A shovel and a hoe

I would like to see the European rankings in terms of actual time spent gardening. The guy with the Weimeraner in the apartment next door is forever digging around in the garden out back. Rain or shine, there are ladies in Plac Wilsona selling backyard-grown snowdrops, irises and red poppies. Then there are the great Polish gardens of Warsaw, built by the absurdly wealthy noble class of the 17th- through 19th centuries ― or more accurately, by their armies of laborers.

The Krasinski Gardens, just west of Old Town, bear testament to just what an auspicious time it is to be a plant in Poland ―you finally have enough light and warmth to do your thing.

It is also the site of the Baroque Krasinski Palace, owned by the Krasinski family until 1765, when Rembrandt and Rubens paintings were finally removed from its walls and it became the home of the treasury and various legal departments. It now houses a collection of antique prints and manuscripts from the National Library.

The mirrored Supreme Court Building, kitty-corner from the Chinese Embassy, is just to the east in Plac Krasinskich. It was completed in 2000.

Maxims of Roman law are inscribed on a facade of columns.

Around the back, off Swietojerska Street, three caryatids representing faith, hope and love, appear to hold up the structure.

On the south side of the building, fighters crouching under the ruins of a collapsed building form the Monument to the 1944 Uprising.

This may be a good time to remind you, gentle reader, that a member of the Krasinski family, the aristocrat and military leader Wincenty Krasinski, famously wrote in 1818 that "the Jews are an insurmountable problem." So there's that.