Polish Picks

Poland in General

Intro to Poland

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Suwalszczyzna countryside Photo - Poland, Europe

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===GeographyPoland is situated between the southern shores of the Baltic and the Carpathians in the south It borders Germany, Czech and Slovak republics, Russia, Lithuania, Bielarus and Ukraine (plus Sweden accross the sea).It has varied landscape with 500 km of sandy beach on the Baltic; a belt of post-glacial lakes doted amongst rolling countryside; pretty boring flat middle; and hills and mountains (Carpathians and Sudenten Mountains) in the south.=== PeopleThe population of Poland consists of almost 40 million people; absolute majority of them Poles, 95% of them declaring Roman Catholicism as their religion. Polish religion is less of a spiritualy fe...Read More

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History in the Making: Polish Towns and Monuments

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(1) Krakow (Cracow): the old capitol of Poland, the royal city, home of the oldest university in Poland, with brilliant art life, cafes, theatre, haunting old Jewish quarter (this is where the Schindler's List was filmed) and a visitable medieval salt mine in the vicinity (Wieliczka). If you are to visit one city in Poland, do this one. Auschwitz is often visited as a day trip from Krakow(2) Warszawa (Warsaw): the current capital. It is an ugly, busy, dusty city in general but it has its moments (wonderfully restored old town, Royal Parks, Palace in Wilanow). On the other hand it is the political, business and cultural centre and if you are bored or tired of parochial Poland come to Warsaw...Read More

(1) Krakow (Cracow): the old capitol of Poland, the royal city, home of the oldest university in Poland, with brilliant art life, cafes, theatre, haunting old Jewish quarter (this is where the Schindler's List was filmed) and a visitable medieval salt mine in the vicinity (Wieliczka). If you are to visit one city in Poland, do this one. Auschwitz is often visited as a day trip from Krakow

(2) Warszawa (Warsaw): the current capital. It is an ugly, busy, dusty city in general but it has its moments (wonderfully restored old town, Royal Parks, Palace in Wilanow). On the other hand it is the political, business and cultural centre and if you are bored or tired of parochial Poland come to Warsaw and you get the buzz, the race, the snobbery, the expats, the multinational cuisine and fancy clubbing; the shows and all that.

(3) Poznan (Posen): Poland was created around area of Poznan and Gniezno and there are still abundant remains of ancient/early Polish history around there. Poznan is hard working, diligent, committed and interesting both for its people and for its architecture. Even more so places not to far away (Gniezno, Biskupin).

(4) Gdansk (Danzig): The most important port - also historically; in XVI-XVII century it used to be a real multicultural and multinational place with Flemish architecture, Scottish traders, English immigrants and so on; now uniformly Polish as everywhere but the spirit of the old is still there in the churches and civic architecture; in the narrow houses of the old town and in the old port quays. Oliwa (cathedral, gardens) and Sopot (a resort town next door) are also worth visiting.

(5) Czestochowa: Polish Lourdes, centre of pilgrimage and religious fervour for the whole country; Virgin Mary is the celebrated saint/deity. The spectacle is at its best in August but the town becomes unbearably crowded. The monastery complex is well worth visiting though at any time of the year for its historical and architectural qualities.

(6) Torun: a Gothic gem on the Vistula river, famous for architecture, Copernicus and gingerbread. Definitely worth visiting if you are in the north.
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The Great Polish Outdoors: Destination Suggestions

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Suwalszczyzna lakes Photo - Poland, Europe

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Poland is great for walking, hiking, climbing, mountaineering, sailing, canoeing, skiing. The following are the highlights of what the outdoor Poland has to offer.(1) The Baltic Coast: my personal favourite; with over 500 km of wide, sandy beach with squeaky, clean sand, often bordered by grassy dunes or/and pine forest. The sea is generally cold, except in the Bay of Gdansk and Bay of Szczecin. You can lie on the beach; get suntan; build sandcastles; eat fish and chips (always shallow-fried or grilled and always with salad); windsurf or even risk a swim.(2) The Lakes: there are two areas especially famous and with many lakes: Mazury (in the north-east) and Kaszuby (south-west ...Read More

Poland is great for walking, hiking, climbing, mountaineering, sailing, canoeing, skiing. The following are the highlights of what the outdoor Poland has to offer.

(1) The Baltic Coast: my personal favourite; with over 500 km of wide, sandy beach with squeaky, clean sand, often bordered by grassy dunes or/and pine forest. The sea is generally cold, except in the Bay of Gdansk and Bay of Szczecin. You can lie on the beach; get suntan; build sandcastles; eat fish and chips (always shallow-fried or grilled and always with salad); windsurf or even risk a swim.

