Alcademics

On my trip with ZU Vodka to Poland, I also had a little time to check out Warsaw.  I was last in Warsaw about four years ago for all of 1.5 days, so for this trip I came in a day early. That evening a few us us went to see what the nightlife in Warsaw was all about.

Warsaw has a lot of nightclubs for a city of 1.7 million. On my last visit, we popped in to two or three of them. This time we hit five clubs, one bar, and one late-night restaurant on the first night.

We could have done more, too. That's because on a stretch of Mazowiecka Street, there are about 6 or 8 clubs right next to each other on either side of one small stretch of the street. Most I'd call mid-size, and they pretty much look like nightclubs everywhere. They have the central dancefloor and bottle service booths lining the walls. The crowds and the music varied from place to place, from popular dance hits to hip hop to progressive house.

We also hit one of the few cocktail bars in town, Paparazzi. It's actually a chain, with ones in other cities. The place was pretty high-energy - it's no speakeasy- clubby but without a dancefloor. The drinks were divided into categories like classics, martinis, fruit, Latin, and staff creations. We ordered drinks like a Dill Martini made with Zubrowka, a Caiprinha variation, and a Rum Old-Fashioned. They were pretty good.

On the next night after the trip started, we visited the bar Sense. I was there on my last visit to Warsaw as well and had an equally good time. They created a special menu of Zubrowka drinks just for us, so I felt obliged to try them all.

Late night on the first night, we stopped into Przekaski Zakaski, a late-night snack bar place serving Polish food to very drunk people after the bars close. One guy slumped under a table to the left of us. A fellow writer asked for recommendations (the menu was in Polish) from guys sitting nearby, but they kept trying to trick her into ordering gross stuff like gelatinized pork. The place was fun and fortunately right near our hotel for a quick walk home. 

Warsaw By Day

The next day we had a few hours to kill. We took a cab to the Warsaw Uprising Museum, which I also saw on my last visit to Poland. It was great but as free day is on Sunday, it was packed.

Then we walked around Old Town Warsaw. The name is quite inaccurate, as around 1944 pretty much all of it was raized to the ground. It was rebuilt starting soon after, so the dates on the buildings tend to be from the 1950s yet the buildings are designed to look much older and grander. Still, it's pretty gorgeous, with big open squares, live music, shopping, and lots of room to walk.

One thinks Warsaw will be old and post-commnist ugly, but it's really not the case. The Old Town is great, the nightclubs are numerous, and the vodka flows freely.