Top Warsaw Tours & Vacations 2024/2025 [reviews & photos]

Warsaw Tours & Travel Packages 2024/2025

63 Warsaw trips. Compare tour itineraries from 34 tour companies. 169 reviews. 5/5 avg rating.

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Top Warsaw Attractions & Experiences

Top Warsaw Experiences

  • Take social media worthy pictures in the Neon Museum
  • Become inspired in the cute Renaissance town of Kazimierz Dolny
  • Experience the grim history that occured at the Majdanek Concentration Camp
  • Stroll through Old Town Square to see what makes this an UNESCO World Heritage Sight
  • Tour the Royal Castle and learn about the tenacity of Warsaw
  • Make a wish at the Old Town Wishing Bell

Warsaw Tours & Travel Guide

Warsaw Attractions & Landmarks Guide

The capital of Poland, Warsaw is a beautiful, historic city. Known for its art scene, it's a popular destination for museum goers and film buffs. The city played a significant role during World War II, and most tours will explore this history in detail. Warsaw will provide a wonderful cultural experience, while also serving to introduce new travelers to both the beauty and turmoil of Central Europe.

Top Things To See in Warsaw

If you have a deep appreciation for history and culture then Warsaw truly is the destination for you. The city has suffered through numerous attacks, including a massacre by the Russian army, and during WWII when German soldiers blew up buildings with mass amounts of dynamite, eliminating 90% of Warsaw. Yet the city rose up from the ashes, against all odds rendering it the nickname “Phoenix”. The structures that replaced the originals have become main tourist attractions and provide us with historical truths of Warsaw's eerie past.

To learn of how Warsaw rose up from the ash and rubble, take a trip to the Warsaw Rising Museum. This museum takes you back in time with photographs, interactive displays, films, and personal accounts. Within the three levels of the museum you will get a grasp of the division of Poland between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union in WWII, the start of the uprising in 1944, and you will have the opportunity to witness a life-size replica of the Liberator aircraft that was used to drop supplies for rebels.

If you want to see how Poland recreated the buildings that were once reduced to dust, stroll through Old Town Square. Here is where you will find historical buildings rebuilt of Renaissance, baroque, Gothic and neoclassical style after WWII. Walk or take a peaceful carriage ride to find out more of what landed this a spot on UNESCO World Heritage Site.

While visiting Old Town Square you will notice a large mermaid statue as well as mermaid symbols along the streets. Legend has it, a mermaid was meddling with some local fisherman and their nets to free the fish. The men were enraged and attempted to catch her, but after witnessing her beauty and hearing her siren song they simply could not do so.

Later, a rich merchant caught the mermaid and was asking for a prize, but the fisherman set her free. The mermaid was so grateful that she made a promise to protect the men and their homes from then on. She became the cities guardian and the statue in her honor is known as "The Mermaid of Warsaw".

One of the most significant structures that was completely destroyed by the Germans during WWII is the Royal Castle. What once served as home to the king and government is now a museum and symbol of the tenacity of Warsaw.  The castle is made up of 32 reconstructed rooms and houses a collection of paintings and furniture.

The Warsaw Gasworks Museum delivers a prime example of historical industrial architecture during the late 19th century. The museum provides its visitors with a history of Warsaw's gas production through the use of documents, photos, and machinery that was once used industrially as well as in private homes. After being demolished during WWII, it was reborn and opened once again in 1945, but in the 70s natural gas took over closing the company for good and turning the building into a museum.

If you'd like to learn more about the culture of Warsaw then what better place than the Palace of Culture & Science. This “gift of friendship’ from the Soviet Union is referred to as the “Elephant in Lacy Underwear” due to it being the tallest building in Poland as well as for the ornate sculptures found here. Within its walls, you will find theatres, a congress hall, a multi screen cinema, and museums. You can take a high speed lift to the 30th floor to observe the city below in its entirety.

Art fanatics as well as those looking to gain some great aesthetic photos for their social media should definitely check out the Neon Museum. The signs were designed from the  1950s to 1970s during the communist era. They were created to to promote cultural and nightlife venues as well as to symbolize economic success.

With so much history and culture to absorb, a traveler may need to rest the brain at a beautiful park for a picnic or open air concert. The Łazienki Park is a gorgeous place to do so. It is home to well manicured gardens, peacocks, and lush green as far as the eye can see. It contains a palace, amphitheatre, and many other buildings.

Day Trips from Warsaw

If you'd like to take a break from the city life for a day then head over to Kampinos National Park. Only a 40 minute trip from Warsaw, the park is home to many different animals, museums, and hiking trails. The landscape is made up of swamps and sand tunes as well as the numerous pine trees that give off the relaxing aromatic scent of pine.  The park is listed on the UNESCO list of biosphere reserves.

