Poland and the Czech Republic - ongoing report!
 

This will be my ongoing report from a six and a half week trip that includes Poland and the Czech republic, not the same financial spend as many trips on this site, but hopefully it won't miss anything out. I will try and update when possible ( when I find free internet and time) and will either edit this post or add to the thread. All written on an iPod so apologies for all spelling errors.

Feel free to suggest places to visit as I go along, I will post my next destination where possible.

Day 1: eTap hotel and getting ready to leave.
Well, usual last minute arrangements taking place, mainly revolving around which towel to take. Beyond that all is ready for the off, I am taking two bags, a 65lL karimor rucksack that is comfortable (always the priority) and a small day bag that can carry the essentials ( water....'vodka'). My daybag is virtually empty right now, but will soon fill up. My technological assortment for this trip is a phone ( atleast 5 years old) which has a value equal to it's credit. Also I have an old camera, it's digital, but he close up quality is low and it's mediocre at other distances, useful for not worrying to much about as it only cost £50 Inc the memory card. Finally my IPod touch - good for skype, email and the Internet. A perfect setup - cheap and functional, or at least that is the idea. As fir where I am going - Poland and the Czech Republic!! With a one month interrail pass for each and a spare month and a half it means I can travel round and see the sights whilst relaxing along the way.

Time to go!! 

Interestingly, my first stop is at the eTap hotel by Birmingham airport, at only £19 for the night, I cant complain - especially as there are clean towels and linen which is nice, it's a snug room; though it is larger than some more expensive ones that I have stayed in ( * cough*holiday inn*cough*) . All in all a nice enough place, thin Walls though, one of them even tried to attack me earlier....

The only major dilemma is whether to take a pair of Astros abroad to trog around in, comfortable enough, but by God do they smell... They never did quite recover from a trip to an Irish bog.

On that note, it's six hours until i need to be up for my flight which leaves for Gdansk at 6:50am so it's  time to get some sleep.

Day 2 morning: early, a quarter to six, currently sitting in departures, it took a good  2 hours to get to sleep, didn't help the mattress was like a rock on top of a wooden board.

Apart from that, my bag is in large luggage, ( uho ) guess my bag is getting a one way trip to alacante then. It only weighed 10.1kg which is nice, i am now perfecting the traveller look of a backpack on my back and a rucksack on my front. Also the flight looks to be around two third polish, one third British, and VERY full, ah well, guess I will have to queue up early. In other news, birmingham international is different... Now you have to walk through the duty free shop to get to departures, though a pret sandwich at 5am is always nice. Though I am to early for the daily telegraph, which means no free water! So I had to buy a bottle, spent about £5 this morning, though it's worth it not to be feeling dead for the next 16 hours.

Hopefully I should be in Gdansk around 11am. With my bag.

Day 2: afternoon

I managed to get from the airport to the city centre without a hitch ( or speaking a word of Polish ). Finally found my hostel, was a minor problem as it isn't actually on the tourist map. Nevertheless, it has memory foam mattresses! need I say more?

Decided to hire a bike for the day - which only cost £6. it really is good value out here. I ended up cycling 10km down a convoluted route and reached the beach having set out to go to the wisloujscie fortress. Unfortunately  I turned to early and ended up  a ferry  to Nowy Port. Then I ended up on a beach.... Oops. Minor annoyance as when I was on the ferry I could see the fortress floating past... I bought an ice cream, hot dog and drink for 14 PLN ( around £3.50) on the beach.

Maybe history can wait till tomorrow...

 I then had a nice veggie meal that was mega cheap from the Bioway Bar, it consisted of what looked like carrot/mushroom soup, two rolls that had the consistency of heavy scones and some raisin ice cream plus a strawberry juice that was proper juice - with the strawberries left in the glass. All that for 13PLN (£3 approx). I now intend to catch up on sleep for a while.

Day 3:
I started the day with a visit to the indoor market, where i topped up on water then meandered towards the centre of town, having forgot my map I was just walking to see what I could find, I first saw the golden gate and then the museum of Amber practically next door, or more aptly the museum of jewellery and torture as i found out when it wen round. It was a mix of jewellery and fossils in Amber and then a trip through 15th and 16th century torture techniques half way through. Odd... Also it was absolutely boiling inside, plus i accidentally bought sparkling water earlier in the day, gahhh!!! I then visited a supermarket, the commercial shops in Gdansk are interesting in that they are often located in clusters inside old renovated buildings, as with the indoor markets. Plus, on a slightly different note, it would seem that even supermarkets do not carry much change, I got an astonished look when paying for 7 PLN of goods with a 50 PLN note.

