Travel / Which cities in Poland are nice to visit [80]

The (small) city square.

That's it.
The rest was blitzed. Don't believe the hype about Poznan being interesting. It isin't :(

Real Estate / Moving to Gdansk - Wrzeszcz area? [2]


Yes - know it well. Up and coming area. Being gentrified. Lot's of shops Two tasteful malls either side of the SKM. Excellent bus hub. New train centre for the airport. City parks. Old German style - which is clearly superior. But....... a lot of problems with drunks who were housed here in the 1990s........generally it pipes down after dusk. A long way from the sea, but close to the wonderful forests and close to the city centre. Superb buildings - German built. Far superior in taste to anything the Poles have managed post-war......

Zero pubs - only the crappy "Scruffy O'Briens." Important for me, but for you...?

Just seen where you are thinking of. That area has just been renovated, but has a problem as I said. You are two years too soon. The other side of the railway tracks is more up-market. I would not consider the side of the railway that you are thinking of moving to if I had a family - sorry.

PS: It is boring, but safe. I would recommend Gdansk Morena or Gdansk Orunia Gorne for families.

Travel / Which cities in Poland are nice to visit [80]


Grafitti-ridden. Gangs of drunken yobs. Spoilt by the highway running through town. Really nothing special to be seen in the town itself. Needs a generation to be pretty again. Head out west to the beach at Kamienny Potok and beer on the sun terrace (real glass) is 7 zlotys. But please don't come. I like the peace and quiet :)


Sorry AussieSheila - you were in the wrong place. Zakopane is ********. For Polish mountain folklore aka skiing and partying you should have gone to Wisla or Szczyrk.

Częstochowa....... no thanks - my nomination for the most depressing place in the whole country. Any place worse?
Best places I have visited? Wisla, Wroclaw, Sandomierz, Chelmno.....

News / Does democratic Poland guarantee it's LGBT citizens respect for human and civil rights? [1169]


I think you have not read that article Polonious.....

The writer concludes by saying:

"................It's truly difficult to understand how the "liberal" Guardian could fail to sympathize with those who complain that Krauze's grotesque characterization of gay sexual intimacy - as somehow morally synonymous with bestiality - legitimizes extreme hatred towards the Polish LGBT community.

And anyway, the Guardian has an anti-censorship, but reverse pyschology approach. Stop me if I am wrong, but I believe the Guardian was the first UK newspaper to print the two words that often come to mind when expressing annoyance or contempt - "f@@@" and "c@@@". You clearly don't understand it's raison d'etre here. It would employ such a clown (albiet an academic thinker) to tell us all to beware of his nasty medieval message.

News / Poland have the 3rd best Education System of Europe [49]


Are you a teacher teargas? I am not a Masters graduate and don't work at university any more, but you don't know what you are talking about, with respect. The Polish Matura does not hold a candle to the baccalaureate or the UK A Level. Dress it up how you like.


Please spell it out. What nonsense precisely?

I bow to higher authority, such as Harry for one, but still maintain that the level of teaching in many Polish lower and higher schools is shockingly inept and not fully accountable in inspection, and also ridiculously "traditional" with the desks in row classroom, with the almighty teacher, there to be respected and unnerringly deferred to, which should have died with Charles Dickens alerting us to the fact.

Life / Favourite Polish movies? [107]


Mmmm..... it has been my misfortune to see both these films. Ridiculously depressing. Life is hard enough as it is, and these "film makers" are sick in the head. No art. Lars Van Trier is from the same school, but that is good cinema ("Breaking the Waves", for example...) This is utter tosh, miserable, without any merit whatsoever. IMO.

News / Poland have the 3rd best Education System of Europe [49]

Exactly kpc - good post. I was teaching Matura students for 20 years... the rot set in with that PIS bloke who was education minister - the one with the commie father.......

A good grade Matura certificate in humanity subjects used to be earned to some extent - now it is a bad joke and not to be compared with A levels in the UK in any shape or form. Those who say Polish school standards are above the UK need to get an education themselves. The idea is laughable.


