Travel / Upside Down House in Kaszuby, Poland [8]

I visited this house only two months ago in Kaszuby. In fact, I posted one of my pics in the photos section of this forum but it didn't receive much attention

URL

The upside down house wasn't built purely as a tourist attraction. It's actually a clever piece of marketing for a company called Danmar who specialise in the construction of timber frame houses. They've created a "showhouse village" showing different examples of the type of houses they can build.

The "village" has become a tourist attraction it it's own right and is a nice way to spend a couple of hours. They have guides who show you round the place for a small fee. The "village" also contains a timber hall that houses the longest single natural plank of wood in the world (apparently it's in the Guiness Book of World Records). It tends to be used nowadays for large parties and dinners.

As for the upside down house it's a very weird experience. While you're waiting to go inside it's great fun watching people staggering around inside. Once inside you understand why as the place makes you feel like you are drunk. Just walking to the back of the house takes a great deal of concentration and completely messes with your balance !!!

Going upstairs is even more fun !

Well worth a visit !!

Real Estate / Advice on what Polish city to invest in.... [101]

central or in the suburbs ?

News / Polish religious pilgrims crashed coming back from a pilgrimage [62]

Recent Polish coach crash in France

I've lifted this from another forum. What are people's views of the author's comments ?

"The driver should not have been using the road. Simple

The building should have been inspected properly so the roof wouldn't have collapsed under the weight of snow.

Ooops sorry wrong story but still a person 'getting round' the law. Oh how Polish

Very sad that again a person not abiding by the law gets lots of people killed.
Tragic yes, Driver killed in the crash, he got off too easy. Jesus Christ is YOU NEED ELECTRONIC BRAKES TO USE THIS ROAD too hard to understand?

National mourning Poles should be ashamed of their crap law breaking drivers, I am just pleased there were no innocent passers by killed, i feel sorrow for the pasengers and families.

The driver broke the law, simple. The roof was not checked, bribes were paid. same problem. The law is the law if you are Polish or not. Times have changed, poles shouldn't need to 'wangle, con, avoid rules, Ignore the law' any more.

National mourning or national embarassment?"

Travel / vacation in Krakow, where 2 go out? [12]

It's true. Everyone IS talking about Krakow but that's not a bad thing. Most Westerners have a very poor image of Poland even though they have never visited so Krakow is a perfect introduction to shatter people's misconceptions about Poland.

After their first visit then hopefully they'll be more encouraged to explore more of the country.

Travel / Masurian Lakes from Gdansk [3]

You should be able to make it in 1-2 hrs by car. The Masurian Lake District is a large area so it depends how far you want to venture in it.

The Kaszubian Lake District is about 1-1.5 hrs drive from Gdansk in the opposite direction and is also worth seeing.

Travel / Flight from Poland to Ireland - end of July [8]

I've noticed some of the "cheap" airlines are not particularly cheap.

I was looking for a flight for a friend some months ago from Gdansk to Liverpool and they were quoting over £ 200.

Wizz Air also have an annoying habit of advertising cheap flight promotions on their website "on selected flights and dates" and then not advertising exactly which flight or which date. Therefore you have to browse through thousands of combinations to try and find one of their promotion offers.

UK, Ireland / Manchester - Question - living standard for Polish migrants. [29]

I live 20 mins from Manchester and can only reaffirm what others have said. The North West has a large Polish community and Poles have easily integrated into the community.

You will have no problems.

Travel / Holidays in Leba, Poland [12]

curious007,

When you come back please can you post some pics of Leba as I'm very curious as to what it's like ?

Thanks :)

UK, Ireland / Anybody knows how to watch Polish channels in UK? [36]


Apologies for trying to help........lesson learnt.

Work / Real average gross wage and salary in Poland vs Real Estate Situation [11]

I expect Odessa will also take off

Travel / Polish Airports and Air industry are pathetic [32]

I agree with clunkshift. If I had to choose between an airport the size of Manchester and Gatwick or Liverpool and Gdansk then I'd choose the latter every time.

I find it less stressful being able to park my car directly in front of the terminal building rather than getting lost in one of the enormous multi storey car parks that the larger airports offer.

Check in is straight forward and a few steps away and I'm at passport control and then the departure lounge....easy peasy lemon squeezy.

I agree the airports can be overcrowded at times but this is more down to the massive increase in the number of Poles flying rather than poor airport design. As someone said before Poland will gradually improve it's airports it just takes time.

Comparing Polish airports to Frankfurt airport is like comparing apples and pears. Frankfurt is one of the world's major airport hubs !

UK, Ireland / Anybody knows how to watch Polish channels in UK? [36]

you're welcome

UK, Ireland / Anybody knows how to watch Polish channels in UK? [36]

Hi Malwa,

Instead of Yellow Pages look in your local papers in the trade ads. There must be some local companies who do satellite installations.

There are two (maybe 3) ways to receive Polish channels in the UK.

1/ Buy a Polsat decoder box in Poland. You can also but the dish there but it might be easier to simply buy the box in Poland and the dish over here. You will need to be a Polish resident to subscribe to their service but I got my friend to do it for me and I pay them the annual subscription when I see them each summer. For this you get 30-40 Polish channels of which only about 7 are worth watching. I pay around £ 7 a month

2/ Buy a "Free to air" decoder box and dish over here. Once you've paid for the hardware then it's free to watch any channels it receives. You can get Polish channels on Free to Air but the selection was limited when I had it. I could only get around 5 Polish channels and every so often the frequency would change for them which meant having to scan the network to try and find them on their new frequency.

3/ Buy a decoder box and a pirate card-think it might be called a Dragon card.

Real Estate / Buying new buildings in Poland and price I was given [42]

Fiona,

I'd like to know more please.

