Warsaw Travel: Chwast Food – Burgery Weganskie

If you are searching for a delicious but fast food, Chwast Food is perfect for you. We ate one of the yummiest vegan burgers ever in this little but cool furnished house – it was kind of our life-saver as we were starving and didn't know what to eat. Stumbling upon THAT was a godsend.

It's similar to the Bausatz-Lokale in Graz where you can chose whatever you want on your food.
First you tell the chef here which bun you'd like to have, than you can choose between tofu, seitan and different veggie patties and in the end you get different vegetables and you favourite sauce in your burger. We really enjoyed the food and the nice atmosphere – and were so happy to find something good to eat after 10 pm. 

We've been even more enthusiastic about the vegan cakes they offered – ours was Christmasy, soft, sticky and de-li-cious; which made us coming again the next day just to buy another piece of this wonderful cake.

Outstanding facts: 

* Vegan-friendly
* Lovely furniture
* Young and kind owners
* De-li-cious

Want to visit for lunch or late dinner? Klick HERE for the location on the map.

Credits:

Idea: Clarissa Kober and Diana Ranegger | Words: Diana Ranegger | Photographs: Clarissa Kober

Warsaw Travel: MEZZE hummus&falafel

Even though Warsaw is just the 15th biggest city in Europe it seemed huuuuge to me. There was so much to see, so much to do and we achieved to visit just a fraction of what we should have. Nevertheless we discovered some wonderful places we wanted to share with you. First one is MEZZE hummus & falafel – a restaurant in a container located in a park.

To be honest: Everything with "hummus" on it is like a magnet to us, so no wonder that we went inside without being that hungry. 

It was really hard to decide, everything sounded so delicious, which it was in the end, too – just a little bit more bread would have been nice. But the service was very friendly, the music enjoyable and the atmosphere like sitting in grandpa's garden shed. 

The most surprising thing for us was that this restaurant wasn't an exception. Nearly every café, every bar, every restaurant looks like the hippest and newest building in the city and you find people inside, no matter what age. 

Graz, you can learn something by watching!

Outstanding facts: 

* Vegan-friendly
* Garden-shed-flair
* Friendly service

Want to visit for lunch? Klick HERE for the location on the map.

Credits:
Idea: Clarissa Kober and Diana Ranegger | Words: Diana Ranegger | Photographs: Clarissa Kober

Warsaw City Guide

Apparently our holiday destination this year was not what people expected. "You're going on a trip? Cool. Where are you going?" "To Poland." "Poland? What the hell are you doing in Poland?" 

To be honest: Our first reason was pretty dumb. We met a Polish guy in Lisbon at our last year's interrail tour and he told us that his home country was so much cheaper than there – even though we bought carrots for 27 cents per kilo and therefore some of our purchases cost us – believe it or not – horrible one cent. His words stayed in our minds and we knew something for sure: Sometime we have to go to Poland (again).

Well, at the beginning of September the time had come and we were off to our rail trip – and it was much more than we expected (even though the carrots were more expensive than in Lisbon, Marcel!)

Especially Warsaw turned out to be our all-time favourite city. And this is why.

The easiest way explaining is probably by sending you on a virtual tour on the tower of Pałac Kultury i Nauki (palace of culture and science). You go there by elevator and 42 floors later you stand on a huge, windy platform and see a part of the city through one of the windows. Your first thought: 'Warsaw is a village'. It consists of a few houses and a huge shopping centre.  Then you turn 90 degree and your next few is on huge lawns and parks – Warsaw's second face: A blooming, green city with trees as far as the eye can reach. 
Another 90 degrees later Warsaw's third face becomes visible: The financial district, Europe's New York. And houses up to the horizon. Wow. No village anymore.  

The very superficial look over the city shows you the wide range of different facets. And there are even more. Rundown, dirty streets follow cool and casual hipster districts and no matter where you are, really every cafe, pub or snack bar – no matter how 'uncool' – looks incredibly fancy (build something like that in Graz and you have 1000 of visitors a day for sure). 
Side note: In contrast to many other cities I've been to people of all kind visit these places. Families, old ladies, young men. It doesn't seem to be a cool and special thing, but just normal.

However, for us as travellers they were unique and noteworthy. We collected our favourites and will show them to you in the next days and weeks. 

But one thing is hopefully already clear: You HAVE to visit this city and see all the wonderful faces Warsaw can show you. 

Credits:
Idea, Photographs: Clarissa Kober and Diana Ranegger | Words: Diana Ranegger