Previous: Arrival in train & Old town, next: Technical museum
Second day in Warsaw
Monument of the Warsaw uprising
The monument of the Warsaw uprising (not to be confused with the Warsaw ghetto uprising) shows the combatants coming out of the canalisation. A lot of people were already killed there when the Nazis threw granades in the canalization. The monument is direct next to the highest court of Poland.
On the top of the left columns (which belong to the highest court) one can see a scale (symbol for justice) on the top of the right columns one can see a symbol consisting of the Letters PW. This is a symbol for the Warsaw uprising and stands for "Polska Walcząca" (Polish for "Poland fights"). See also here.
Kings road
Thanks to the great people from OpenStreetMap I could render the following map (which shall be licensed under the OSM license in case it matters):
I really like this metal work. Only seen similar attention to detail in London.
Royal Baths Park (Park Łazienkowski)
This map rendered with data from OpenStreetMap with this license:
Flora and Fauna (and eggs)
Łazienki park is an old and romantic park with nice trees which was established in the 17th century by a polish noble. Unlike the old town it was not destroyed completely during the war, although it suffered a lot (Needless to say that Hitler really wanted to destroy it.).
The loose peafowls are a tourist attraction and everyone tries to photograph them.
Those peafowls were not so colourful but nice nevertheless (the boy is throwing bread in their direction).
The squirells were not shy at all. This girl seems to talk to it.
One can rent boats on the lake.
Outside of the park they sold those nice porcelain eggs.
Monuments
Poland doesn't have more monuments than germany, but it has its heroes, which everyone knows and adores. In germany it is more like that someone sometime put a monument there and nobody really cares (in a lot of cases people don't even know who is standing on the monument). Even though they know their heroes its a relaxed relationship with the monuments as one can see on the second picture. Henryk Sienkiewicz is the Polish author per se.
One of the Polish national heroes is the pianist Chopin. Under his monument in the Łazienskie park every sunday there is a piano concert. People passing by just stop to listen to the concert and it gets crowded very quickly.
Buildings
What would a noble do at those times without an Orangery? There are two in this park and this is the old one.
The Little White House was the kings summer residence (and according to Wikipedia his secret love nest).
The palace on the water became the kings residence and included a bathhouse which gave name to the park (Baths = pl.: Łazienki).
The stage of the roman theater (or "theater on an island") was only taken by some peafowl. Nevertheless people enjoy sitting in the amphitheater like structure which is seperated from the stage by the parks lake.
Nice observatory, of course build long after Kopernikus (another famous Pole).
Sculptures
Around the platform in front of the palace on the water there are some nice sculptures resembling greek mythology.
I would say this are centaurs holding the lanterns however they only have two legs. I didn't look close, but maybe these could be ichthyocentaurs? An expert is needed.