I came into Poland by train from Berlin. My family has roots here, and I still have relatives near Kraków, so crossing the border felt different from arriving somewhere I’d chosen because a photo looked good. I wanted to spend time in the country and see what, if anything, felt familiar. Warsaw was my first stop.
We walked from the station to our hostel in the sun, passing through Saxon Garden on the way. It was a small introduction: a park, a city going about its day, the relief of finally being somewhere I’d imagined visiting for a long time. Nothing announced itself as a great ancestral revelation. I was carrying a backpack and looking for the hostel, which is often how these moments actually happen.
I kept returning to the Old Town. There were colorful facades, people out in the square, and St. John’s Archcathedral nearby. You can walk through it as a visitor and enjoy how beautiful it is. Then you learn how much of Warsaw was destroyed during the Second World War and how carefully the historic centre was rebuilt, and the streets take on another dimension. What looks old has, in many places, been pieced back together within living memory.
I’d arrived with a family connection in my head, but the part I remember most clearly isn’t a revelation about my roots. It’s walking through a city I didn’t yet know and realizing that the buildings around me carried a history I couldn’t see at first glance. I had been thinking about where my own family came from. Warsaw gave me more to think about than that.
I still wanted to make my way toward my family’s corner of Poland. Warsaw hadn’t answered any big question about where I came from. I’m glad it didn’t have to. It was enough to walk, look around, and let my first day in the country be a first day rather than a speech about belonging.