History

History of the B&B

The beginning of B&B goes back to the summer of 2003. That year the beautiful building of Smolna 14 after many years of neglect has undergone a major renovation of its staircase, and the courtyard received a new entrance gate. As the building became presentable, one of the tenants Jarek Cholodecki invited his first guests: Ela Ślosarska, his friend and co-worker from Chicago, who agreed on a joint visit to Warsaw with Ruth Everet and her husband Yakov. On hearing this news, Rabbi Marc Kiel, Ruth’s cousin also decided to visit Poland. And that was the beginning.

The party stayed in a B&B because it seemed to be the best name for 2 rooms on the 3rd floor. Better than the “guest rooms” (which in Poland brought memories of communist times.)

Initially it was clear that Poles would not risk staying in a such a hotel alternative and the place was geared predominantly towards guests from the USA. Jarek knew that a lot of them were bored of typical chain hotels and were looking for something more authentically reflecting the place they visit. For this reason since the beginning he tried to preserve in the B&B every detail that told the story of Warsaw’s first modernist tenement house, trying to make it look true to its pre-war character. So he restored destroyed doors and windows, repaired the broken edges of the marble stairs etc.

As the guests showed their appreciation of those efforts Jarek also focused on other aspects:
– sourcing ecological food,
– maintaining lots of plants,
– providing bicycles,
– keeping bees,
– using recycling…
– and finally providing guests with best possible freshly roasted in-house coffee!

The number of rooms grew, The first was named queen because there was simply a queen bed in it. The second smaller room had narrower bed and it became king. When there were more rooms on the ground floor they followed the convention of aristocratic names becoming prince and princess.

More conscious choices came a little bit later, when grand children Emma Chołodecka, Aleksander Myers were born. Later the rooms received names after significant historic figures.

Why the name Chopin? It is thanks to the American pianist Pamela Howland. She came came to Warsaw in 2006 mainly because of Chopin. She was surprised to find out she could listen to him for free but only in the summer and once a week on Sunday noon, at the Frederick’s memorial park… Pamela responded with a proposal that was difficult to reject: “I will be coming next year and I will play and Jarek will arrange a salon and instrument.”

The dream about the salon and the piano began, only came true in 2009, when Katarzyna Kraszewska brought Kawai grand piano to one of the rooms.

From June 21, 2013, pianists are performing here every single day, on a new instrument, this time a world renown piano manufacturer- Steinway.

Two years after the launch of the daily recitals, it became clear that Chopin was too present in the B&B to not call it by this name. So Chopin it became.

Patroni

Our rooms do not have numbers, but they are named after patrons. We invite you to read the profiles of some of them:

MAURYCY GOTTLIEB
Maurycy Gottlieb [Pronounced like: “Mao + Ritz + I [I like used in word “Thin”] … Goat + Leeb”]

A great painter; was born in Dohobrycz, 1856, into one of the most prominent families in Jewish- Polish society of the 19th century. Despite living only twenty-three years, Gottlieb found and lost true love and created dozens of outstanding, enduring paintings – he represented the hopes and expectations for Polish art. Young Gottlieb met Laura Roesnfeld in Vienna and proposed to her. According to tradition, brides and grooms-to-be could not reside in the same town prior to marriage, but only correspond through letters. After some time, Laura’s letters became cold and distant. Ultimately, she broke off the engagement. Though he still thought of Laura, Gottlieb moved on, eventually falling in love with Lola Rosengarten. In 1879, on a trip to Kraków with her family, after a late night of socializing, Gottlieb caught a severe cold. Complications of his illness required hospitalization, but he would never recover. He died in Kraków in 1879.

His most important masterpieces hang in Warsaw, Kraków, and Tel Aviv. “Recha, Welcoming her Father” and “Christ Preaching at Capernaum” (unfinished) hang in The National Museum (in Warsaw).

HELENA MODRZEJEWSKA
Helena Modrzejewska (Pronounced like: “Mo + (d)Jay + Yef + Ska”)

(12.10.1840 – 08.04.1909) She was a great Polish actress who became a legend after starring on the Polish and the American Stage. Most acclaimed for her interpretations of Shakespeare’s Ophelia and Juliette, she also ranked as one of the most beautiful women of her era. On May 2, 1905 she gave an anniversary performance in New York before embarking on a two-year world tour (which marked the final performances of her career).

