Why have I never heard about how wonderful Warsaw is?  This is a beautiful city.  So clean and full of beautiful parks and green spaces.  Flowers in bloom everywhere.  Beautiful buildings and statues of their heros.  And good food!  Today, we had a three hour tour of the city highlights. Saw the Kings palace from the 1700’s with beautiful parks and lakes all around.  This is the King I just read about in the book, Push Not the River by James Martin.  Told of the May 3rd Constitution that gave rights to the peasants in the late 1700’s and the attack by the Serbians, Austrians and the Russians.  Poland lost and was divided between the three countries and ceased to exist as Poland for 123 years until it was restored in 1918 after WWI.  Poland was the first European country to have a democratic constitution.  We saw the monuments to the Warsaw Ghetto uprising and the area that was once the Jewish Ghetto.  Poland before  WW II had the second largest Jewish population in Europe…about 30% of the Poles were Jews.  After WWII only 1% remained.  During the 123 years that Poland didn’t exist, the Polish people kept their language, foods, traditions, catholic faith and heritage.  Very proud people.  During WWII, the Nazis bombed Warsaw to rubble.  But, a famous artist had painted the buildings in the Old Town in such detail that they were able to restore them almost exactly as before.  They reused every piece of building material that could be salvaged to rebuild.  In the 1980’s, Warsaw Old Town was named a Unesco World Heritage Site.  Most World Heritage Sites are old, but Warsaw was named because of the outstanding renovation that was done.  We went to a park dedicated to Chopin.  There is a beautiful statue of him under a willow tree statue.  Concerts  are played in this park that is full of white and pink rose bushes.  There are benches in 15 places in town that play Chopins music when a button is pushed.  We saw Madame Curie’s house, the first woman to win a Nobel Peace Prize and the only woman to win two.  After the tour, we stayed and walked around the big square in Old Town.  Eating places dot the square with outdoor tables and lots of flowers.  There is a statue of a mermaid in the center surrounded by a shallow pond.  She is said to be the older sister of the Hans Christian Anderson’s mermaid in Copenhagen.  Her name and her husband’s name combined in Polish make the word Warsaw.  Artists have their paintings in the square as well.  Great day.  Back in the hotel after dinner at the same place and same meal we had for lunch yesterday…minus the perogies.  Meet with our group tomorrow morning for a full day of sightseeing more of Warsaw.  I highly recommend a trip here.  A beautiful, historic city.  The only drawback is not understanding a word of Polsih.  We tried to learn Thank You from our waitress this morning.  Polish people around us were laughing at our attempts to say the word.  Utter failure!