At this point I had to have a break from the sun - and ended up spending two hours in the maritime museum, eventually losing interest at 1928 (with the exhibition charting trade from the 14th century). From here it was on to a church where tourists were discouraged - so obviously the place was packed with snap happy tourists. ( it was called something like Nicholas church, I'm not too sure). After a stop at subway for a drink it was time to meander back to the hostel and consider places to get a meal.

At this point I decided, based upon my previous positive experience with the vegetarian food in Gdansk to proactively hunt down the other vegetarian joint. At 1.5 km away it was a gamble ( having already walked around 15+ km today it was more a painful slog), yet I can honestly say that the meal I had there was worth it and brilliant. As I arrived only about a quarter of an hour before closing there was only an option of three dishes, I chose a Mexican dish that I hadn't heard of before - even though they had an English translation of what it was, I guess that is more a sign of my lack of Mexican dining experience than anything else. Needless to say, as this is poland, the massive pile of food plus a drink only cost 15PLN (under £4). Can't argue with that. I have spent under £30 today including my bed for the night, one sit down meal and visits to two museums amongst other things.

Upon returning to the hostel in find that I have the room to myself for the night ( I guess that even though Gdansk is bustling with visitors it is still a week or two before prime tourist time). Hopefully tomorrow I will manage to get to Malbork Castle as the weather is supposed to be raining... Plus I still need to find a milk bar!

Day 4: Malbork and more veggie food. (plus "I don't speak Polish", the story of the drunken pole)

Ok so the starting aim was to make it to Malbork Castle for about 11am, unfortunately ( or fortunately in reality) I woke up around nine and ended up having an extended breakfast that included a long conversation with two other travellers, at the end of which we all walked to the train station and went our separate ways, at which point it was around 12pm, and starting to rain for the first time since I arrived in Poland.

For anyone who has not used the polish train system before - it's complicated. I only got the hang of it because I had it explained to me, before the parting of ways. I Then found myself with a 25 minute wait for the train. This was to be the first time that I used my interrail pass - mainly as I needed an extra day travel to use up all my days.

At this point I would like to quickly mention that Polish train stations really are quite forlorn affairs, cold war era-esque I would say.

Now onto the aforementioned story. Having half an hour to wait for a train can be good, bad, or some indescribable point in-between. This was one of the latter. Having found myself a nice seat on a bench I  then found myself having a wonderful conversation with an old Polish fellow. Only one problem, I don't speak polish and he didn't speak English. This resulted in him talking rapidly to me, and realising that I could not understand, he merely repeated himself over and over. This was much to the amusement of the surrounding passengers, of whom a number spoke English, but didn't want to put me out of my misery to soon. I found out the the first ten minutes were spent asking where I had bought my interrail pass. Once we got beyond this point, he decided to get his phone out, ring a number and proceed to pass the phone to me! Well, I'm sure you can imagine the conversation. After this debacle he proceeded to show me an old police identification card. After a while a lady informed me that he had been telling me about his son who worked in customs in England, and that is who I had been talking to on the phone, I was also informed that he seemed to be drunk. I never had a clue. Finally (15 minutes late) the train arrived.

Malbork can be described in one word. Disappointing. Imagine the archetypal British brick building, scale it up, add some circular towers and fancy metalwork and there you have it - Malbork castle. All you need to do now is add some new brickwork to replace the old stuff and you are sorted. May be better off at Warwick Castle instead. Plus Malbork Castle entrance cost 39PLN!! On the plus side I bought a milkshake at Mcdonalds on the way back to the station!

Got back to Gdansk at around half five. Back to Greenway for another meal ( can't have to much of a good thing ). Back the hostel for six. Looks like I have the room to myself again. Apparently there is a outdoor street festival thing today, looks like that is my evening sorted.

1 more day left in Gdansk, then onwards to Torun for a few days,  on that note, this thread is now up to date!

Good report. I plan to follow you through your journey. thanks for sharing.

Good report. I plan to follow you through your journey. thanks for sharing.

I'll shortly be taking some Polish trains and wondered about the difference between first and second class. Someone advised my travel companion to always buy first class tickets. We'll be taking journeys between three and five hours. What are your thoughts on this. We're on a budget but not so strict that we couldn't pay a bit more for first class.