The largest collection of her costumes is held by the Polish National Theater. They are exhibited periodically.

EDWARD OKUŃ
Edward Okuń (Pronounced like ” Ed + Vard … Oh + Koon”)

Edward Okuń was born in 1872 to a noble family. Orphaned in his youth, he was raised by his grandparents. After inheriting a large fortune, he soon began drawing lessons with great painters. In 1891, he studied at The Warsaw School of Drawing. From 1891 – 1893 he studied under the direction of Isidore Jablonski and Jan Matejko at Matejko’s Academy of fine arts. He continued his studies in Munich and Paris. Okuń also went to study with Simon Hollósy, who founded the artists’ colony in Nagybanya, Hungary. For the next 20 years he lived in Rome, which afforded him the opportunity to tour, and to paint: Sorrento, Amalfi, Capri, Venice, Padua, Ravenna, Florence and Siena. He participated in the lifestyle of the Polish Artist colony in Rome and was co-founder of the Masonic lodge “Polonia”.

Okuń returned to Poland in 1921 and settled in Warsaw. Beginning in 1925 he was a professor at the School of Fine Arts and a member of The Society of Polish Artists. Together with his friends he founded a Masonic lodge called “Copernicus”. During World War II he lived in Warsaw. After the Warsaw uprising, Okuń moved to Skierniewice, where he died in January 1945.

Among his most famous paintings, his 1913 Self-Portrait and “The War and Us” (1917-1923) is among the permanent collection at Poland’s National Museum (in Warsaw). Several paintings from his “Italian Period” also hang in The National Museum at Warsaw.

JÓZEF MEHOFFER
Józef Mehoffer (Pronounced like “You + Zef … May + Hof [rhymes with ‘loaf’] + Air”

Józef Mehoffer was born in 1869 in Ropczycy, located near Lwów (now a city in western Ukraine). He studied in several cities: In Kraków, under the direction of Jan Matejko; then in Vienna and Paris. Mehoffer painted symbolic paintings, portraits and interiors. He also created vignettes, borders, librises and ornaments for books and magazines. He was commissioned by the Polish National Bank to design the nation’s bank-notes. Among the famous works in many media credited to Mehoffer are many ornate and beautiful stained-glass windows and murals which enhance the interiors of numerous sacred spaces in Poland. If you are interested in visiting these, ask our staff, as some are not far from Warsaw (and some of the designs are held in the permanent collection of The National Museum in Warsaw).

LEON WYCZÓŁKOWSKI
Leon Wyczółkowski (Pronounced like: “Vitch + Ooh + Kof [rhymes with ‘Loaf’]+ Ski”)

An outstanding representative of “Romantic Realism” in Polish art, he was the leading painter and graphic designer of the “Young Poland” period (i.e. Poland’s “Second Republie”). Born the 11th of April, 1852 outside Siedlce, Wyczółkowski died in Warsaw. He continually shifted his style, themes and worked with many different media: For example, moving from oil painting to graphics; from historicism to impressionism to realism. Views of the Tatra mountains, graphical files of Kraków, Lwów, and Ukrainian landscapes remain his best-known work. He was ubiquitously regarded as the most outstanding Polish artist of the interwar period. The overall arc of his development involved him first making important technical contributions to oil painting (around the turn of the 20th century). In 1904 he began focusing on picture pastels and mastered that field, while in 1911 he devoted himself strictly to developing original graphics, often manipulating landscapes, while becoming a pioneer of this nascent discipline. In his final period he developed an amazing series of watercolors.

Many of his works are part of the permanent collection held in The National Museum at Warsaw.

JINDŘICH HALABALA
Jindřich Halabala was born on May 24, 1903 in the town of Koryčany. He trained to become a cabinet maker in his father’s joinery workshop and, in 1920, entered the State-owned Woodworking School. He completed his practical studies in the recently-consolidated United Woodcrafts Manufacturers company in Brno (Spojené uměleckoprůmyslové závody v Brně – UP), his future employer. Halabala enrolled in the Academy of Applied Arts in Prague, in the studio headed by Professor Pavel Janák. Owing to his versatile skills, Halabala was invited to head the design studio of the UP company’s Brno branch. Shortly afterwards he became the firm’s development manager, remaining in the position until 1946. In the late 1920s, when UP began to espouse mass production of standardized furniture sets, Halabala was responsible for the firm’s product line selection. The assortment of its products was conceived so as to facilitate the assemblage of individual pieces into a wide range of furniture types, particularly pieces for storage purposes. These components could be combined into variants and units, whose multi-functionality allowed for the furnishing of whole apartments or offices exclusively with products manufactured by UP.

