It was 0500 on a clear, warm Warsaw morning when we pulled into the bus station on the outskirts of the city.

As is customary in these situations, bags are collected and iPhone with directions to the relevant hostel on is whipped out in order to determine our next course of action.

iPhone tells us to catch bus: no problem. We look for somewhere to buy tickets but there is nowhere in sight and the driver doesn’t appear to be interested – but the people with official-looking badges who get on at the next stop seem to be… Funnily enough, they don’t go for the locals (who as far as we could tell didn’t have tickets on them), so we engage in a brief exchange in Polglish. We play the dumb tourists (not too far off the mark) and just about any other angle you can think of (well-honed through conversing with Russian border officials) but this does not please them – so we are marched off at the next stopo to the nearest ATM and told to get out 106 zloty for the ’special tax’ that we have now incurred. Brilliant start, followed by the even better response to the question,

“So where do we buy tickets from?”

“Driver… sometimes.”

How useful – they just charged us £20 for being ignorant.

The next bus we got on we tried to buy a ticket from the driver – and guess what? He’s also not interested. So by directive 2981 of the Independent State of Nickdom it is decreed that we’ll just stay standing and jump off the bus at the sight of anyone in uniform. Luckily enough no other personnel get on and we take the bus to the end of the line, forced walk the rest of the way as the street we needed is pedestrianised at the weekends.  Of course.

What a street. It’s lovely, with a lot of fairly high-end shops, restaurants, coffee bars (including a Starbucks – I guess this now counts as ‘the West’) as well as a UK-baiting Warsaw University. The hostel is indeed located on the street, and it’s similar to St. Petersburg’s Crazy Duck, large-ish dorms, nicely decorated in a modern style and plenty of facilities while remaining very personable at the same time. But as is the way with these things, check-in isn’t until 1430. For any other travellers this might be an issue, but after doing a similar stint in St. Petersburg we’re actually looking forward to this city and so after a cheap and filling breakfast  at 0800, off we intrepidly went.

Off we intrepidly went, past the impressive and very Soviet Palace of Art and Science – a gift from Stalin – to the financial centre. This is filled with a vast plethora of weird and wonderful architectural constructs. It’s as if there is a city ordnance against plain buildings: everything has something jutting out, a curved section or even bits that missing that probably should be there.

This led us to the Jewish ghetto, or where the ghetto was. After the ghetto uprising the Nazi completely and utterly razed the place to the ground, leaving very little evidence it was ever there.

On the way back to the hostel we passed the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier that was constantly guarded and had an ever burning flame – a tribute to all the Polish soldiers in all the conflicts in which the nation had been involved.

Lunch followed and 1430 slowly rolled around. We’d already covered a large distance on foot, so what could we possibly do that afternoon? As any good interthinker would know, the correct answer is, “Walk further.”

So off we crusaded a few kilometers south to Lazienki Park. The walk was long and extremely sweaty (you would be too at 34 degrees Celsius) but worth it. The parks were magnificent and colossal, including a lake, a statue of Chopin, a palace and enough grounds to get lost in for a significant amount of time. All this in combination with some toffee ice-cream made for a pair of happy Nicks.

After the trek back, the best time of the day was due – nap time.

The rest of the evening passed without much incident – a few Zzzzzs were caught, some pasta was cooked and we finished the night watching Polish-subtitled Apocalypse Now.

Warsaw starts with two thumb up.