Being first off the aircraft we led the initial expedition through a sleepy Chopin Airport that had already started turning down the dimmer switch, changed into its pyjamas and was preparing to bed down for the night. At immigration Anne-So and I took our separate lanes and, for once being a part of the “rest of the world” did not involve a long line of shame. I was through with just a simple stamp for my troubles. Thankfully, unlike the UK and France the amazing folk in Poland were able to deliver our bags to the baggage belt in a reasonable time frame that didn’t involve staff sickness, strikes or other general issues caused by not paying people a fair salary for their work, or just deciding not to have enough people in the first place…
We collected out bags and soon found that the taxi line was as clearly marked as promised by every online and offline guide. As much as I had wanted to book a high spec hotel car, with a sharp-suited driver holding a card (or more likely an iPad these days) the difference in price was impossible to justify.
Unfortunately, our short wait for the taxi pushed our fare into a late night one and we ended up paying the top end of our expectations, which being Poland was still reasonable. After making a couple of attempts to get out driver to understand where we wanted to go, we were on our way to the Raffles, Poland’s priciest hotel. Happily, our car was clean, the roads smooth and our driver safe. After speeding through some less desirable streets between the airport and town, the bright lights and towers of Warsaw loomed large and a few minutes later we had pulled up outside the Raffles Europejski Warsaw.
Hotel: Raffles Europejski Warsaw
Room: Raffles Room – Room 107
Status: None/AMEX FHR
After being badly damaged during World War 2, it was rebuilt in the early 1960s before closing again in 2013. The lovingly restored and reinvented hotel re-opened in 2018 (too late for our guidebook!) and according to the Raffles’ website” has stunning contemporary interiors, courtesy of the acclaimed Boris Kudlicka of WWAA.” With just 106 rooms and suites we were hoping the hotel would not feel too busy.
Check in was not particularly memorable, and when arriving late at night that is often a good thing as to be honest we just wanted to settle in as quickly as possible and get some rest. After completing formalities at the front desk we were given a quick tour of the lobby floor so we knew right away where to go for breakfast and where the bar was. We were shown all the way to our room with our bellhop only leaving once he could see we were happy. The one thing that was evident from the off was the immense pride that each member of staff had in the hotel’s facilities. Once settled into our room it did not require a great deal of effort to see why.
The first thing we noticed were the high ceilings, shortly followed by the sheer amount of space to move around. We’d stayed in suites with significantly less to play with than this room! The lighting was warm and bright, the furniture looked and felt luxurious, and other than trying to figure out how the light inside the desk worked, everything about the room just made us feel instantly at home.
Being a relatively new hotel there were power sockets a plenty, a large TV with a sound bar and plenty of decorative features such as art work, books and plants.
However, for me as nice as the bedroom was, the bathroom was the star of the show.
Comprised of large, double sinks, bright lighting, a separate shower and a stunning silver coloured bath with the Warsaw skyline in grey marble behind it. Yes, this was what I had been missing! We were soon off to bed and got lost in our king sized dreams after what had been a full day of travel.
We were up bright and relatively early the next morning to enjoy a delicious five star luxury hotel breakfast. I couldn’t wait to see if the petit dej would be on par with the rest of the hotel.
We took it in turns to do a buffet run and whilst the selection was not quite everything known to man, what was on offer was of a high quality and I’d take quality over quantity any day.
I was happy, and the only thing that would have ruined my brekkie high was excess and thankfully that morning I was disciplined. Our made to order items came after a short wait.
Also somewhat disappointingly we did we receive any offers for refills of juice and coffee. Whilst none of these things really matter in the grand scheme of the world as of course you can always ask for more, or complain, having to do either reduces the experience from luxurious to just plain old good. Despite the lack of mushrooms we were more than full and made our way back to the room, almost completing a full house on our Triangle of Sadness bingo card – we were just missing a drunk American captain!