(2) The Lakes: there are two areas especially famous and with many lakes: Mazury (in the north-east) and Kaszuby (south-west of Gdask). Kaszubian lakes are smaller and there is less of them, but they are still incredibly attractive for sailing, canoeing, swimming or just looking at. Surrounded by wooded, rolling hills; connected by rivers and streams - the whole area is a joy to explore and the local folklore, dialect and crafts add to the enjoyment. Mazury is one of the great holidaying places for Poles (sailing is better here as the lakes are much bigger) which I visited only very briefly so I cannot say much except that everybody who goes seems to fall in love with the region.

(3) The mountains. The southern border of Poland is formed by mountains, which include Carpathians in the east and centre - splitting into Bieszczady, Tatry, Pieniny and Beskidy ranges and Sudeten Mountains in the west.

*Bieszczady are the wildest, the most remote, the most magical. If you like Scottish mountains go there; the hiking is easier; there IS more people and there is more trees but the magic is there. And the bears.
*Tatry are the highest, Alpine range (most of it is actually in Slovakia) and although very crowded in the summer still provide some breathtaking scenery; trials from very easy to extremelly difficult and very nice local people.
*Pieniny are rather small buth worth mentioning for the Dunajec river gorge down which you can tak a raft and which is quite beautifull, especially when the autumn colours appear on the wooden slopes.
*Beskidy are wooded, rounded, wettish and gentle. Here you can find not-to-sternous walking; nice views once you get above the tree line and some good skiing in the winter.
*Sudety as opposed to the whole Carpathian range are old, and as such lower, more bare and plentifull in fascinating rock formations. I have not visited this area personally but I hope I will in the future.

(4) The forests: almost 30% of Poland is covered in forest, almost all of it state-owned, managed and open to exploration. The best parts are converted to nature reserves or national parks and the bestest of them all is without the doubt Puszcza Biaowieska (Biaowiea Wood) located in the north-eastern Poland and stretching to neighbouring countries. It is ancient, huge wood full of unique wildlife (lynx and bison amongst others) and an area protected by UNESCO for its outstanding values.

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Attractions (not covered elsewhere)

Hotels (not covered elsewhere)

Hotel 15 Południk

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Hotel | "Good stopover"

15 Poludnik Photo - Hotel 15 Południk, Osina, Poland

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We stayed at 15 Poludnik hotel for one night during our drive from Gdynia to Scotland, having found it simply at the roadside about an hour from the Polish-German border at Kolbaskowo west of Szczecin. We paid 160 PLN (about 40 Euro) for a five-bed room (doubles are 90 PLN which is approximately 25 Euro) and we had a small evening meal as well as breakfast at the hotel. The hotel is a fairly large, a bit rambling construction standing pretty much in the middle of nowhere among the fields of Western Pommerania. The exterior is unpromising and unexciting, white, red-roofed building. Inside, we entered the hotel via the restaurant and were led along a fairly complex set of the co...Read More

We stayed at 15 Poludnik hotel for one night during our drive from Gdynia to Scotland, having found it simply at the roadside about an hour from the Polish-German border at Kolbaskowo west of Szczecin.

We paid 160 PLN (about 40 Euro) for a five-bed room (doubles are 90 PLN which is approximately 25 Euro) and we had a small evening meal as well as breakfast at the hotel.

The hotel is a fairly large, a bit rambling construction standing pretty much in the middle of nowhere among the fields of Western Pommerania. The exterior is unpromising and unexciting, white, red-roofed building. Inside, we entered the hotel via the restaurant and were led along a fairly complex set of the corridors to our room on the ground floor to the back of the hotel.

The common areas of the hotel are quite attractive, with antique (or a mixture of antique and replica) furniture, from ornately carved wardrobes to pretty sofas to old globes, and so is the restaurant, with even something of an overkill of ornamentation that occasionally slides into kitsch.

The room was a little bit of a come-down after the common areas, mostly because it had, I suspect, originally a different use (possibly being a billiard room) and had some signs of unfinished refurbishment, for example in the yet uncovered electric wires above the door (not a hazard, just unsightly). The door was also rather flimsy (as is common in many Eastern European hotels) and the landscapes on the wall were unadulterated kitsch in pink, blue and emerald.

But overall the room was perfectly adequate and provided comfortable night's sleep. It was large, with a double bed and three singles (we only needed and used two) as well as a sofa, table and standard lamps. The windows had blackout blinds and the bathroom was nicely tiled, with a good shower-over-bath and plenty of hot water.

