City where the Earth was moved

Few days ago I've visited Toruń. And I was truly amazed by it: because of its history, because of its architecture, because even if it's not very big, you can still feel that in past times this city was very powerful...

It's easy to reach Toruń by Polski Bus or by train (travelling time: 3-3,5 hours; tickets: 30-50 pln) from Warsaw or any other bigger city. It's a perfect place to spend a weekend (or few days more). I have checked-in at Green Hostel, located in the Old Town area (Małe Garbary street no.10). It's worth recommending mostly because of the view from the rooms on the upper floors.

I was going to spend a weekend in Toruń so I hadn't got much time to explore the city. But it turned out that 2-3 days is surely enough to sightsee Toruń with no rush and, what's the most important, feel the ambient of the city. What to begin from? From the Old Town, of course. But actually, whole Toruń is one big Old town.... It was founded in the 13th century and the oldest, sightseeing part of the city is on the right side of Vistula River. What you should expect is that you will certainly overdose gothic style and architecture. Toruń was once a great and rich city: you'll meet enormous gothic churches, towers, tenement houses (mostly gothic, yes) and monuments. Everything put together makes wonderful urban jungle made of red bricks. Below, you'll find a "Things to do list" for you to make your travel plans easier. In other posts I'll write some more details about each place of interest.

• the New Town Square (in the XIII century it was the centre of the independent city called New Town Toruń) with an old lady who is a little clumsy
• the Old Town Square where you can feel the (almost ancient) power of the city. And you can actually see it from the top of the 40 m high tower
• meet Nicolas Copernicus at the Old Town Square and pay him a visit in his house
• visit the Artus Court and make sure that you have seen the most beautiful tenement house in Toruń
• have a ride on a donkey and make your wish come true by touching the golden frog
• feel like in Piza and check how is the tower in Toruń crooked
• visit Planetarium
• bake your own gingerbread in the Museum of Gingerbread
• enjoy gothic architecture at so many churches as you can handle
• see one of the most breathtaking panoramas in Poland
• eat unique "pierogi" in "Pierogarnia Stary Młyn" (the best I have ever tried!!!), especially those filled with gingerbread

Scrunch up this city!

I was walking around Toruń and entered the bookstore located beside the Centre of the Contemporary Art. Apart from loads of books about art & design you can find original souvenirs like bags, traditional recipes for Toruń's famous gingerbread etc. And you can also buy a funny map that is made of soft material, that you can crumple, that won't get damaged, that is 100% waterproof and very useful. There is a small bag sold together with a map to keep the map crumpled inside. It costs around 40 pln (you can buy it here or on the website) and from Polish cities you can choose Warsaw, Cracow and Tricity. I can totally recommend this gadget, cause the maps are clear and they include helpful notes about the most interesting points in the city you sightsee.

Cracow & Warsaw are the cheapest

The European Backpacker Index for 2013 is here! And it shows where to go to avoid losing all your savings. The authors of the Index have good news for travellers: many hostels or budget hotels have actually gotten a bit cheaper since comparing to 2012.

The cheapest group of cities are bunched together in price, and almost all of them are bunched together geographically in southeastern Europe as well. Krakow continues to feel like the best travel bargain on the Continent, as a charming city where prices almost seem too low, but if you head south you’ll find things to be even a bit cheaper, with longer fair-weather seasons to go along with them.

According to the list, Krakow is 3rd cheapest city in Europe and Warsaw is on 9th place. In Krakow you'll spend only 25 dollars a day and in Warsaw you need approximately 15 dollars more. Drinks, entertainment and attractions included. See the Index here: http://www.priceoftravel.com/1979/european-backpacker-index/

       

Poland by bus

If you are looking for a cheap transport around Poland (and to some cities in Europe) meet Polski Bus. It has appeared in Poland over a year ago and it has immediately gained popularity. Reasons? 1) It's very cheap: price of a single ticket costs you even 1 pln if you make a booking soon enough. 2) There's no need to go to the station, you can buy your ticket through the website (which is often not so easy in Poland) 3) It's comfy, quick and reliable (I have checked it by myself :).

Visit their website to check the timetables: http://www.polskibus.com/en

Places you can travel by Polski Bus

Something about Łódź

It is often said that Łódź is an uglier sister of Warsaw. I can agree that they are related somehow, but I'd never say that Łódź is the ugly one. Even if it's only 135 km (84 mi) away from Warsaw, it is far different from the capital of Poland - and this is what makes her worth sightseeing.

