Today (I wrote this text on the 4th of September, 2025), while walking, rucking, and doing street photography, I felt a deep personal connection to Warsaw, and I couldn’t help but think: “This is the most beautiful city.”
Of course, I hear many voices of indignation:
What? I think you haven’t seen and do not know what the most beautiful city looks like.
Perhaps this person would be right. After all, I haven’t seen cities like, for example, Sydney, Tokyo, Dubai, Paris, Rio de Janeiro, or San Francisco. On the other hand, I cannot say I saw only the biggest Polish cities, with Warsaw at the forefront. Throughout my whole lifetime, I saw, among others, such cities as (going more or less from East to West): Kiev, Lviv, Tallinn, Riga, Vilnius, Budapest, Bratislava, Prague, Berlin, Wien, Split, Zurich, Iraklion, Venice, Rome, Turin, Monaco, London, Barcelona, New York, Baltimore, and Washington. I know there are thousands of other cities I still need to visit.
Nevertheless, my impression that Warsaw is the most beautiful city was simply a product of my observations and experiences while walking through the mundane streets of the capital of Poland, and absorbing all the visual phenomena that Warsaw could provide me.
The truth is that even though it was hot (28 degrees Celsius [82 degrees Fahrenheit]), the season seems closer to Autumn. Why? It was because there was a drought in Poland (e.g., the level of the Vistula was the lowest in the history of its measurement). Many leaves had already fallen from the trees, as it would be late October. Still, even if we have an ecological disaster, it did not prevent me from enjoying the beautiful sights. I felt like a child who saw the world for the first time with conscious eyes. How happy I am that I will be doing street photography throughout the next three (or even more!) days.
