Tomb of the Unknown Soldier
The last surviving colonnade of the Saxon Palace shelters a soldier chosen by a mother whose own son's body was never found.
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This lone colonnade fragment is all that remains of the Saxon Palace after WWII. The unknown soldier interred in 1925 was selected from three exhumed coffins by Jadwiga Zarugiewiczowa, a woman whose son fell at Zadwórze and was never recovered. Poland's most solemn military commemorations happen here, and visiting foreign leaders lay their wreaths at this spot.
What to look for
- The eternal flame that burns continuously at the tomb's base
- The urns inside the surviving pillars — each holds soil from a different battlefield where Polish soldiers have fought
- The guard change on the exact hour, every hour, 365 days a year, performed by the 1st Guards Battalion
Piłsudski Square, central Warsaw; the guard changes on the full hour every day of the year — no special timing needed.
Tomb of the Unknown Soldier is one of 36 sights worth the detour in Warsaw, all bundled offline in Voyage GO — download the Warsaw pack and it sits on your map with no signal, filling your travel passport the moment you walk past.
More to see in Warsaw
- PGE Narodowy (Kazimierz Górski National Stadium)Poland's biggest football bowl hangs a retractable PVC roof from a central spire — when the mechanism works, it unfolds like a sail over 58,580 seats.
- Palace of Culture and ScienceStalin's skyscraper — Poles nicknamed it "elephant in lacy underwear" and never tore it down.
- Royal Castle in WarsawThe Nazis dynamited this building in 1944. Every room you walk through was rebuilt, stone by stone, between 1971 and 1984.
- Warsaw Old TownBombed flat in WWII and rebuilt from scratch — the world's first fully resurrected historic city core, now a UNESCO World Heritage site.
- National Museum in WarsawThe gallery that brought Nubian Christian art from a Sudanese cathedral to Warsaw.
- Wilanów PalaceBuilt for a warrior king while Poland still existed — and open as a museum since 1805.