Your trip to Warsaw simply will not be complete without a trip the cute town of Kazimierz Dolny. Being just a two hour trip from Warsaw, tourists from around the world migrate here to witness its Renaissance architecture, ruins of a 14th-century castle, and old churches. Artists, writers, architects and journalists come here for inspiration.

Included as another UNESCO World Heritage Site, Toruń, is a medieval town known as one of the 7 Wonders of Poland. Shockingly, this place survived WWII unscathed. It includes the historical Old Town, the Teutonic Knights Castle, a large stadium for speedway, and much more.

Just a short train ride from Warsaw is the beautiful and peaceful Masurian Lake District. Napiwodsko-Ramucka forest is found within the district  and is a great place for a bike ride and a relaxed day by the banks of the Lyna River. You can take a guided bike tour of the region and ride through the villages in the area.

If you are unable to pay a visit to the infamous Auschwitz during your Poland tour, then make a day trip to Majdanek Concentration Camp. Here, 80,000 people were murdered and kept under disgusting conditions. What is now a museum, Majdanek contains exhibitions of prisoners barracks, gas chambers, crematories and German warehouses. It is the best preserved Nazi concentration camp.

Quirky & Off the Beaten Path Attractions in Warsaw

1. Chopins Heart

If you're a music buff then you probably know of or have heard compositions by the famous Frederic Chopin. He was the greatest and most famous Polish composer and pianist. Women would swoon over Chopin and he decided before death to have his heart cut from his chest and preserved in his home country of Poland. His sister, Ludwika Jędrzejewicz, carried our the request by removing the heart from his corpse in Paris and smuggling it in a jar of liquor to the Holy Cross Church in Warsaw.

Today, you can view the monument at the church where Chopin's heart is laid to rest. It may sound strange, but this man was such an impactful part of Poland's culture and history that many people flock to see it.

2. Keret House

Polish architect, Jakub Szczęsny, came up with the design to build the skinniest house in the world. The house reaches 30 feet tall, but is only 4 feet at its widest point. Somehow, the house manages to cram in a bathroom, bedroom, and kitchen within its three floors.

The house is classified as an “art piece”, because it does not meet Poland's housing codes. Visitors of Warsaw can tour the house as long as it is not undergoing maintenance.

3. Dollhouse Museum

Enter into the land of doll houses through a tiny doll house door. Polish screenwriter and producer, Aneta Popiel-Machnicka, began collecting doll houses in 2006 and now has one of the largest collections in Eastern Europe. The houses are extremely realistic and is a great experience for all travelers.

4. Old Town Wishing Bell

If you're superstitious or just love a good fairytale, then you will want to see the Old Town Wishing Bell. The story goes, a bellmaker named Kajetan was madly in love with the daughter of a bell maker, Marynia and wanted to marry her, but fate would not have it. Kajetans rival, Hans, also wished to marry Marynia, but for the sole purpose of taking over her father's bell making business.

Hans discovered Marynias love for Kajetan and conspired to murder him by lacing his wine with poison. He also added tin into the bronze mixture that her father was using to make a bell for a big job. As to not raise suspicion, he left town claiming that he had fallen for another woman hoping that when he returned, Kajetan would be dead and he would have the job and Marynia to himself.

As legend has it, when the bell rung Kajetan died from the poison and the instrument broke. Marynia was heartbroken and joined a convent. When Hans returned he did not have the job nor the girl and eventually went insane and killed himself.

The bell is used in the square as decor never to be rung again. The claim is that when you pray near it, that prayer will go straight to heaven and if you make a wish while touching and walking around it that wish will come true.

5. Stairway to Heaven

Near the Camaldolese monastery in the Bielany district of Warsaw, a strange stair installation has been placed. The stairs are twisted to resemble a DNA strand and lead to nowhere. It was created to commemorate Saint Romuald, the founder of the Order of the Camaldolese, who, according to legend, dreamt of white monks ascending the stairs to the sky. Viewers can climb these stairs as well.

Warsaw Reviews & Ratings

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Trusted Customer

Sep 2023

Written on

Highlights of Poland

The salt mines are amazing. Well worth the 800 or so steps d...

T

Trusted Customer

Sep 2023

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Highlights of Poland

We really enjoyed this 8-day break in Poland - ticked all the boxes for u...

C

Carolyn

Sep 2023

Written on

Highlights of Poland

Well organised holiday, with easy travelling between Warsaw, Wroclaw and Krakow. Auschwitz and Auchswitz-Birkenau will stay with me for a long time - a sobering vis...

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