By tram out of central Warsaw

Into town for a couple of meetings, and to get me from A to B and back to the railway station for my return to Chynów – Warsaw's trams. So much better than driving, guys! No worries as to where you will park, or getting stuck in jams (of your own making). The back of the tram is a good place from which to observe Warsaw as it grows. Below: the tram stop by Warsaw Central station. Plentiful trams in both directions. The city skyline has grown beautifully.

Below: two stops south, and the skyline looks different – and older, with the two LIM towers (centre), Stalin's Palace of Culture to their right and Libeskind's Złota 44 tower to their left. The buildings on either side of Aleja Niepodległości were built before the war and would have been familiar to my father, who grew up less than a kilometre and half from here. If you click to enlarge, you will see the new branding of the former Marriott hotel, now the Presidential.

Below: on, on by electrical traction, southwards along al. Niepodległości as it bisects Pole Mokotowskie fields, the two halves connected by a foot/cycle bridge. Now the skyline is dominated by Varso tower, the EU's tallest building (if you include the mast, second tallest if you don't).

Below: Warsaw's tram network is being enhanced. This is ulica Batorego looking east, with Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) to the left. New tram tracks are being laid here, which will link al. Niepodległości to ul. Puławska and the recently opened tramline heading down along ul. Spacerowa towards Wilanów. And heading east along ul. Batorego the either way, the tram will go on to Warsaw West (W-wa Zachodnia) railway station.

Below: a headache for drivers for the time being, but a boon for public-transport users, as a third major east-west tramline south of the city centre will emerge, sometime this year (they say). By next year, this will connect W-wa Zachodnia with Wilanów.

Below: some modest modernism on ul. św. Andrzeja Boboli, shortly before it becomes ul. Wołoska. Overlooking some urban działki on the other side of the road. Let's hope these recreational plots don't fall prey to developers.

Below: this is ul. Woronicza, home of Poland's state-run television station, TVP (further along on the right). In the picture on the right you can see the spiral ramp of Poland's first multi-level car park, completed in 1958, and a listed building since 2023. Woronicza itself is an important east-west link in the tram network; behind me is the tram depot. Other than the horizontal road markings, the scene here pretty much unchanged since the 1960s.

Below: end of the line - the tram loop at Służewiec, where the 17, 18 and 31 routes terminate. Connecting with PKP W-wa Służewiec for Koleje Mazowieckie, SKM and InterCity trains (for Warsaw-Olsztyn, Radom-Kielce-Kraków, and now Radom-Rzeszów-Przemyśl). Passing overhead is the viaduct carrying ul. Marynarska over the railway line, where it becomes ul. Sasanki. Convenient interchange for local bus services. Note the road snaking round from the left; this is new and connects ul. Suwak (lit. 'slider' or 'zip' street) to ul. Cybernetyki ('cybernetic street'). Opened to traffic last month, the road is so new that neither OpenStreetMap nor Google Maps show a name for it yet. 

And here, at PKP W-wa Służewiec, I catch the train back to Chynów, just 33 minutes away on the normal all-stations stopping service, or a mere 21 minutes on the przyspieszony (accelerated) service that skips more than half the stations along the way. 

Below: on my way home. The Polish countryside today – it's good to know it's such a short way from town. I like it here.

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