Łodź has left her brightest times in the past - it used to be one of the biggest manufacture centres in Poland. Giant factories were everywhere, not much of them have survived. Łódź was focused on the textile industry, it was even called a 'Polish Manchester'. By the time right before the World War I Łódź had become one of the most densely populated industrial cities in the world! The textile industry declined dramatically in 1990 and 1991. However, countless small companies still provide a significant output of textiles and old factories are being turned into galleries, cinemas, theatres and culture centres. The alternative culture is growing there very quickly - you can observe it on the streets, on the walls of buildings, in cafes and pubs... everywhere.
During the World War II, Łódź was captured by Germans. Soon the Nazi authorities set up the Łódź Ghetto in the city and populated it with more than 200,000 Jews from the Łódź area (approximately 900 people survived the liquidation of the ghetto in August 1944).

These days, history is still alive in Łódź. There are many beautiful old buildings, especially tenement houses still waiting to be renovated. They seem to be ruined, but they still have something eye-catching. So, what Łódź has to offer? 
Piotrkowska street:  is the main artery and attraction stretching north to south for a little over 5 km, making it (one of) the longest commercial streets in the world. A few of the building fronts have been renovated and date back to the 19th century.
Łagiewniki: you can get close to nature in this largest city park in Europe. Actually, you can say that it is an urban forest! You can ride a bike there, rent a paddleboat, sightsee old chapels and enjoy the nature.
The 'Poznański' Palace: is known as a Louvre in Łódź and it became a City of Łódź History Museum with many events taking place there.
Manufaktura: it used to be a giant factory, right now it is a multicultural centre of spending free time in shops, restaurants, clubs, cinema and museum.
M2: it is a museum of Polish contemporary art. It has got a wide collection of Polish most important avantgarde artists. There are plenty of museums and galleries in Łódź!
Film School: Łódź is also a national film centre. It has got the most famous film school in Poland. Scenes of David Lynch's 2006 film 'Inland Empire' were shot in Łódź :)

Check out a great map of Łódź here: http://www.use-it-lodz.pl/

And finally, how to get there? Very simple! There are plenty of trains going from Warsaw Central Station. All journey by train takes only 2 hours. Check the timetible here: http://test2012.rozklad-pkp.pl/bin/query.exe/en?

All the details are important in Łódź

'Wolności' Square (the Square of Freedom)

Buildings of Łódź

Giant mural next to the Piotrkowska street

The details of Manufaktura

Cafe 'Wolność' ('Freedom' cafe)

Desert in Poland

For those who didn’t know – yes, we’ve got a desert in Poland! It’s located in the north of Poland, between Rowy and Łeba -  two little seaside towns. The towns are very picturesque and peaceful, but don’t visit them in high season, otherwise the only thing you’ll see will be the crowd of tourists. 

The desert is very unusual, cause it consists of the ‘moving dunes’. As waves and wind carry sand inland, the dunes slowly move, at a speed of 3 to 10 meters per year. Some dunes are quite high - up to 30 meters. The ‘moving dunes’ are regarded as a curiosity of nature on a European scale! To see it with your own eyes, go for a trip to Słowiński National Park. The highest peak of the Park – Rowokol (115 meters above sea level) – is also an excellent observation point :) You'll see not onlu the biggest amount of sand ever, but also Łebsko lake, which surrounds the dunes from the southern side. 

What else? In the park you can sightsee the original German airborne rocket launcher from II World War; the old Kashebian village named Kluki... And after all this - take a long sunbath at the sandy beaches of the Baltic Sea coast :)

How to get there?
By bus: Take POLSKI BUS to Gdańsk. Then catch a train to Lębork. From Lębork, there are buses to Łeba (5 pln, all day long). This is a very good connection all year long.
By train: There are trains both to Łeba and Lębork. Most of thyem are during the night. However, many of them are only during the high season. When you travel different time than summer - check your train on www.pkp.pl.

Click here to read some more and check out a map of the area

The moving dunes in Słowiński National Park
fot. M. Danielak

Beautiful, isn't it?
fot. M. Danielak

Beach in Łeba

Off to Cracow!

Yeah! I've got a day off and I've decided to go to Cracow for a little bit of sightseeing, a little bit of good food and coffee. I'm taking a 9.30 am train from Warszawa Zachodnia station (but you can go also from Warszawa Centralna station) and I'll be in Cracow at 12 o'clock. That'll give me all day of walking, eating and relaxing :) In the evening I'm going back to Warsaw.

How to make a trip like that (and better ones)? Check the train timetable on the Polish Railway's website.