Jindřich Halabala was responsible not only for the development of the company’s products (he designed most of its “H” model furniture), but also for the products’ promotion and sales strategy. The company shops displayed fully furnished interiors and the customers could consult an interior designer, who was able to propose custom-targeted solutions. However, the UP company fabricated its own original frames, largely based on Halabala’s designs. It may therefore be presumed that these were unique furniture designs that easily measured up to European standards. The same applies to Halabala’s armchairs with bentwood frames. The furniture manufactured by the UP company during the period between the wars was of superior quality, comparable to the best European furniture production of the time. Some of them are already in Czech’s museums.

BOHUMIL HRABAL
Bohumil Hrabal (28 March 1914 – 3 February 1997) was a Czech writer, regarded by many Czechs as one of the best writers of the 20th century. His books are translated to over 25 languages. Some of them were filmed with the most popular Closely Observed Trains directed by Jiří Menzel which won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Language Film.

Hrabal writes about Prague where he spend most of his life. Places he descibes are popular tourist atraction for his readers. Most of them are pubs, especially U Zlateho Tygra and whole Libeň district. He writes about serious stories of WWII and communist Czechoslovakia with great humour in the style of Prague storytellers who entertained people with half-true stories. Many of Hrabal’s characters are portrayed as “wise fools” — simpletons with occasional inadvertently profound thoughts — who are also given to coarse humour, lewdness, and a determination to survive and enjoy life despite harsh circumstances in which they find themselves.

BONA SFORZA
Bona Sforza: Pronounced like S + Foe + Ja (J said like “soft Z”)

Bona Sforza (1494-1557), daughter of the Duke of Milan, Gian Galeazza Sforza and Princess Isabella of Aragon. She became Queen of the Polish Kingdom in 1518 after her marriage to Sigismund I . She bore him six children, including the heir to the throne Sigismund II Augustus. Widely known to be exceptionally charming and graceful, she had a very active public life, including holding influence over the Italian court system. Her genius for realpolitik directly influenced the sucesses of Sigismund I and Sigismund the Second’s rule. The policy pursued by Bona sparked opposition among the gentry, influencing the rebellion of 1537 which was directed against the noble class. In 1556 the family left Poland (by their own choice) and settled in Bari, where she died the next year after being poisoned by her courtier, G.L. Pappacodę.

ROKSOLANA
One of the most legendary women of early modern history, known in Turkey as Hurrem Sultan and in Europe as Roksolana. She was seemingly born to a father who was a Ruthenian Orthodox priest. She was born in the town of Rohatyń, a major city of the Ruthenian Voivodeship in the Crown of the Kingdom of Poland (today in western Ukraine). In 1520, she was captured by Crimean Tatars during one of their frequent raids into this region and taken as a slave, probably first to the Crimean city of Kaffa, a major centre of the slave trade, then to Istanbul, where she was selected for Süleyman’s harem. Roksolana’s influence over the Sultan soon became legendary. She quickly came to the attention of her master, attracting the jealousy of her rivals. One day Suleiman’s favorite, Mahidevran beat her badly in a fight. Upset by this, Suleiman banished Mahidevran to the provincial capital of Manisa. This opened the door for Roksolana to increase her influence.

Roksolana was to bear 5 of Suleiman’s 14 children and in an astonishing break with tradition, she was eventually freed and became his legal wife, making Suleiman the first Ottoman emperor. This strengthened her position in the palace and eventually led to one of her sons, Selim, inheriting the empire. Roksolana also may have acted as Suleiman’s advisory on matters of state, and seems to have had an influence upon foreign affairs and international politics.

