Skaryszewski Park: Warsaw's most picturesque landscape park on the right bank

Varsovians call it Skaryszak. Officially the Ignacy Jan Paderewski Skaryszewski Park, it takes up nearly half of the Kamionek area in Praga-Poludnie and is widely described as one of the most beautiful garden designs in Warsaw - a landscape park of hills, water and old trees on the former flood meadows of the Vistula.

From marshland to showpiece

The idea for a park on the right bank came with plans for a third Vistula bridge in the early 20th century. The bridge went up in 1904-1913 - where the Poniatowski Bridge stands today - and in parallel, between 1905 and 1916, the park was laid out to a design by Franciszek Szanior, an outstanding landscape architect who blended the landscape style with early modernism. The official opening came in 1916, when the park covered 45 hectares. Between 1921 and 1930 Leon Danielewicz extended it, adding a cafe, a children's playground and the rose and dahlia gardens; in those years it carried the name Paderewski Park and hosted fashion shows, dances and jazz concerts. In 1935 the Kurier Warszawski praised it as one of the most beautiful gardens in Poland.

Water everywhere

The park's signature is its water system: the landscape ponds - the Kayak Pond, the Swan Pond and the smaller Duck Ponds reached by a stone cascade - and Kamionkowskie Lake, a roughly 8-hectare former Vistula oxbow that borders the park to the north. A sizeable stone waterfall spills from the park's highest point near ul. Międzynarodowa. The whole system forms part of the district's wider water network, once linked to the Vistula itself.

Sculptures and a rose garden

Three interwar sculptures anchor the design: Rytm (Rhythm) by Henryk Kuna from 1925, which won the grand prix at the 1925 Paris decorative arts exhibition; Tancerka (Dancer) by Stanisław Jackowski (1927) in the rose garden; and Kąpiąca (Bather) by Olga Niewska (1929) on the Swan Pond. The rose garden itself was laid out in 1925-1926 by Leon Danielewicz, who planned 5,000 roses in 80 varieties; six ancient Japanese magnolias bloom by it in spring. A replica of Jan Biernacki's art deco Faun, lost in the war, returned in the 2000s thanks to a Saska Kepa resident. At the main entrance stands a bust of Paderewski (1989), and near it a 2002 granite monument to the Polish victims of the 9/11 attacks.

Nature and wildlife

Over 160 species and varieties of woody plants grow here, from ash-tree avenues to a monumental red-leaved beech. Eighteen mammal species - half of all those found in Warsaw - live in the park, including beavers, whose feeding marks show on the willows, plus foxes and a dense population of red squirrels. Mute swans glide on Kamionkowskie Lake, and a tawny owl hides here by day. Recent renovation swapped the old concrete lamp posts for early-20th-century-style lanterns with motion sensors that dim and warm the light after midnight to protect nocturnal animals.

Visiting

The park covers about 49.6 hectares, is open around the clock and is free. The main entrance is at Rondo Waszyngtona, with another accentuated entrance at the end of ul. Międzynarodowa. Paths were resurfaced and lighting rebuilt in a 2023 renovation. Combine the visit with a walk through Saska Kepa next door.