There were some small gripes that could be easily fixed and that often let down Eastern European establishments – for example some of the bedding was a little threadbare (clean, though) and a couple of light bulbs in lamps were faulty, but overall, the room was OK.

The food we ate that night was great – I regretted having eaten on the way and thus only ordering a relatively light supper, but I still remember the pork tenderloins with wild mushrooms, and the green beans in tomato sauce were so good we ordered another portion. Breakfast was a bit less exciting – I think fresh bread, rolls, croissants or other bakery goods are essential at breakfast and although everything else was good, this "yesterdays' bread only" hiccup spoiled it a bit.

We were very happy with our decision to spend a night still in Poland before the German border. I felt we got pretty good value for money in this motel (and our Younger Child who spent a lot of time in the small playpark there was even more convinced) and would recommend it for anybody needing a stop in the area. Read Less

Member Rating 3 out of 5 on November 18, 2011

Hotel 15 Południk
Kikorze 36
Osina, Poland
91 391 03 07

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Airports

Krakow-Balice Airport

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Krakow-Balice, although nothing special, is one of the nicer small airports in Poland. *Connections*There is a surprising number of airlines, flights and destinations that operate from Krakow. Germany, Italy and the UK are covered very well, and there are also flights to main towns in other European countries as well as intercontinental ones to New York and Chicago (large centre for a Polish community in the US) as well as TelAviv (presumably because of strong Jewish connections of Krakow as well as proximity of Auschwitz). In the British Isles, apart from London, you can fly to Krakow from Edinburgh, Glasgow, Manchester, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol and Dublin....Read More

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Gdansk Rebiechowo Airport

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Summary: a decent enough small airport struggling a bit with its increased workload, in a good location for northern Poland, quiet. The shopping and catering is very limited.*Gdansk Airport (officially named Lech Walesa Airport) is located in the village/suburb of Rebiechowo within about a half hour's minutes drive from most areas of Tri-City (many outlying suburbs will be closer, though).Public transport links are good to Gdansk itself, but much worse to Gdynia or Sopot. Licences taxis are widely available and would normally cost something in the region of 60PLN plus, but this vastly varies depending on where you actually going. The airport has served i...Read More

Summary: a decent enough small airport struggling a bit with its increased workload, in a good location for northern Poland, quiet. The shopping and catering is very limited.

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Gdansk Airport (officially named Lech Walesa Airport) is located in the village/suburb of Rebiechowo within about a half hour's minutes drive from most areas of Tri-City (many outlying suburbs will be closer, though).

Public transport links are good to Gdansk itself, but much worse to Gdynia or Sopot. Licences taxis are widely available and would normally cost something in the region of 60PLN plus, but this vastly varies depending on where you actually going.

The airport has served international flights (to Scandinavia and Germany) for years now, but has became much more busy in the recent years (and in particularly with an advent of cheap flights in the form of Ryanair and Wizzair)

In addition to several daily commuter-type flights to Warsaw, decent connections to Germany (including Frankfurt, Bremen, Hamburg and Munich, but strangely not Berlin) it has now connections to Rome, Alicante, Turku, and London, Birmingham, Doncaster, Liverpool and Prestwick in the UK as well as Dublin and Cork.

This increase in destinations has not really resulted in a visible increase in facilities. The terminal is new and tidy, but very small. There is one restaurant and three very limited bars/cafes, as well as a few standard shops (gift shop, very basic duty free, florist), but overall it's a minimal basic that would be required in any international terminal, especially as a lot of them don't operate at all times the terminal actually operates. There is no bookshop, nowhere to buy any clothes or similar items you might have forgotten, no chemist.

Other services are better represented, as there are all the usual car hire companies, post office, a bank and at least two cash points.

The last time I had a need for such, which was admittedly about four years ago, the airport had about the best mother & baby room I have seen: nicely decorated, with comfortable armchairs for the parents, cot, toys and changing table and even a divan for the parent to catch a bit of sleep. The last time I visited (late summer 2008) it still seemed to be there, but I did not check whether it has changed for worse or better.

The check-in always seemed reasonably efficient, although the queues can get slow early in the morning. On arrivals, the immigration control is always painfully slow. They have only two counters and if the plane is anywhere near full, there is always a queue - this is of course arriving from the UK. The arrival is likely to be much better when arriving on a Schengen flight, which doesn't involve immigration control.

All in all, a decent enough small airport struggling a bit with its increased workload. I always quite liked it as I don't like busy terminals, but don't expect usual large-airport diversions. Read Less

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