Warsaw Walking Tour: The Royal Route to Lazienki Park

For centuries the kings of Poland traveled south out of Warsaw along one long road, from the Royal Castle in the old city to their palaces and gardens in the green country beyond. That road is now the Royal Route, a chain of grand streets that still runs, almost dead straight, from the Old Town to the royal park of Lazienki. This walk follows its southern half, the part where the city slowly turns into a garden. It starts at the statue of Copernicus, walks the café-lined Nowy Swiat and the embassy avenues of Ujazdow, and ends in Lazienki Park, at the Chopin Monument, the Belvedere Palace and the little palace that floats on a lake. It is one of the most relaxed self-guided walking tours in the city, about three and a half kilometers, flat the whole way, with the second half under trees.

Before you set off

Allow two and a half to three hours, which gives you time for a coffee on Nowy Swiat and a proper wander in the park, where it is easy to lose an hour without noticing. The walking itself is about fifty minutes. The route is flat and paved, then turns to gravel paths inside Lazienki, so any comfortable shoes are fine. Morning is lovely in the park, when the light comes through the trees and the paths are quiet, and a summer Sunday brings free open-air piano recitals at the Chopin Monument, so check the season's schedule if you can time your walk around one. Lazienki's palaces have their own hours and tickets, and the park itself has opening hours, so check before you go. Bring water in summer and a warm layer in spring and autumn, when the wind can be sharp on the open avenues. Keep an eye out for the park's red squirrels and its peacocks, both remarkably bold around people with food. This walk picks up where our Old Town walk ends, so the two together make a full day along the Royal Route.

Copernicus Monument

Find the seated bronze figure on the stone plinth in front of the large classical palace and stand where you can see his face. This is Nicolaus Copernicus, the astronomer who argued that the earth moves around the sun, and the sculptor, the Danish master Bertel Thorvaldsen, shows him with a compass in one hand and a model of the heavens in the other. The statue was unveiled in 1830, and the palace behind it is Staszic Palace, home today of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The monument has its own war story. During the German occupation, the Polish plaque was covered with a German one claiming Copernicus for Germany, and a young member of the Polish underground scouts unscrewed it in 1942 in a famous act of defiance. Later the statue itself was carted off for scrap and found after the war, then returned to its plinth. Now look across the street at the large baroque church. That is Holy Cross Church, and inside one of its pillars is the heart of Frédéric Chopin, brought back to Warsaw by his sister after he died in Paris, as he had wished. You will meet Chopin again at the end of this walk. From here, walk south along the street as it narrows and becomes Nowy Swiat, about five minutes.

Nowy Swiat

You are on Nowy Swiat, whose name means New World. It is one of the liveliest streets in Warsaw, lined with low, pastel houses, cafés, bookshops and restaurants, with terraces spilling onto the sidewalk in warm weather. Look at the buildings and you will notice something unusual for a capital's main street: most of them are only two or three stories high. Before the war, Nowy Swiat was lined with taller apartment blocks, but almost everything was destroyed in 1944, and when the city rebuilt the street, it chose to bring back the smaller, elegant style of the early nineteenth century instead. So the street looks older than it did before the war. Look out for the famous Blikle pastry shop, which has been selling cakes here since 1869 and is known above all for its pączki, Polish doughnuts filled with rose jam. On Fat Thursday, the last Thursday before Lent, the queue can reach down the street. Keep walking south to the big roundabout where Nowy Swiat crosses Jerusalem Avenue, and look for a tall palm tree standing in the middle of the traffic. It is artificial, an artwork put up in 2002, and Varsovians have grown fond of it. Cross the avenue and keep going south to the domed church ahead, about eight minutes.

Three Crosses Square

You are in Three Crosses Square, a busy junction where several avenues meet, with a small white domed church standing in the middle like an island. That is St. Alexander's Church, built in the 1820s and modeled, like so many churches of its time, on the Pantheon in Rome, with a columned portico and a round dome. It was built to honor Tsar Alexander I, who was then also King of Poland, after he came to Warsaw, a reminder that for much of the nineteenth century this city was ruled from Saint Petersburg. Later the church was greatly enlarged, but after it was destroyed in the war it was rebuilt in its original, smaller form, which is the version you see. Look around for the three crosses that give the square its name. Two are easy to spot, gilded and set high on tall stone columns. The third is a small local puzzle: some point to the cross on the church, others to the crucifix held by the nearby statue of Saint John of Nepomuk. In the eighteenth century this was the start of a road of pilgrimage running south, which is why the crosses are here. Today the square is ringed by offices and smart shops, but the little church keeps it calm. Keep heading south down the broad, tree-lined avenue straight ahead, Ujazdow Avenue, for about twelve minutes.