ALEKSANDRA ZAJĄCZEK
Aleksandra Zajączek [pronounced like “Zy (rhymes w/ ‘tie’) + Yown (rhymes w/ ‘loan”) + Check”]

Aleksandra Zajączek surely has one of the most interesting life-stories in all of Polish history. Born in 1754, she started dancing at the court of the Great Lithuanian Hetman Michał Kazimierz Olgiński. By age 15 she was a Prima Donna in the court ballet. It was there that General Joseph Zajączek discovered her. Besides being a general in the Napoleonic army, he was also a Polish governer who was suzerain over his own kingdom in Poland. When they married she had not reached the peak of her fame, though she was already known for her charm, beauty and charisma. Numerous men had dueled over her, and at least one lost his life. However, her most interesting feature could not reveal itself until she grew older: By all accounts she embodied the secrets of near-eternal youth. She is pictured below at age 70. When Balzac met her at age 82, he determined that she was a woman of no more than 35 years “in every way possible”. In her 90s no one would believe she was a day over 50.

The secret to her youthfulness? Of course, this cannot be definitively understood. However, it is clear she went to great lengths to preserve her youthfulness and beauty: She always slept with the windows open, even in the depths of winter; in summer she had her maids place tubs of ice under her bed and would wake up frequently for new sheets – freshly soaked in frigid water. This earned her the title “The Ice Queen”. She also ran barefoot and rode horseback year-round and had daily massage treatments with ice and wax. Interestingly, she was also believed to be a “raw vegan” (eating nothing cooked at all and no animals or products made from them in any way, such as with milk as an ingredient).

Several days of the year her home is opened to the public to visit, though as always with her, the reason is interesting: Her Palace is presently the Presidential Palace of Poland in Warsaw. The portrait of her shown here is among the permanent collection of The National Museum (at Warsaw).

MARIA WALEWSKA
Maria Walewska (1786-1817) [Pronounced like: “Va + Lef + Ska”]

Maria Walewska was born into a wealthy noble family in Kiernozia (100 Km West of Warsaw) and she lived during the decline of Poland’s most glorious period, after it had been a powerful Kingdom for over centuries. She is most well known for being the mistress of Napoleon Bonaparte and her life serves as an interesting model of how women from noble families often saw it as their duty to use their sexuality for Nationlistic Political interests. At the age of 19 she married Athenasius count Colonna-Walewski, who, at the peak of his career had served as chamberlain to the last of the Polish Kings, Stanisław August Poniatowski. When they married, the Count was 76 years old and held the title of “Starosta” of the Warka district of Poland.

After her first husband’s death, according to her own memoirs, after meeting Napoleon Bonaparte at a ball, which was followed by an invitation from Napoleon to meet intimately, Walewska did not want to become Napoleon’s mistress. However, she was convinced by Napoleon’s personal aide, as well as pressured by Polish aristocrats who thought she might be able to influence Napoleon to support the movement for an independent Polish nation-state. Though she knew this political agenda was futile, she herself admits that it served as a convenient paliative to view the affair as a sacrifice for Poland, and this rationalization was successful at easing her guilty conscience.

In 1809 Napoleon’s son with her was conceived in Vienna. However, she used her marriage to Count Colonna-Walewski to legalize his birth. When Napoleon married another woman and felt it was inappropriate to continue the affair, he assured Maria of estates in Naples and elsewhere in his vast Kingdom. In 1812 she divorced the count, which required her brother testifying that he had forced the marriage upon her. Four years later she married her long-time admirer Phillipe Antoine d’Ornano, with whom she had a son in 1817. This would be the last year of her life, in which she also finished her memoirs, which were addressed to her husband. By her request, her body was exhumed from Paris and buried in her family cemetery in Kiernozia.

WŁADYSŁAW SZPILMAN
Wladysław Szpilman [Pronounced like “Shpeel + Mann (rhymes with ‚Ron’)”]

Wladysław Szpilman was born on December 5, 1911 in Sosnowiec (Just outside Katowice, in Southern Poland) and died on July 6, 2000 in Warsaw. Roman Polański’s film “The Pianist” is based upon his autobiography (Polański himself escaped the holocaust in Kraków, though his mother died in a concentration camp). An outstanding pianist and composer, he attended the “Frederic Chopin” Higher Musical School from 1926-1930. From 1930-1933 he continued his studies at Academies der Künste in Berlin. He bacame a Vaudevillian in 1932 and when World War II broke out, he cooperated with Radio Poland as a pianist, accompanist, illustrator and composer. In 1940 Spilman became imprisoned in the Warsaw Ghetto in the area where he was playing at the cafe “Art”. After the war, he returned to Polish Radio. He served as their orchestra conductor and initiated many musical competitions, created audio recordings of important performances and works, and was a major organizer of the International Festival of Song in Sopot, Poland in 1961. He composed over 500 works, though his autobiography and the tremendous popular and critical acclaim of Polanski’s Pianist have become the most significant thing that honors Szpilman’s life.

