Phoenix CityWarsaw.

Frédéric Chopin died of tuberculosis in Paris on 17 October 1849 at the age of 39. He requested that his heart be removed and taken to Poland — which was then divided between three empires, none of them Polish. His sister Ludwika smuggled it out of France in a crystal urn filled with cognac (or possibly alcohol — accounts vary), bringing it to Warsaw where it has been sealed in the second left pillar of the Holy Cross Church since 1850. The pillar bears an inscription. The heart survived WWII because the Germans allowed it to be removed during the 1944 destruction — perhaps the only act of cultural sensitivity in the systematic obliteration of Warsaw.

Poland claims to have invented vodka in the 8th century (Russia claims the same, the dispute is unresolved). Polish vodka is distinct from Russian in its tradition of flavoured varieties: Żubrówka (bison grass vodka, with a blade of grass from the Białowieża forest in every bottle, pale green, faintly vanilla), Wiśniówka (cherry), Śliwowica (plum), and the pure rye Belvedere and Chopin vodkas at the premium end. The szarlotka (Żubrówka with cold apple juice, 50/50) is the most specifically Polish cocktail. Vodka is drunk ice cold, in small glasses, as a shot — not mixed in cocktails outside the szarlotka tradition.

A collection of salvaged neon signs from communist-era Warsaw — the visual culture of the Polish People's Republic expressed in illuminated glass tubing. Poland under communism produced some of the finest neon sign design in the Eastern Bloc: the signs for milk bars, cinemas, hotels, shops and cultural institutions were designed by trained graphic artists and have a specific aesthetic quality that Western commercial neon lacks. Most were ripped down after 1989 and replaced with Western brand advertising. The Neon Museum rescued hundreds. The signs — Milk Bar, Café, Cinema, Hotel — glow in the dark with a melancholy beauty specific to things that have outlived their world.

The only Warsaw neighbourhood where pre-war buildings survive in significant number — the east bank district was occupied by Soviet forces in August 1944 and stood watching as the German army destroyed the west bank systematically. The result: Praga has the only authentic pre-war streets in Warsaw, with peeling plaster facades, inner courtyards, 19th-century tenements and the specific atmosphere of a working-class neighbourhood that was not rebuilt but simply continued. Since 2000 it has become Warsaw's creative district: galleries, independent restaurants, the Soho Factory complex, and the specific energy of a neighbourhood that knows it survived something the rest of the city did not.

The Vistula running through Warsaw is the only major European capital river that has not been fully channelled, embanked and regulated — a wild river in the centre of a city of 1.8 million. The banks are unmanaged in large sections: sand beaches appear naturally in summer, willow thickets grow without intervention, eagles and white-tailed eagles nest on the islands, and the river changes its course slightly every year. In summer, the Vistula banks are where Warsaw's young people gather — sand beaches with pop-up bars and food trucks operate below the Copernicus Science Centre. Swimming is possible (water quality is acceptable in summer in Warsaw). The Warsaw beach is a specific and improbable urban experience.