Warsaw wasn't the reason we went to Europe. We needed a flight home from Rome, and when I found a LOT routing through the Polish capital, I decided to turn the connection into two nights rather than simply pass through the airport.
I'd heard more praise for Kraków and initially treated Warsaw as the compromise. Two nights later, I was delighted to have been wrong.
The city offered a thoughtful private tour, visible reminders of its history, a surprising vegetarian meal and one of the best hotel cocktail bars we've experienced.
Why two nights worked
We stayed April 7–9, 2026, at Nobu Hotel Warsaw. Most of our exploring fit into a full day, with the rest of the trip balanced around our arrival and onward flight. I came away feeling that two nights were ideal for our first visit, although I would not have objected to one more evening simply wandering the city.
Warsaw is bigger than I had appreciated. We used a private tour and walked where we could, with rides useful for longer journeys and the airport. Our experience at the airport's Uber pickup was particularly smooth: we received a PIN to share with a driver in the queue rather than waiting for an individually assigned car.
A vintage Fiat and a different way to see the city
We booked a private Warsaw sightseeing tour in a retro Fiat. That turned out to be an excellent decision, both because of how much of the city we covered and because the experience put the buildings into context.
Parts of Warsaw carry their difficult wartime history visibly. Seeing structures with marks we understood on the tour as bullet damage made the past feel less abstract than a conventional list of sightseeing stops.
One small detail stayed with me even more: the Chopin benches. Pressing a button and hearing music from a public bench was such a distinctive way to encounter a city's cultural heritage. We filmed one of those benches ourselves; no staged audio or imagined demonstration is needed.
The vegetarian meal we almost missed
We had planned to eat at Nobu's restaurant but found the vegetarian options too limited for us. That left us looking for something else quite late in the day.
Uki Green Ramen ended up being exactly what we wanted. It was a wonderful reminder that an unplanned food stop can become one of the strongest memories of a trip, especially when the original plan doesn't work out.
I'm not presenting our experience as a current audit of either restaurant's menu. It is simply how we found our favourite meal during our April 2026 visit.
Nobu Hotel Warsaw was part of the surprise
Our Nobu stay was also exceptional. We booked a King Bed room on 50,000 Hilton Honors points for two nights—25,000 points per night historically—and received a King Suite upgrade while holding Diamond status.
The suite was generous, service was prompt and breakfast was very good. Yet the most memorable part of the hotel, alongside the upgrade, was its bar.
We were offered a complimentary drink each. The cocktails were so good we ordered another, then another. That bar, and the evening around it, became one of our Warsaw highlights.
An honest verdict on Warsaw
I don't know whether we'd have preferred Kraków; we haven't made that comparison firsthand. But I no longer regard Warsaw as merely the place we settled for because of a flight.
Between the retro Fiat tour, Chopin benches, welcoming food discoveries and Nobu Hotel, it delivered exactly the kind of unexpected pleasure I love finding in a stopover.
Would we plan an entire new journey just to revisit Warsaw? Probably not. But if another LOT connection brought us back, I would happily make time for the city again.
Sometimes the destination you add for practical reasons becomes one of the best parts of the journey.