Transportation
Travelling by Train
Polish National Railways (Polskie Koleje Państwowe), in short way PKP, are in Poland state owned and divided across few separate companies supportin local or national and international transportation services.
By using PKP you may effortless travel across Poland between major cities however reaching small cities may be more complicated. Even though the Polish railways still require a major development as it sometimes not as fast as it could be - I can truly recommend to use, especially when traveling on major routes for destinations like Gdansk, Warsaw, Katowice, Krakow, Wroclaw etc.
By using the train you always get to the city centre and the travel is comfortable, especially in InterCity and Express trains. For simple fast trains (Pospieszny) it is better to get first class ticket, as there are no seat reservation, which is obligatory on InterCity and Express trains. Local train network is also convenient if you travel to city near your stay (up to 100Km), it is then much cheaper however the quality is worse. Often crowded during commuting hours when people go to or back from work.
Tickets are available on train stations. It may happen that you may not pay with credit card in small city, and well, be aware that some of the staff may not speak English and be little grumpy :) If you late you may buy them from conductor who wear uniform. Notify that person immediately after boarding to avoid any misunderstanding and fine (probably you will be ask to take any place and the ticket will be sold during the ticket control).
Train tickets are not very expensive, but still not the cheapest way of transportation in Poland (which coach is).
Time table, schedule and a lot of information can be found on
rozklad-pkp.pl
Travelling by Coach
The cheapest way of moving between cities in Poland. The only problem is that this, usually private companies are not joined in one network. On the other hand in almost every city there is a coach station that belongs to National Bus Transportation PKS (Państwowa Komunikacja Samochodowa), but when you enter that name to a search engine, you will end up with many local companies. Another thing is that some of coach use coach station, some don't, e.g some of buses start/stop from parking of Palace of Science and Cluture in Warsaw.
The best recommendation is to ask in hotel for useful information.
Travelling by Car
Roads in Poland used to be bad, and I would say nothing changed much. You may travel from Zgorzelec/Goerlitz to Krakow by motorway, or almost from Lodz to Poznan, but that is all. Check the map and you see your self. What you don't see on map is that there are a lot of roads with bad condition, most of them are with grooves made by heavy TIR cars. Bad roads make travelling long, and both makes the drivers mad. On the other hand, I would not say it is more stressful than driving in Italy or Greece, but still if you want to survive, don't try to overtake every car on the road in front of you.Speed cameras are quite often in Poland, and are not necessarily located where speed cause danger, but where it is more likely that speed limits are omitted. In Poland roads are big issue, as on one side there are not so many motorways and a lot of speed limits, and on the other side the drivers who think then know how fast they can go. That obviously cause a lot of the traffic rage, however it is a known fact that all speed limits are based on suitability for fully packed TIR lorry on rainy day at night. Also it makes Poles laugh when they hear that national safety road program is build on more and more speed-cameras not the kilometres of motorways.
Important to remember:
- Speed: cities 50kmh (30mph), main roads 90kmh (55mph), fast roads 110kmh (70mph), motorways 130 (80mph)
- alcohol limit: 0,2
- lights: always on
- equipment: fire extinguisher, first-aid kit, warning triangle, child seat (up to 12 years old)
- fines: a lot of speed-camera, especially in small cities located on main roads, Police with mobile speedometres, covered Police recording cars etc. may give you a fine from at about 200 - 500 PLN (60-120 Euro) if you brake the code.
- Petrol stations: quite a lot of petrol stations, that usually are modern, with small shop, toilet, tee & coffee etc. Usually are self-service, you load fuell, remember the number of distributor and pay. Credit cards are accepted everywhere.
Natinal Road Service website
Travelling by Plane
Although coming to Poland by plane is the best and the fastest way to arrive, using domestic airlines for travelling between cities inside the country may not be the cheapest nor fastest. Obviously when arriving to Poland by plane, using domestic airlines as a transfer to destination city (eg. London-Warsaw-Wroclaw) is convenient, but when we want travel from one city to another, we may be better off using train. Even though flight is quick the way to and from the airport, plus checking in procedures and possible delays, may take more then flight itself. However, getting from Gdansk - Wroclaw, or Szczecin to Rzeszow is faster than train or coach.
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