Every design for Otwock

Ever stepped off a train from Warsaw among the villas of Otwock? The line here was the first in Poland to be electrified, and the railway is the reason the town exists at all: it turned a stretch of forest by the Świder into a spa where Józef Piłsudski stayed and Władysław Reymont wrote his novel Chłopi.

There is a particular memory that Otwock leaves with people: the Świdermajer houses, a style of villa found nowhere else. The town lies on the right bank of the Vistula, below the mouth of the Świder, with forest covering almost a quarter of it and several nature reserves nearby. Muzeum Ziemi Otwockiej keeps the spa years in view, and Leśny Park „Wiejska” is where the woods come into town. The town also carries the memory of its wartime ghetto and it is the hometown of Irena Sendler.

However far you go, the train back to Otwock still ends at home.