Warsaw – Royal Road, Warsaw Ghetto and Uprising

Warsaw is located on the central Vistula, in the glacial valley of the Vistula, and on the middle masow valley at an average of 100 meters above sea level. The city spreads out on both sides of the Vistula and lies approximately in the middle between the Carpathians and the Baltic Sea – to each destination about 350 km.
The historic city centre is located on the left, west bank of the Vistula on the elongated Vistula cliff Skarpa Wiślana, which rises relatively steeply about 15 to 30 meters above the Vistula. One of the first bridges in Europe with a length of several hundred meters connected the two banks as early as the 16th century.

The Warsaw Royal Route (Królewski tract) begins at the Royal Castle and leads south for about 10 km to King Jan Sobieski's Wilanów city residence and is one of the longest representative streets in the world. It is made up of several representative streets, the Kraków Suburb, the New World (Ulica Nowy Świat) and the Ujazdowski Avenues (from north to south). The Royal Road runs along the Vistula and, together with the Saxon Axis that runs perpendicular to it, formed the main axis of Warsaw's urban development. It was built on at the beginning of the city's history and connected the former Jazdów settlement with the old town.

Since the 16th century, many magnate families moved their headquarters to Warsaw, where the Sejm met and the royal election took place. Anyone who wanted to take part in big politics had to be present on site. Although Warsaw never became the capital of the aristocratic republic, but was always “just” a royal seat and Sejm city, the politically important decisions were made here. In this respect, the capital Kraków only remained a formal capital after 1611. Many of the representative palaces were built along the main axes of the city (King's Way, Saxon Axis, Ulica Senatorska, Ulica Miodowa, Ulica Freta) in the Baroque and Classicist styles. Some of the largest palaces with extensive gardens were built just outside the main streets, such as Wilanów Palace.

Due to the city's often tragic history, there are many memorials to victims of foreign and tyrannical rule in Warsaw. These include, above all, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, the Warsaw Ghetto Memorial, the Warsaw Uprising Memorial, the Xth Pavilion in the Citadel, Pawiak as well as numerous smaller memorial plaques and stones that the attentive visitor encounters at almost every street intersection.

There are over 700 km of cycle paths in Warsaw (in 2010 there were only 275 km). A large bike rental system in Warsaw is called Veturilo.