I'm glad to hear your thoughts on Malbork. I was semi regretting not getting to that area of Poland but I don't think I can go into one more European castle.

Day 5 - relaxing and getting ready to leave

I decided to visit the road to freedom exhibition this morning, the most interesting place so far, if you are into cold-war era history then I recommend it. Certainly scared some people when I knocked down the countries that freed themselves from communism ( hard to explain)

Rest of the day is spent meandering around Gdansk which really is a beautiful city. Rough on the edges maybe, but perhaps they might knock some of the old buildings down in time for Euro 2012.

Back to bioway for a mid afternoon lunch. Carrot soup again, with a strawberry drink. Then a proper strawberry milkshake and a muffin. excess at it's best, but somehow the two veggie places in gdansk just get it spot on. At under £4 for the above meal, it's worth a visit if you are ever in gdansk.

I should add that the evening is spent more looking at things to do in Torun than anything in Gdansk, simply because there isn't a lot left to do in Gdansk after three days sightseeing. Oh and interestingly, murphy's is actually cheaper in Poland than in Ireland! £3.50 vs just under £3.

Day 6: arriving in torun plus am I there yet?

This day consisted mostly of catching a very early train to Torun and then sleeping for much of the afternoon.

The train ride was as usual, disorganised, I really don't get the lack of signposts. Twice I almost got off at the wrong stop. Once it was only asking a conductor that stopped me. As for the condition of second class, there is a substantial difference between the Gdansk-Malbork train and the Gdansk- Torun train in that the Lublin train ( that stopped at Malbork) was mostly standing only with a few seats, whilst the Torun train ( that went to the capital) was individual compartments. The toilets were unusable in second class on the torun train, and not because they were locked! Whilst there were none on the Malbork train that i could see. Based on this I would say that first class probably isn't worth it on a train with compartments, unless you need the toilet, and if the train is mildly empty. However, I can imagine it would not be so nice on a full train! 

Certainly on the local trains, I'm not sure where first class is, but sure would be nice to sit down and have access to a toilet if you are spending a few hours on it.

Also, when you reach Torun, the station is south on any map you get, so you should find yourself heading north to the old town, if you walk it, it's a fair distance, and the bridge you cross seems endless. But it's a fairly nice walk.

I actually found time to visit the church where corpernicus was baptised in torun, climbed the tower having paid the compulsory "donation", and got a good view out over Torun.

Rest of the afternoon spent sleeping, then beer, pizza and ice cream with some Swedes.

Very nice report! You'll certainly have a number of people following you as you travel through Poland and the Czech Republic.

If it's not too much to add - could you also post the name of the places you stay in and give a short critique - clean/not, easy to find/not, friendly/not, etc?

Some of us will be reading your report, but also gathering information for our own trips. Your input will be invaluable.

Keep up the good work! Looking forward to more!

Enjoying your report. We visited these countries last year and had a fabulous trip.

Easytraveler - sure. They will all be hostels as I am travellIng cheap. however most have private rooms as well. The first place that I stayed in was the Old Town Hostel in Gdansk (I pretty much covered the eTap in day 1).

It's location was good

Sorry, that got cut off half way:

Location was good, once you got there. From the train station a bit of a Distance, 6 stops on a tram. 10 min walk from centre once you arrive. Right on the edge of ' nice Gdansk ', wouldn't go a street further unless you have to.

Reception is 24 hour, at night they even have a guy sleeping on the sofa in case someone arrives. They are helpful and have cheap bike hire (25 PLN per day). Also various guide books you can borrow.

Rooms are large, wooden bunks, clean toilets though they should change linens (towels) more often.

The kitchen is well equip, they have a fridge, microwave, hob, freezer. Milk in Poland doesn't taste nice, but that isn't the hostels fault.

People chat around the kitchen a fair bit, so it is easy to meet people. 

Security is mixed, the hostel is secure but the lockers can only fit a day bag. In my current hostel, I am sitting on the locker its that large and solid.

Overall good price, but i would like to try the ' happy seven ' which is located next to the Hilton and has a bar downstairs!

( if you are wondering why I am in the hostel at 5, It's because I needed a break from the sun for a few minutes very hot right now)

Alex: thanks so much for the detailed input!

