Sightseeing | The Royal Route
The Royal Route Dawn breaks like a bleeding heart onto ul. Krakowskie Przedmieście.
Warsaw’s famed ‘Royal Route’ links the city’s three Royal residences, starting from the Royal Castle (p.25) on Plac Zamkowy, via Łazienki Park’s Palace on the Island, en route to Wilanów Palace (p.41) in the district of the same name. Covering 11km in length, this main artery through the city takes in a great range of Warsaw’s historic buildings, parks, churches and monuments, making a trek down the ‘path of the Kings’ a ‘must-do’ part of any visit to the city.
WALKING TOUR The heart of the route, along Krakowskie Przedmieście and Nowy Świat, will also lead you past, or more likely into, a grand selection of bars, restaurants and shops. Granted, a few of the further out parts of the route may not be anything to write home about, but it really is worth making the effort in order to visit the beautiful Wilanów Palace, gardens and parkland. We let you know what not to miss, so let’s start at the traditional beginning heading south, or in reverse, heading north if you chose to go to Wilanów first! 30
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St. Anne’s Church
St Anne’s survived the war with a few token scratches and a collapsed roof, but what the Nazis failed to destroy was very nearly demolished by a team of incompetent builders in 1949 when the thoughtless construction of the nearby Trasa W-Z tunnel led to several landslides and huge cracks in the floor of the church, which very nearly crashed to the ground. It took a team of 400 people two weeks of tireless work to stabilise the undersoil and shore up the foundations. Intriguingly, this wasn’t the first time St Anne’s had survived vicious conflict to find disaster around the corner. It escaped destruction during the war with Sweden (1650-1655) only to be gutted by fire two years later, apparently the victim of an arson attack. The classicist façade dates from 1788 and is the design of the royal architect Piotr Aigner. The interior holds even more classicist and rococo details. The viewing tower is one of the best in Warsaw and worth the 147-step climb. One other point of interest concerns a simple wooden cross you will see there. These two planks of wood became the focus of a battle that threatened