Well -it's certainly a different kind of grading......
A student requires 93 per cent to study medicine. One of my students achieved that - with no application to speak of............... I suspect that the fact that his father is one of Poland's leading lights didn't harm his chances....... nod nod wink wink.

Strangely enough though he has been top of his class in the first four years of medical school, so who knows.

News / Poland have the 3rd best Education System of Europe [49]


Tops - should be quoted in the press.

For me, because of the low salaries and infamous "pol-etat", mediocrity is tolerated. Take today for instance. The SKM was empty at 8 a.m. It's supposed to be a normal school day for God's sake. Any excuse to reduce any participation or life-education.

Law / Right Hand Drive cars in Poland 'indefinitely' but not registered - doable? [21]


Come to Tri-City and use somebody's address - register your car to that address, and there you are. Seen three RHD cars here in the last couple of days - all Gdansk plates.

Travel / Flights from Warsaw, Poland to the Northern UK are getting expensive - alternative suggestions? [13]


Ah! The good old communist days. No limit on baggage, as many miniature Wyborowas as I could swallow, and in-flight meals :)
Cracking stewardesses too!


Such a shame that most of the ferries died. What happened to the Poland-Tilbury route? :) Lol. A Gdansk-Newcastle ferry would do me and the dog very nicely indeed.

Life / Where, Oh Where Do Poles Get Their Dogs? [18]

Find a good breeder. Visit them. Meet them - see their attitude. Are they dog lovers - or a business through and through. You often can't visit the litters, but you can gauge the conditions.

Polish bred labs are usually great if you choose the right breeder. There are two kennel clubs - you choose the accredited one if you want to show, and the other if you don't. The smaller kennel club is smaller and there is some inbreeding and greater number of litters......

My lab is from the second - cousins mated 4 generations ago. but this is standard.

Hind hips extensively checked and rechecked. one A1, one A2. Cracking breeder at 800 zl for a pedigree lab pup from American heritage.

hodowlazbrzozowej.pl/?kontakt,30ve

Husband and wife team. Tops. Luzino, Pomorskie.

They have a mixed rep on the net, but I visited them, conditions are A1, and this, my third lab, is the best I have had. The other two were British bred - should I say in-bred, and very expensive kennel club prize-winning pedigree, aka total waste of dosh if not showing..

PS: Dogs are the go, not ******* - less aggro. (biatches MODS - that's what female dogs are called....)

Sympathy to the other poster - but a tad naive in retrospect. It is a disgrace how some "owners" breed big dogs in flats and the like. In a just world such people should be banned from keeping dogs for 10 years.


Mmm - the pup MOT is open to abuse apparently.....

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News / Pope Francis' anti-Polish encyclical? Criticism of coal burning in Poland. [67]


Blink. Tell that to your grandchildren when they appear and they will love you for it. And do you appreciate how much air pollution costs the tax payer in terms of health care? I suppose this point is moot though as Poland spends a pathetic 9% of it's GDP on healthcare.

Here in Tri-city people who insist on burning coal are spat at in the street, and rightly so.

After the disaster that was JP2 this pope seems like a good egg!

Food / Food shop of choice in Poland for foreign nosh? [22]


Marks and Sparks Sopot :)

Food / Food shop of choice in Poland for foreign nosh? [22]


Thanks - I think there is some mark of provenance - just wary of Polish shops shouting the odds, as Poland is for instance the dumping ground for outmoded tech - as is the case with Mediamarkt.


I hope you are right Jon - they used to do the Pataks and puppodoms et al but have badly let the side down in the last fifteen years :(

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]

When people come to the choice Polonius, only dim-wits and hippies will vote for Kukiz.

I love music, and I had never heard of him til the presidential election. He's just a silly old fart.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


Put me on that list too.


Those other countries you mention are Italy and Germany. The second being scared to do anything against "human rights" after their two little excursions from civilisation last century.

The UK have criminal checks before employment, and the violent and sexual offenders' register. France has similar.

Please engage brain before typing :)

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


Exactly Harry. Unfortunately it's not about the protection of the child here, but a denial of human rights to the adult population.