Can you email me ? Click on my profile for my email address.


Good post Most however I feel the property market and stock market aren't always fuelled by logic.

House prices in the UK should have stopped rising a few years back based on logic. Young people on good wages simply can't afford to get on the property ladder.

Poland still has some way to go I believe. Logic dictates that Warsaw and Krakow should see a slow down in prices whether reality reflects that I do not know.

There is still a lot of value and upside to invest in Polish property.

Commercial property hasn't really been tapped into yet and there is scope for growth.

Land is still relatively cheap and offers strong long term gains for the small investor and stronger short term gains for the bigger investors.

It could be argued that the superstars of the Polish property market may be losing their shine there are still other towns that haven't shared in the success story. Towns in the tertiary market such as Gliwice, Katowice, Lublin etc

Travel / Visit to Kazimierz Dolny , Poland [14]

Hi Baki,

It's a beautiful little town. If you check the "Photos from Poland" post in this Vacations thread you will see a photo I took when I was last there.

It's no more expensive than any other Polish town. Although it is a tourist area it's mostly Polish tourists who visit so prices are not high.

The market square is small but very charming and there are many nice walks in and around the town.

There's an English language website here kazimierz-news.com.pl/wersjaa.html

Travel / canoeing/kayaking in Poland [13]


You're right Angela. I've been too lazy to post them but I'll do it this weekend I promise.

Sheesh, I can't get away with anything on this board :)

Travel / Visiting Sopot this summer? [36]


Lef,

I've just taken a look at BubbaWoo's website and to be honest I don't think his prices are unreasonable. For an apartment in a central location in high season I don't think you can get an equivalent apartment for much less.

Perhaps you are looking at monthly rental figures for long term lets and expecting to pay those kind of rates but only for 3-4 weeks. Afraid you might have to pay "tourist rates". :(

Travel / Trips and Nights in Gdansk / Sopot [30]

Chillichilli,

Paintballing, quad biking, even golf ! The Tri City has all of these things. I've just typed "paintballing gdynia" into Google and got a lot of results.

Just stumbled across a website that might interest you Chillichilli.

In Gdansk there is a pirate ship where they serve on board meals/drinks etc. It might appeal to your group.

It's also possible to charter the whole ship-it's not cheap about £ 450 an hour.

Real Estate / Advice about Lubuskie region? [12]

Hi Househunt,

This isn't a place to be coy ;) What budget are you looking at ? Maybe some of the forum members can point you in other directions ?

Law / Trying to do business with Polish businessmen... but it's not easy. [41]

I've had the same experiences. :(

It really is baffling as I am the one offering to pay for their service or buy their products so it's a "win win" situation for them.

This behaviour can't be excused on the language barrier as often I will write to them in Polish.

UK, Ireland / Is Any Polish communty in Manchester or London [18]

Hi Teng,

I live in Bolton and I can confirm there is a vibrant Polish community in the area. To me it seems that a lot of the young Poles who've come to the UK aren't particularly yearning to meet up with other Poles. Maybe as they get older they will start to warm to the idea of socialising together.

There are Polish social clubs in many Northern towns. Bolton used to have two up until a few years ago but now only has the club by the side of the Polish church.

In Manchester they have the Kolo Polskie on Cheetham Hill Rd and I'd bet there are a number of younger people who go there now. I also heard there was a Polish church in Manchester but I can't remember where :(

londynek.net is a good website where Poles from London & Manchester chat about upcoming events etc.

Life / WHY IS POLAND SO DIRTY ???? [44]

I spend a lot of time in Poland and find it to be much cleaner than the UK. That doesn't mean it is spotless and yes, there are places where it is dirty but to start a thread entitled "why is Poland so dirty ?" is misleading in my opinion.

The beaches are clean. No crisp packets or beer bottles as in Blackpool. The water is crystal clear unlike other UK coastlines.

When I walk through Polish cities I don't see chewing gum all over the pavement.

On my most recent visit to Poland I spent a lot of time visiting many Polish lakes and walking through forests and again I noticed how clean it was. I even commented to my girlfriend about it.

Travel / Krakow hotels [29]

Telefonitika,

What is your price budget per night and do you have a preference for which area in Krakow ?

Travel / canoeing/kayaking in Poland [13]

Hi Bubba,

I've just come back from a 4 day trip to the Kaszuby lakeland in Northern Poland. From reading this forum I think you spend a lot of time in the Tri City and it only took me and my friend just over 45 mins to reach our summer house from Gdansk airport.

I'm surprised you've found it difficult to find somewhere to kayak in Poland because if anything I believe Poland has better water sports facilities than we have here in the UK. I think the main difference is that Poland doesn't market it's "leisure infrastructure" the way that other countries seem to do.

The Kaszuby area is pockmarked with hundreds of lakes of various sizes so you can choose whatever suits you.

The Mazury area offers even more lakes for the kayaking enthusiast and that isn't all too far from the Tri City either.

If you need any help just drop me a line.

I'll be posting a few pics of my time in Kaszuby in the "Vacations" thread once I've caught up on some sleep.

Real Estate / Apartment Prices in Sopot [18]

as well ?

Life / The Polish custom of the promenade [4]

Italy being a prime example. I fondly remember my holidays in Sorrento :)

We just don't have an equivalent here in the UK :(

Law / Trying to do business with Polish businessmen... but it's not easy. [41]

No, you are not the only one :)

It really is so frustrating. I've lost count the number of times I've had to cool my interest in different ventures simply because the Polish company couldn't be bothered to pursue my enquiry. The crazy thing is they would make money from any such venture.

The only reason I can think of is that Poland is still a relatively new democracy and capitalism is still in it's infancy over there.

Real Estate / Apartment Prices in Sopot [18]

Yeah but maybe Patricia is better looking.