MARIA KAZIMIERA d’ARQUIEN (QUEEN)
Maria Kazimiera d’Arquien, affectionately called Marysienka, a French aristocrat and lady from The House of Maria Ludwig Gonzaga who would become queen as the wife of Polish King John III Sobieski. The love between the aristocrat and the future king was known throughout Europe. Marysienka, however, was married to Jan Sobiepan Zamojski, who was richer than Sobieski. Their love did not destroy her marriage with Zamojski – the couple secretly corresponded often using secret nicknames in an effort to hide their love from the world. Zamojski died on April 7, 1665 and within 5 weeks Sobieski and Marysienka eloped for a secret night-wedding. The couple maintainted their strong feelings throughout their lifetimes together, and their letters serve as testimony to that: Often, she would write him from Warsaw, when he was far from home on the camps of battlefields. Most famously, when he was in Vienna, in the battle where the Polish king saved Christian Europe from the expansion of the Islamic Ottoman Empire in 1683. Maria gave him 13 children, and after his death she would never remarry, but rather she died alone in 1716 in Blois, France.

IZABELA CZARTORYSKA (PRINCESS)
Duchess Izabela Czartoryska (pronounced like “Chart + Or + Is + Ska”) was born in Warsaw, 1746, into the aristocratic Fleming family. She was the wife of Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski. She was a writer, art patron and collector. After Poland lost its independence in 1795, she founded the first Polish museum at the Sibirian Temple in Puławy, Poland. This would eventually become the Czartoryski Museum in Kraków. A scandalist, known for the looseness of her customs, she took many lovers. However, it was not Czartoryska’s love-life that gave her a card in the deck of history. Shortly after her marriage, the Duchess became one of the most influential women of her epoch, carefully building her position by experly navigating important social circles. A woman full of ideas with the influence to see them actualized, she developed Polish theater in Warsaw and created magnificent parks and gardens in Powazki (a town outside Warsaw). Czartoryska died in 1835 in Wysock.

ADAM CZARTORYSKI (PRINCE)
Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski (pronounced like “Chart + Or + Is + Ski”)

Was a politician, diplomat and patron of the arts. He was born in Warsaw, 1770; the son of Izabela (from The House of Fleming) and General Adam Kazimierz Czartoryski, though rumors circulated during his lifetime that he was really the son of Mikolai Repnin, a Russian parliamentarian in Warsaw. During his youth he befriended and later advised the Russian Czar Alexander I. During the Congress of Vienna, as consultant to the czar, he was involved in creating the Constitutional Kingdom of Poland. From 1804-1806 he was Foreign Minister of the Russian Empire. When the November Uprising broke out against Russia in 1831, he became President of the Provisional Government of Poland. However, after the rebellion was suppressed, Czar Nicholas I declared him an enemy of the state, sentencing him to death for the part he played in the rebellion. Czartyoryski escaped and immigrated to France where he authored many political and scholarly essays, as well as poems. He co-founded the Polish Library of Paris. He died on July 15, 1861 in Montfermeil, France.

EMILIA PLATER
Emilia Plater was born November 13, 1806 in Vilnius (part of the Occupied Polish Kingdom then). The daughter of the Count of Franciszek Ksawery and Annas von der Mohl, she was born into a family deeply rooted in Polish patriotic tradition. She also received a careful, diligent education. Well-read, brave, and ready for the fight for Polish Independence, when Emilia heard the November Uprising was forming in 1830, she cut her long hair and had soldier’s clothing made for her. A guerrilla unit assembled by Emilia numbered 280 shooters, several-hundred scythe-bearing peasant recruits, and 60 mounted cavalrymen. Plater rode at the head of the cavalry. After achieving several victories in battles, she joined forces with Karol Załusli’s unit. Soon General Chłaowski appointed her captain and honorable commander of the 25th infantry regiment formed in Lithuania. After the defeat of the insurrection armies near Vilnius, Emilia decided to force her way to Warsaw to consolidate forces. Unfortunately, the brave girl fell along the way. She was taken to the landed estate in Justianowie, where she was concealed while recovering. However, Emilia Plater died there, most likely from irrecoverable exhaustion and infection from the battlefield. Her remains were hidden in a graveyard in nearby Kopciowie (at present, Kapciamiastis, Lithuania). Emilia Plater became a symbol of patriotism and the enduring struggle for independence, as well as a heroine of poetry and song. Plater is also a patron of many schools and streets throughout Poland (including a nearby street which forms the Western boundary of Warsaw’s Centrum) and her image was on 20-Zloty banknotes during the interwar period.