In an ideal world we would have stayed three nights at the Raffles, booking the Raffles Room and hoping for an upgrade into an Executive suite. In a hotel hopping FHR induced credit frenzy we’d have switched between the Raffles and the adjacent Hotel Bristol to max out the room credits and upgrade opportunities but instead, to stay on budget (and to use a soon to expire Ambassador Weekend Night we had decided to move to the Intercontinental). We returned to the front desk to confirm our late check out as per our FHR rate and headed out into the beautiful morning sunshine to explore the old town. Unlike some of our trips which were planned to the minute to accommodate a city’s finest restaurants and attractions we had agreed to a more relaxed approach for this trip. We decided instead just to focus on a handful of things we really wanted to do, with some bad weather back ups and a couple of restaurant reservations.
We both loved how clean and green everything was. Also at this time in the day the area was quiet with the only real noise coming from those raising money for Ukraine.
We skipped the Royal Castle and just ambled casually through the side streets in the general direction of the Old Town Market Square and the Museum of Warsaw.
Though “replaced and refurbished” town square is probably closer to the truth. This is because the town square, like much of Warsaw was bombed to bits during World War 2.
Wanting to get our history fix we purchased tickets to the museum and headed down to the basement for a fairly in depth and occasionally interactive exhibition charting the history of Warsaw from it’s beginnings to the present day.
What continued to take me by surprise is just what a new country Poland is, and even more so how much it has been through in a short space of time.
We made our way up the levels and whilst not everything was thrilling there was some interesting modern art work, and some very enthusiastic staff who were really proud of their collections of packaging and Pateks, I think the latter were probably worth a few Zlotys more! The best part of the museum however was saved till last.
Speaking of lunch it was about that time and we made the short trip back through town to the Raffles to cash in our credit for lunch. Passing the castle and walking back along the Royal route we were glad to have made an early start as there were significantly more people around. We returned to our room to smarten up, more for ourselves than anything else and walked along the majestic and somewhat empty corridors of the Raffles to the Europejski Grill. Whilst at breakfast we enjoyed playing Triangle of Sadness bingo at lunch we ended up playing Where’s Wally, I think he had blended in as we hardly saw a soul and had the restaurant pretty much to ourselves.
Complaints of high price and poor food were not a challenge to find. We already knew the first one to be true, but with a 100 Euro hotel credit that was less of an issue. The food on the other hand was pretty decent.
There was a reasonable wait before our mains came.
Not only that, but the portion was huge.
The real unexpected star of the show for me was the Polish Wine, in this case a glass of Solaris Winnica Turnau 2021.
I developed a real taste for rhubarb on this trip, at least when it was coated in reams of sugar and found on a dessert or breakfast pastry! We signed the check and attempted to return to our room. Once more we were struck by the curse of the late check out. I do love a late checkout, especially when doing some hotel hopping and in this case we had the room till two. The first fail resulted in us getting stuck in the lift coming back from lunch as the key hadn’t been coded correctly. The second fail occurred shortly after as our recoded key got us only as far as the door to our room, I had to head back down for a further apology and recode to get back in. Oh well, small things that make the difference between a perfect stay and a very good one.
We finished packing, dropped our bags at the concierge desk and went out for a walk, a long, long holiday walk, the kind that we absolutely love.
These were mostly filled with midges and roses and somewhat disappointing.
It was not to our taste so we moved on.
We took random routes down small streets just for fun and found an interesting war memorial. We then took a detour through a park which had what looked like an interesting book fair, though sadly, but understandably all the titles were in Polish so we could not really browse.
We were tired and it was time to head to the IC Warsaw for the next two nights. Too exhausted to argue I could not stop Anne-So from ordering a taxi and for once I was glad we did. Interestingly our driver was quite the character, he had lived in London for a number of years before returning home and had political views that were not in line with our own. If you’re reading, don’t do the Polish version of Brexit, it will only end badly! We pulled up outside the IC and the next stage of our Polish adventure began!
Fly to Takeover the World 