Praga

Warsaw's edgy east-bank district — street art, Soviet-era neon, raw galleries and the city's most creative energy.

Praga occupies the east bank of the Vistula and was largely spared the wartime destruction that levelled the rest of Warsaw, leaving behind a gritty authenticity of pre-war tenement buildings, cobbled side streets and a clutch of extraordinary Soviet-era factories repurposed as arts spaces. The Neon Museum — a collection of salvaged communist-era signs — sits alongside experimental galleries, vintage markets and the best underground bar scene in Warsaw. Praga is gentrifying rapidly but retains a raw energy entirely absent from the reconstructed Old Town across the river, and the views back to the Warsaw skyline from the riverbank are some of the most dramatic in the city.