MARIA SKŁODOWSKA-CURIE (pierwsza kobieta z Nagrodą Nobla)
Maria Skłodowska Curie (pronounced like “SKWO [rhymes w/ ‘slow’ + DOF [rhymes w/ ‘loaf] + SKA”

Maria Skłodowska Curie was born in Warsaw in 1867 and would become one of the great scientists of world history. Since Poland was a partition of the Russian Empire during her life there, it was difficult to study. However, her father brought home lab equipment banned in Polish schools and she later began her scientific training in earnest at Warsaw’s clandestine “Floating University”. At 24, she followed her sister to Paris, studying Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics at The Sorbonne. She married Physicist Pierre Curie with whom she would collaborate, though she used both last names throughout her life. The Curie’s theories of “Radioactivity” (a word she coined) earned them the Nobel Prize in Physics, 1903 (making Maria the first woman Nobel Laureate). Nearly a decade later, she would go on to personally win the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for isolating the first laboratory radioactive element, which she named “Polonium” after her native land (she remains the only person who won 2 Nobel prizes in different sciences). She also developed X-ray machines for field use and volunteered as a medic in World War I. She died in 1934 from conditions related to her exposure to radioactivity. She then became the first woman to be buried in the Paris Pantheon for personal achievement.Dalsze badania prowadzone wspólnie z mężem P. Curie, doprowadziły do odkrycia w 1898 roku dwóch nowych pierwiastków radioaktywnych pochodzących od uranu – polonu i radu. Oba te pierwiastki znalazły później szerokie zastosowanie, m. in. w medycynie. W 1903 roku otrzymała wraz z mężem Nagrodę Nobla w dziedzinie fizyki.W 1904 roku została kierownikiem laboratorium na Sorbonie, a w dwa lata później, kiedy Piotr Curie zginął w wypadku, przejęła po mężu stanowisko profesora na tym uniwersytecie, zostając kierownikiem katedry promieniotwórczości. Po śmierci męża kontynuowała samodzielnie swoje badania, uzyskując m. in. w laboratorium w 1910 roku rad w postaci czystego metalu. W 1911 roku M. Skłodowska-Curie otrzymała po raz drugi Nagrodę Nobla tym razem w dziedzinie chemii, za pracę nad chemicznymi i fizycznymi właściwościami polonu i radu, oraz za prace dotyczące metod wyodrębniania, oczyszczania i pomiaru aktywności pierwiastków promieniotwórczych.Niezależnie od badań i odkryć naukowych, uczona przyczyniła się do zorganizowania Instytutu Radowego w Paryżu jak również pomagała czynnie w zorganizowaniu, otwartej w 1912 roku, Pracowni Radiologicznej Warszawskiego Towarzystwa Naukowego, a później (w 1932 roku) – Instytutu Radowego w Warszawie. W czasie I wojny światowej wraz ze swoją córką kierowała polową służbą radiologiczną. Do końca wojny przyjęła ponad milion pacjentów. W latach dwudziestych zaczęła tracić wzrok. Zmarła na białaczkę w 1934 roku, mając 67 lat.

FRYDERYK CHOPIN
Fryderyk Chopin was born in Żelazowa Wola (45 Km West of Warsaw) in 1810. The festival for his birthday, however, spans 8 days (9 during leap years) since his actual birth date is debated to be either February 22nd or March 1st. He was one of the greatest romantic composers and arguably the era’s greatest virtuoso pianist, leaving behind an enduring legacy of extraordinary, intimate, emotionally subtle music that has moved many generations of listeners. Chopin’s genius was discovered early, when he mastered all of his mother’s training and went beyond it before turning 6 years old. By then, the family had moved to Warsaw (living in Saxon Gardens), and he began serious training in music. One of the great “accidents of history” was that his parents entrusted his training to a violinist, Wojciech Żywny. As such, and recognizing he was in the presence of genius, he did not attempt to correct Chopin’s unorthodox fingering nor restrict his style, but rather instilled in him a love of Bach and Mozart which would influence him throughout his life. At 12, he began training with Elsner, a leading Warsaw musician, and it is commonly thought that his compositional technique was mature by the time Chopin was age 20: His Rondo, early waltzes and piano concertos are masterpieces which justify this statement.