Hostels are perfectly fine places to stay and one usually has a lot more interesting interactions with other travelers than in a standard impersonal hotel. Certainly beats staying in a private room and having to converse with oneself or with the TV. :)

Thanks again! Will be tracking your adventures online.

Another follower here - and looking forward to spending the next few weeks with you!

Glad people are enjoying reading :) if there are ever bits you want to hear about/ think I should see then just say. I realise I am concise in describing some areas, that is just to make the report less of an effort to read.

Day 7: wash my clothes! And planetarium.

I decided that it would be a good day to wash some clothes, especially as I now have no clean clothes (I brought exactly 7 sets). So I checked google maps and set off - it was 2.6 km away. Needless to say I got there and found that not only was it not open but also that it wasn't even a launderette. Certainly a waste of a long walk.

This is a good point to mention some general rules of travelling that I had been letting slip. Firstly, always carry water! I decided I wouldn't need it, half way to the non existent launderette and I had to stop at a petrol station for a silly expense. Secondly, Poland is a hot country, but the wind diminishes the heat you feel, so don't forget the sun lotion, it took half an hour for my forehead to begin to (re)burn. Thirdly, remember the sugar, I realised I hadn't had any sugar in the past 24 hours, except ice cream if that counts, and had to pop into Tesco for a banana and some raspberries. Those are my tips for the day :)

Back to greenway for soup, i feel justified in eating here again, simply because the soup and drinks are so good. Plus it goes towards my five a day! I will have to find another haunt soon, still need to visit a milk bar.

A visit to tourist information told me there was a launderette, but it wasn't open on a Sunday, needless to say, it could only be located in one place. Namely where I had walked to earlier in the day. 2.6km away. Well, at least now I know the way.

After lunch I headed to the planetarium for the two o'clock programme, with a thought towards spending a few hours here. At 14PLN a programme (40 min) it wasn't too expensive. Ended up just watching one programme, enjoyed it and would say that it is worth a visit, though the English is a little loud, otherwise I would have ended up sleeping!

After this I visited the leaning tower (well... It's title is questionable, and it isn't spectacular in any way). Worth a two minute gander though.

I'm coming to realise that though  Poland is not perhaps a prime international tourist location, many Poles take holidays in Poland and thereby all main areas seem to be thronged (maybe not a word...) I guess this can only get worse in Warsaw and Krakow.

Evening saw me wandering around Torun, it has only a small old town, so the tourist areas are compact. Easy to reach but not great for wandering. I kept having to turn around as I reached modern house blocks.

When in Torun I suggest that you visit the gingerbread shop, it is near the town hall ( in the square ). I bought some 'Torunskie Pierniki' and have to will myself not to demolish them all now ( sugar coated, soft scrumptious gingerbread biscuits).

Evening meal was takeaway pizza on the river bank. They have a nice area Around the boats where there is a grass bank around a 5 min walk from the town hall.

Day 8: getting ready to leave and no rest for me.

Start the day at 9am with no clean clothes and a 5.5 km walk ahead. I guess the first issue was easily solved, as I am travelling no one will mind me wearing the same clothes twice.. Nothing for it but to walk the morning away. I can't deny it was a bit boring, this time Tesco's had disappeared, I looked for it, but alas, it had gone ( I got fruit here yesterday ). 

Lunch at the 'cat with the tin hat', at least I think that's it's name, normal fast food... Chicken breast that had probably not seen daylight for a few days plus some pretty nasty cucumber in a herb sauce. Should have opted for a soup....

Afternoon spent with a book on the banks of the river Vistula, back in the 20's degree wise. Also... The gingerbread is gone, I ate it... All. :(

In the evening I picked up a copy of the weekly guardian for around £2.20. Nice to see the rest of the world hasn't stopped yet. Accosted by another drunk pole ( I say accosted, I just talked gibberish for 30 seconds and he went away ) I wonder whether they are attracted to me...

Time to pack now!

Thoughts on Torun, well good for a weekend break, just not at the weekend, there's not  a lot to do, apart from the planetarium, and town hall museum/tower. It's nice to just chill with a book for a few hours. At the weekend it seems all the young party animals emerge with the girls dressed up and the place becomes hectic. During the week it seems much quieter.

Interesting report. I'll be looking forward to your material on the Czech Republic. We'll be there in mid August, possibly bump into you. Intend to go to Brno, Mikulov, Valtice, Moravsky Krumlov, Cesky Krumlov and Karlovy Vary and surrounds.