following passport control. The lounge was rather small, but during our visit never reached capacity. There was minimal food on offer, but what they did have was quite good. The bathrooms were also kept clean and overall, it was a decent place to spend an hour or two.







Shortly after arriving at our gate, we were informed there would be a delay of at least two hours due to a “late inbound aircraft.” Our plane had been sitting on the ground at WAW for hours at this point and the crew later stated it was a crew related issue, but I guess the cause of the delay isn’t the most important thing.

The delay did however cause quite a big problem for me. We had an unprotected connection in Istanbul that morning, only 2.5hrs after the LOT flight was scheduled to land, to a Turkish flight on a different ticket. The Turkish flight was delayed too, but then LOT delayed further, and I eventually concluded that the best option would be to call Turkish and change to a flight 5 hours later.

This was not a simple process, and I was informed there would be a fee, but they couldn’t calculate the fee until the current itinerary was cancelled. With no other real options, I went ahead with it and ended up paying $130 per ticket to get on the later flight.
Boarding eventually began via a bus and after a pre-departure beverage we took off for Istanbul.




LOT’s ERJ-190 is configured in a 2-2 layout where every other seat is blocked in business class—the standard for European Business.
Despite the relatively short length of this flight LOT offered two hot meal options in business class. I went for the dumplings/perogies instead of the beef and found them to be good. Nothing like what we had just had in Warsaw, but for airplane perogies they were surprisingly good.


The lavatories also appeared to be kept clean for the duration of this short 2.5hr flight.




We arrived into Istanbul right as our initial flight to Baku on Turkish was leaving so changing to the later flight was definitely the right call. As my luck would have it we arrived 2.5hrs late--just short of the 3hr threshold where LOT would be required to payout for EU261. Since we were not flying Turkish into Istanbul we were forced to go through security before entering the terminal. With about 5 hours to kill until our next flight we went to the IGA lounge as they accept Priority Pass to try and get some sleep.

My previous experiences with the IGA lounge haven’t exactly been positive and this one wasn’t either. The lounge was very crowed, as is usual, but they were doing repair work (drilling and welding) near the few open seats I could find making it almost impossible to fall asleep.