What has changed (travel-wise) after Poland's joining the Schengen zone?

Has anyone recently traveled to Germany? How often do they stop cars at the border? Tell me about your experiences.

There isn't one. But there might be police on either side of what was the border. They will only stop you if they are bored or looking for something specific.

What do you want to smuggle?

Was glaubst du, was wuerde sich lohnen? LOL

I'm going to Germany soon and wonder what to expect at the border.

- The Germans coming to Poland dump surreptitiously tones of rubbish into our woods. They used to do the same thing in Czechia but, it seems, the Czechs have taken care of the problem.

Explain yourself

Are you sure its the Germans...its usually Poles from the towns i see doing this.....I would have thought the German waste disposal services would be pretty good , and it would not really be on to load up your car with rubbish and drive it all the way to Poland......

I don't want to sound germanophobic or so, but I heard today on the radio that throwing rubbish by Germans into the forests along the border is a serious problem. Forest service has for collected 80t of rubbish fom forests around Gubin since Poland joined Schengen zone.

They do it becouse of the same reason as Polish - disposing waste costs...
And they don't have to drive so far if they live in Guben or Eisenhuttenstadt or so...

Lukasz

German slatterns,

even private persons are coming form there and are throwung their German rubbish in our beautiful forests.

If its true...then the Germans ought to be made to clear it up....

You mean they placed everywhere servants to collect the rubbish immediately.

Nothing ever happens on the border these days but you can get stopped by customs and usually it is happening when you're way into Germany. They'd look for smuggled cigarettes mostly, police would have their reasons to stop you, too. Never on the border though.

News bite on waste dumping in Poland:

france24.com/20080526-euro-zooming-poland-europe-rubbish-germany-waste

Now the police/customs officers can stop you according to the general rules, i.e. when they have a grounded suspicion of a crime, not because you're crossing the border.

I was stopped at the border last week, crossing into Germany from Poland in the Nysa Valley near Zittau. Usual stuff... passport, driving licence, car documentation. Odd really... we get a Schengen border and yet it took three times as long to cross as in the pre-Schengen days.

I haven't been into the woods along the border but I was quite a few times around where I live in Mikolajki and before around Lublin and Siedlce area and I must say that I haven't seen so much trash in any forest before in my entire life. I wonder who's responsible for that. In Lubelskie probably Ukrainians and around here it must Russians.