Somewhere in Poland (2) - 843 km of beaches

I like the sea with it's faraway horizon, but I rarely go to the seaside, and never in the summer. I simply do not like this holiday atmosphere - noisy crowds, fastfoods, kitsch souvenirs and smell of fried fish. I'm looking for places when I can contemplate the horizon without seeing it through someone's deckchair. Poland has 843 kilometers of coast line, so it's still possible to find such place. Recently I've camped on a high cliff, 10 km east of Ustka. Wild camping is officially not allowed in Poland but (not officially) it's tolerated (except for national parks), finding a place for tent it's very easy in comparison to Western Europe.

See this place on google maps.

Othere places somewhere in Poland:
Somewhere in Poland - my favourite bridge
Somewhere in Poland (3) -  The Far East
Somewhere in Poland (4) - Water way to the border

Bus connections in Poland

There are a lot of bus connections in Poland - train won't take you anywhere. Because buses are operated by different companies, it's not so easy to plan a journey. So far it was not so easy even for me - usually I had to browse a lot of web pages (in Polish) and make some phone calls to find a connection.
Finally portal e-podroznik introduced a search engine, that allows to find a connection from one place to another, even in case when you have to change a bus and bus operator. What's also important it has also user interface in English. I hope i will be helpful. The timetable covers connections operated by differend branches of PKS (our national operator) and some independent local operators.

rozkład jazdy PKS i BUSY delivered by e-podroznik.pl

Somewhere in Poland - My Favourite Bridge

My favorite bridge is in Tykocin. It's over the Narew River. Steel construction perfectly composes with the road and the white church in the background. In comparison to other truss bridges, this one is significantly lower and does not dominate the foreground. It looks perfectly in the early evening, lighten by warm sunlight.

Tykocin itself is a very good place to stop for a day or two. It's known as a place worth to visit, but there are no crowds. People stop here only for a walk, take some pictures and carry on they journey. In the evening the place completely regains his eastern atmosphere. This town has a perfect balance between doing ant not-doing.
You can go for a walk along cobble streets. You can take some good pictures of wooden architecture. You can visit old synagogue, old jewish cemetery. Or you can sit on the main square and observe as the time passes slowly. The area around the city is worth mentioning too. It's surrounded by endless meadows with labyrinth of roads perfect for cycling, walking and horse riding. Birds and birdwatchers often meet here. It's enough to rise one's head to see a stork nest. Two national parks (Biebrza River NP and Narew River NP) are within one hour drive distance.

How to get: By car (170 km / 3 hours drive from Warsaw). By train / bus: Train to Bialystok, then bus to Tykocin.
See
Tykocin on the Google Maps

Other places somewhere in Poland:
Somewhere in Poland (2) - 843 km of beaches 
Somewhere in Poland (3) -  The Far East
Somewhere in Poland (4) - Water way to the border

Cheap trip

On my last credit card transactions report, I've take a look to some expenses from my last trip to Germany, and I've noticed that for Berliners making a trip to Warsaw is cheaper than visiting an aunt in Dresden! Just example: Train Berlin - Dresden: 42 EUR, Train Berlin - Warsaw: 35 EUR! So, Herzlich Wilkommen!

No roads means BEST ROADS!

I love cycling. And I love cycling in Poland. Why? Because we have almost no bicycle roads ! Sounds strange ? Maybe...but
bicycle roads lead to the places, that someone have visited, checked and found interesting. It's like someone
has planned your trip, without giving you a chance to do it on your own. I don't want do make someone else's trips.
Instead of well marked bicycle roads we have inifinite amount of roads and paths that go through forests, fields, meadows.
You are allowed to use it. Most fields and forests are not fenced. The only thing you need is a good map, a compass and the will to explore. And a bike of course.
Below there are some pictures from my trip I made last Sunday. After leaving Warsaw with one of the local trains we spent wonderfull 60 km cycling through the fields, villages, meadows, forests and orchards. Would you like to try? In my hostel you can rent a trekkig bike with 18 gears if you don't have your own - and then ... explore, explore, explore...
If you are planning cycling trip to Poland, please DO NOT USE GENERAL MAPS FOR DRIVERS (it's, what I can see, most bikers have:-( )! They won't lead you to the places shown in my photos.

In a train

Intercity train from Berlin to Warsaw. A young girl enters our compartment, when she realizes that it's not her train it's to late. She starts to cry. She has no money for extra tickets.
Ticket inpector has no idea how to help her. He has no timetable, no terminal to check the schedule. Someone in the compartment takes his netbook, connects to the internet via gsm network and finds solution. Ticket inspector allows her to travel wihout valid ticket for the next 150 kilometers. He has no technical possibility to help her, but his feelings and tears of the girl seem to more important to him than company procedures.