Dinner @ The Belvedere in Lazienkowski Park

Tonight I met the 3Q10 gang.  Every quarter the group's a little different, made up of new and familiar faces, interacting against a backdrop of a culture some of us are seeing for the first time.  For a few members of the group, Poland is home, and for others, Warsaw is a place just around the bend from their home country, which they've visited for work or on a holiday.  But none o

f us have been here before for a meeting quite like this...

After a day of small group conferences, we all gathered in the hotel lobby at 6:30 to venture out to dinner.  The restaurant was just a short walk away, and after a few minutes of cat-herding, we managed to cross the street, and venture a few hundred yards north to Lazienkowski Park, aka "the Royal Baths Park," a lush, 76 hectare park full of historic monuments, peacocks, and iconic architectural structures.  

Dinner was in a lovely restaurant in what was once the park's orangery, which has since been turned into a gorgeous dining venue called The Belvedere.  Thick ivy runs from the floor to the ceiling along the length of one inside wall, and huge stately windows make up the entire facade of the building.  Among a tasteful array of options, I had a roast duck entree with baked apples, a warm apple pie, and some delectable dumpling soup.  The food here has been delightful so far...a bit heavy, but indisputably refined cuisine...

From wikipedia: "The building was built by Adam Adolf Loewe and Józef Orłowski in 1860.  Neo-classicist with eclectic elements, it was designed to shelter the collection of orange trees. The building was necessary because tsar Alexander II of Russia, who purchased one of the largest in Europe collection of tropical plants from Nieborów, could not transport it to Saint Petersburg, due to climate conditions there.  The collection's pride were long-lived orange trees (there were 124 of them in the collection).  Unfortunately, during the World War I, they were left without appropriate care and froze.  The building consists of a oblong hall, with glass walls."