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Dates of visit:
April 15 -28, 2007 &
May 9 - 13, 2007
We rate this trip a:
Trip Highlights:
 Revisit family
Krakow
Wadowice
Pope John Paul II
Nowy Wisnicz Castle
Warsaw
Warsaw's Old Town
Warsaw's Palaces
Aviation Museum
Ethnographic Park
Lipowiec Castle
Polish dining
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*** Warsaw, Part 2 ***
*** Lazienki Park & Palace ***
*** Chopin Memorial ***
*** Wilanow Palace ***
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| Lazienki Park
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Lazienki Park ... the largest park in Warsaw, occupying 80 hectares of the city center. The park lies in Warsaw's Downtown (Sródmiescie), on Ujazdów Avenue (Aleje Ujazdowskie), on the "Royal Route" linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów to the south.
Lazienki Park was established in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren, in the baroque style, for Stanislaw Lubomirski. It took the name Lazienki ("Baths") from a bathing pavilion that was located there.
In 1764 the gardens were acquired, after his election as King of Poland, by Stanislaw August Poniatowski.
 The now classicist-style gardens became Stanislaw August's life work. The park was designed by Dominik Merlini, Johann Christian Kamsetzer and landscape gardener Jan Christian Schuch.
The park's principal buildings are clustered around or near the Lazienki Lake and Lazienki River. Stanislaw August's palace, placed on the lake, is designed as a "Palace on the Water."
Most of the park's buildings burned during and after the Warsaw Uprising (1944), amid fighting among German, Polish and Soviet forces. The structures nevertheless were relatively well-preserved, compared to Warsaw's Old Town, and the park complex's reconstruction was completed within a few years after war's end.
Palac na Wodzie or Palac Lazienkowski (Palace on the Water) ... also called the "Palace on the Isle", was established in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren for Stanislaus Lubomirski.
From 1772 to 1793 Dominik Merlini altered the building for Stanislaus August Poniatowski, who made it his residence. The bath house was formed in Chinese style.
The park now a beautiful medley of architectural styles was then graced with relief’s and painted Dutch tiles. Its furniture and paintings belong to the Classicist style. The appearance is dominated by an "Attika", carried by columns, statues of mythological figures. The palace by the park is on an artificial island on the Lazienki Lake, and is connected by two arcade bridges to the rest of the park.
The long Lazienki lake is divided by the palace in two parts, into a smaller northern lake and a bigger southern lake. On the ground floor of the palace is the so-called "Bacchus-room", the royal baths, the ballroom, the portrait cabinet, the Salomonsaal, the rotunda with the figures of the Polish kings, the lower picture gallery which contains minor works by Rubens and Rembrandt, and the chapel.
Also on the ground floor is the dining room in which the famous "Thursday dinners" took place, to which king Stanislaw August Poniatowski invited leading artists, writers and politicians. On the first floor are the royal apartments, the upper picture gallery, the balcony room, the king's cabinet, the royal bedchambers, the cloakroom, and the officer's room. The Palace on the Water was burnt by Germans after the Warsaw Uprising, and was rebuilt after the Second World War.
Of classic beauty the Lazienki Palace Amphitheater on the southern lake is modeled on the summer theatre of antiquity at Herkulanum.
The stage is built on a small island.
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| Site Gallery - Lazienki Park
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| Lazienki Park
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| Lazienki Lakes
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| Palace on the Water
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| Palace Tourist Boats
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| Roman Pavilion
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| Palace Amphitheater
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| Resident Fowl
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| Chopin Memorial
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Chopin Memorial ... on the western edge of Lazienki Park, Waclaw Szymanowski's imposing sculpture in honor of Poland's most famous musical son, was erected in 1926. Although destroyed during the ravages of the Second World War it was restored in 1958.
Chopin was born in 1810, at Zelazowa Wola, some 30 miles west of Warsaw. By the age of eight he had already performed in Warsaw and returned there when he was 12 to study. Recognized as both a composer and brilliant performer, and with two concertos under his belt, Chopin visited Vienna in 1829, to great success. On a similar visit in late 1830 he found it much harder to make an impact.
On his way to Paris - just as he had arrived in Stuttgart - he learned that the Russians had invaded his beloved homeland and, tragically, he never saw Poland again. He became the darling of the Paris salons, fęted by Berlioz, Schumann and Liszt alike: indeed it was Liszt who introduced Chopin to the authoress Amandine Aurore Lucie Dupin, who published under the name George Sand.
The two artists lived together for nearly the whole of the 1840s - with the shy composer thankful of being able to compose at Sand's summer house in Nohant - but eventually they split, and shortly after - following an exhausting tour of Britain - Chopin died in Paris of chronic lung disease. His heart is now encased in a pillar of Warsaw's Church of the Holy Cross.
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| Site Gallery - Chopin Memorial
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| Wilanów, a "Polish Versailles"
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Wilanów Palace ... the "Polish Versailles" ... a second home to many Polish kings. Wilanów is a borough of the city of Warsaw.
The first mentions of a settlement in the area can be traced to the 13th century, when a village named Milanów was founded by the Benedictine monastery of Plock.
In 1338 it became a private property of the Dukes of Masovia and in 1378 Prince Janusz gave it to one of his servants. It was he who established the first mansion and a chapel in the village. His descendants adopted the name Milanowski, after the name of the village.
In the 17th century the village was bought by the family of Stanislaw Leszczynski, who started the construction of a new palace; however, the works were stopped by The Deluge when the forces of Sweden captured the area and plundered it completely.
In 1676 the depopulated village was bought by King Jan III Sobieski. By his order, Tylman van Gameren and August Locci erected the new baroque-style palace and St. Anne's Church. Initially the palace was named Villa Nova (New Village), to distinguish it from the nearby village of Stara Wies (Old Village). However, soon the name was polonised to Wilanów, similar to the former name Milanów.
Thanks to the proximity of both the kings' summer residence and the city of Warsaw, Wilanów has for ages been a suburb of Warsaw and a popular holiday spot for Polish magnates. It was also the final point on the historical Royal Road. In the 18th century, the palace became the property of Hetman Adam Mikolaj Sieniawski.
His widow, Elzbieta Sieniawska, joined the village with the nearby villages of Kabaty, Powsin and Wolica. After that both the so-called key of villages (group of villages run together by a common owner) and the palace changed hands several times, with each new owner changing something in the look of the palace.
In 1863, after the fall of the January Uprising, the Russian authorities introduced a new administrative division, stripping the key of the rest of villages and making Wilanów a capital of all the communes located south of it. The area became one of the most important providers of food for ever-growing Warsaw and in 1890 a horse-drawn railway was opened for transport of grain and passengers.
The line linking Wilanów with Warsaw's Plac Unii Lubelskiej proved to be a major success and in 1892 the line was extended and started to run steam-drawn trains. Also, new railway stations were built on both ends of the line.
After World War II the palaces in Wilanów, Natolin and Morysin were nationalized by the new communist authorities of Poland. The former was converted into a museum and in one of the palace's barracks a Museum of Posters was opened on June 4, 1968. It is probably the only such museum in Europe.
In 1951 Wilanów was incorporated into Warsaw. Initially a separate unit of administrative division, in 1976 it was joined with the borough of Mokotów. In 1994 it became a separate unit of administrative division and the following year it became one of the boroughs of Warsaw.
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| Site Gallery - Wilanów, a "Polish Versailles"
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| To Wilanów
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| Wilanów Church and Mausoleum
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| Wilanów Gate
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| Wilanów Palace
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| Wilanów Gardens
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| Wilanów Lake
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