See what's going on in Warsaw during your stay in the city.

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Transportation & Map

If you’d like to find some of Warsaw’s hidden gems, we can recommend a few very interesting places.

Pope in Warsaw

„It is impossible to understand this city, Warsaw, the capital of Poland, which in 1944 undertook and unequal battle against the aggressor, a battle in which it was abandoned by the allied powers, a battle in which it fell under its own rubble, if one fails to remember that Christ the Saviour also fell under that same rubble, with His cross from in front of the church in Krakowskie Przedmiescie Street (…)

All this: the history of the Homeland created by every one of its sons and every one of its daughters for a thousand years – in this generation and in future ones – even if this were a nameless and unknown person, like the soldier next to whose grave we stand…. All this: also the history of the peoples that lived with us and among, to mention those of whom hundreds of thousands perished within the walls of the Warsaw Ghetto…

All this I embrace with my mind and my heart in this Eucharist, and include it in that one and only Holiest Sacrifice of Christ in Victory Square. And I cry, I a son of the Polish land, and at the same time I John Paul II, the pope, I cry from the entire depth of that thousand years, I cry on the eve of the Feast of the Descent of the Holy Spirit, I cry with all of you:

Let Thy Spirit descend!
Let Thy Spirit descend and renew the face of the land!
This land!

Homily given in Victory Square, 2 June 1979,
source: John Paul II in Warsaw, brochure of Promotion Department City of Warsaw, 2006

John Paul II was a beloved Pope for all Poles. He visited Warsaw 5 times during his long pontificate.

First visit of John Paul II took place in June 1979, less than one year after he was chosen as a pope.
You must remember that in 1979 Poland was still run by the Communistic party. During the Mass at the Victory Square, Polish Pope vowed the Thy Spirit to renew the face of THIS land. These words were very meaningful for the Polish citizens who understood them as the incentive for the democratic changes.

John Paul II was supporting the Solidarność (Solidarity Movement) from its very beginning. Trying to find the humanistic and religious meaning of solidarity he was encouraging the Polish oposition to conduct a peaceful revolution. John Pope II  met Lech Walesa many times blessing his brave plannes. Thanks to the Popes acts and preaching he immensly influenced abolishing of communism in Poland.  

John Paul II came to Poland and Warsaw in June 1983, when the country was under martial law since December 1982. The Pope asked Poles to be brave and open for dialogue.  

The Pope came to Warsaw also in 1987 when the communism was in its last phase, and then in 1991 and 1999. He was always welcomed by millions of faithful Poles willing to listen to his holly words and learn how to follow Jesus's teaching.

When the Pope passed away on April 2, 2005 the time has stopped in Warsaw. The whole city was mourning, thousand of candles were lit along the Warsaw’s streets. On April 5^th 300.000 Varvovians participated in the Holly Mess dedicated to beloved Pope which was organised at the Victory Squere where John Paul II run his first mess in 1979.