At 20, Chopin went to Vienna, where he was universally acclaimed, and then toured Europe. During this time, political instability in Warsaw led to rebellion against the Russian occupation, but Chopin moved on to Paris as the rebellion ultimately failed. He would never set foot in his homeland again. In Paris, Chopin became central to the vibrant “artistic capital of the world”. Of particular importance were his friendship with Franz Liszt and his decade-long romantic relationship with the provocative French writer, George Sand. During this period, his style became more ornate, and he developed works exclusively for solo piano, giving only occasional public performances. Sickly during most of his life, Chopin finally succumbed (most likely to tuberculosis) at age 39 leaving behind one of the most important musical legacies of Romantic music. His death was met with a grand funeral in Paris and he died a Polish national hero. His sister brought his heart back to Warsaw where it remains entombed at Holy Cross Church.

Of course, our B&B is named in his honor and we offer nightly performances of his works in an intimate salon setting reminiscent of how Chopin intended them. Warsaw’s major airport is also named in his honor and the Chopin museum is nearby.

GEORGE SAND
The French novelist George Sand was one of the most successful female writers of the nineteenth century.

She was born Armandine Aurore Lucille Dupin in Paris, France, on July 1, 1804. When she published her first novel, Indiana (1832), she took as her pen name “George Sand.” She lived a Bohemian lifestyle, took many lovers, and became an icon of the French Romantic era. She wore men’s clothing without needed at that times special permit and was smoking tobacco in public. In the latter half of the 1830s, she had become the most notorious woman in France.

Through their mutual friendship with Franz Liszt, the great Hungarian composer and virtuoso pianist, she met Chopin and, moved by his piano performance, pursued and seduced him. They would remain together for a decade. Though she served as Chopin’s muse, inspiring his most productive period as a composer, their relationship was stormy and unstable. They generally spent “the artistic season” (fall through spring) in Paris then moved to Nohant in summer. As her daughter Solange matured, Sand became increasingly controlling over her, and it was Chopin’s attempt to intervene on Solange’s behalf that destroyed their relationship forever. When Chopin died, Solange was at his deathbed, while Sand did not see him.

Opinie, recenzje i polecenia

Stali goście
Przez lata nawiązaliśmy wiele przyjaźni. Widzimy ludzi, którzy pozostają z nami, za każdym razem, gdy odwiedzają Warszawę. Zaspokajamy ich szczególne potrzeby, często pomagając osiągnąć cel, który ich tu sprowadza. Niektórzy z powracających albo mają ulubiony pokój, albo chcą być zaskakiwani niepowtarzalnym wystrojem poszczególnych pokoi.

Polecani przez znajomych
Nie prowadzimy dużych kampanii reklamowych. Większość gości, którzy nas odwiedzają, robi to, ponieważ ich przyjaciołom podobało się to, co u nas zobaczyli i chcieli, aby oni doświadczyli tego samego.

Rekomendacje przewodników
Nasz mały hotel nie tylko jest wymieniony w przewodnikach turystycznych. Niektórzy pisarze, którzy nas odwiedzili, zakochali się w tym miejscu i wiele o nas pisali. Tak jak nasz dobry przyjaciel – znany amerykański pisarz – Rick Steves. Byliśmy prezentowani w kilku liczących się czasopismach, w artykułach opisujących podróże i doświadczenia kulturalne związane z wizytą w Warszawie.

Poznawanie innych gości
Szanujemy Twoją prywatność, ale jeśli jesteś tym typem podróżnika, który lubi poznawać innych w drodze, Chopin B&B jest miejscem dla Ciebie. Jeśli podczas śniadania zdecydujesz się usiąść przy wspólnym stole lub w ogrodzie na dziedzińcu, zachęcamy odwiedzających do wzajemnego poznania się. To także nasi goście sprawiają, że to miejsce jest wyjątkowe. Chcemy usłyszeć twoje historie!