Warsaw Unscripted: From Royal Route to Old Town Cobblestones

Palaces, Chopin's heart, secret courtyards, and a city reborn from the ashes

Warsaw · 17 stops · 4.3 km · ~1.3 h · Generated

  1. 1. Rondo Charlesa de Gaulle'a & the Plastic Palm

    Rondo Charles'a de Gaulle'a, Warszawa

    Rondo Charlesa de Gaulle'a & the Plastic Palm

    Look at this roundabout. Cars swirling past, trams clattering through... and right there in the middle, fifteen meters tall... a palm tree. An obviously, deliberately Fake palm tree, standing in the heart of Warsaw like it owns the place.

    But why on earth would someone plant a plastic palm in Central Europe?

    The answer begins in two thousand one, when Polish artist Joanna Rajkowska traveled to Israel during the Second Intifada with fellow artist Artur Żmijewski. She witnessed explosions, heard helicopters over Bethlehem... and returned to Warsaw carrying, in her words, "an omnipresent sense of fear and powerlessness." Back home, she began researching the street you're standing beside... Aleje Jerozolimskie, Jerusalem Avenue. And she discovered something most Warsovians had forgotten. The street was named after an eighteenth-century Jewish settlement called New Jerusalem, established at what is now plac Zawiszy. That settlement thrived... but only for two years, before it was dismantled by Christian merchants jealous of its prosperity.

    Rajkowska asked herself a haunting question: what would it be like if Jerusalem Avenue was suddenly lined with palms... like the real Jerusalem? She couldn't afford a whole row. So she built One. It was erected on December twelfth, two thousand two... right here, on the spot where Warsaw traditionally placed its Christmas tree.

    And the reaction? It was Explosive. The palm divided the entire city. Rajkowska herself recalled hearing about a family in Kielce that couldn't finish their Christmas dinner because of an argument about it! Taxi drivers on this very roundabout Hated her... they were, she said, "completely embarrassed by the misfit." The traffic police stationed here even earned the nickname "Miami Vice."

    Then it got political. Lech kaczyński, as president of Warsaw, publicly vowed to remove it once the permit expired. A Palm Protection Committee was formed to save her... because yes, in Polish, the palm tree is a She. Her creator always described her as "a cheeky girl... who appears out of the blue, stamps her feet, demands attention."

    And here's the strangest detail. Despite being entirely artificial... birds have actually nested in her crown. The steel trunk is wrapped in real date palm bark, so convincing that nature itself was fooled.

    In twenty nineteen, Rajkowska replaced the green fronds with real, withered, dying leaves overnight... and Warsaw woke up Baffled. People were outraged that the city had let their beloved tree die... forgetting, for a moment, that she was never alive to begin with. It was, of course, a statement about climate change. And to celebrate her eighteenth birthday in twenty twenty, the Palm Protection Committee arranged for her to receive symbolic Polish citizenship... as a she-person, naturally.

    She's still here. Still fake. Still impossible. And still the most Iconic piece of public art in Poland since nineteen eighty-nine.

  2. 2. Kora Mural on Nowy Świat

    Nowy Świat 18/20, Warszawa

  3. 3. The Pavilions — Warsaw's Secret Bar Alley

    Nowy Świat 22, Warszawa

  4. 4. Nowy Świat — The Street That Reinvented Itself

    Nowy Świat 35, Warszawa

  5. 5. Ostrogski Castle & Chopin's Piano

    Okólnik 1, Warszawa

  6. 6. Church of the Holy Cross — Chopin's Heart

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 3, Warszawa

  7. 7. Czapski Palace — Where Chopin Grew Up

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 5, Warszawa

  8. 8. University of Warsaw Gate

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 26/28, Warszawa

  9. 9. Presidential Palace

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 46/48, Warszawa

  10. 10. Nicolaus Copernicus Monument

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 72, Warszawa

  11. 11. St. Anne's Church & Viewing Tower

    Krakowskie Przedmieście 68, Warszawa

  12. 12. Sigismund's Column — Castle Square

    Plac Zamkowy, Warszawa

  13. 13. Royal Castle

    Zamek Królewski, Plac Zamkowy 4, Warszawa

  14. 14. Kanonia Square & the Wishing Bell

    Kanonia 6, Warszawa

  15. 15. Old Town Market Square & the Mermaid

    Rynek Starego Miasta, Warszawa

  16. 16. Barbican — Gateway Between Two Worlds

    Barbakan Warszawski, ul. Nowomiejska, Warszawa

  17. 17. Mały Powstaniec — The Little Insurgent

    ul. Podwale 25, Warszawa