You really don't get it do you Polonius? On a par with teachers who sexually molest the children in their care, priests who commit such crimes are the worst of offenders and should be dealt with accordingly by long prison sentences. In not so secure prison units where they will regularly be assaulted, so they can know for themselves the misery they bring.

Anybody who is sexually attracted to pre-pubescents and deliberately puts themselves in authority over children is guilty. Like alcoholics and others with an addictive personality, some paedophiles do seek professional help, but when they are caught in the act should expect the full force of the law.

I always checked out my daughters' priests very very carefully, for if something had happened, I would have had to kill them.

Language / Bought "Rosetta Stone" software and trying to learn Polish... [59]


Lol Jake.

Rosetta Stone will not help you one iota there............

When I first came to Poland I was going to work (in Sosnowiec) and there was a sign saying "Objazd do Sosnowcu." (diversion to.........)

I ignored it - as it obviously didn't apply to me. I wanted to go to Sosnowiec, and the staff ****** themselves laughing when I told the story - late for my first day - starting as i meant to go on :)

Welcome to the land of declined language - and that means adjectives and nouns change their form according in some cases in 7 ways......

Somebody who actually has got beyond my pre-intermediate level and knows what they are talking about will be along shortly :)

In the meantime, there is loads of Polish help on here. Loads.

News / Poland's fight against paedophilia [277]


Who would Michael Caine do first - the priest or the head of the kommissariat? I reckon the second. Utterly repulsive story Jon, and Poland B would condone such filth.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]



You know full well what I mean Harry. Jarek was once a pretty boy and never much interested in poor pussy. Now, if he wasn't the appalling character that he is, no one would allude to the fact. Since, unknown to him and his bunch of crims, homosexuality is not a condition but a state.

But I did get your added riposte :)

Life / Amazon stops super saver delivery on orders to Poland [40]

Post to Poland cheaper than before - the Amazon web-site isn't clear about the reduction.

Can somebody please help in answering by how much they have lowered their international postal charges? I don't think it makes them competitive again though for bulkier items.

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


Whilst the great "Peace and justice" leader of that epoch was at home stroking his pussy...... or not. Nudge nudge.

If it weren't for the sheer hypocrisy of those tossers, then by and large all well intending people would have gently shook their heads in baffled wonderment.

As it is, the huge majority in Polska A hate them with a passion and something needs to be done.

A military coup?

News / Poland Parliamentary elections 2015 [1060]


That is PIS through and through Polonious.

You wouldn't know.

You don't live here :)

News / Presidential elections and debates 2015 Poland [472]


I agree Polonius. They call themselves PIS.

Life / Free Poland Health Care - Paying minimal to no Zus [105]

Interesting stuff.
Keep healthcare money away from public scum until they finally restructure it - if ever.

It's a pity that Poles don't riot : this ZUS shocking inequality may only affect small business, and not the masses who work for a salary - including my learners' wife - who, you guessed it, is a manager in ZUS in Gdansk................

Whereas in the UK there is (and I have repeated this many times on this forum) ONE. yes ONE ZUS office.

Got that Poland? FFS - dumbass.

But there are plenty of ZUS owned hotels and holiday homes. Why doesn't Poland out them by going on the streets like we did with the unfair polltax in Britain? Poland = clueless and soft in the head.

Life / Free Poland Health Care - Paying minimal to no Zus [105]


But it is not "a few hundred zlotys" though, is it?

The last time I checked, for a small business it is 1,400 zl a month - a ridiculous amount of money for a small operation to cough up, irrespective of how profitably that business is operating.

So ZUS will now have to somehow carry on, without being able to thieve from Dougpol Mansions any more.

As Jon said, 100 zl for a visit is the way to go, and (sorry about your illness) if I develop cancer, then it's back to base in the UK to bunker down. Of course if you are American then..."Houston.................."

News / Presidential elections and debates 2015 Poland [472]

That backs up my point, that a politician has to look his electorate in the eye. Duda has palpably failed to do that, and I and millions of others don't trust him.

News / Presidential elections and debates 2015 Poland [472]

Mmmm - thanks Polonious.

Duda couldn't look the voters in the eye though during that TV debate. In Britain or the USA that fact would have finished him, as was the case in the Us presidential election of '60 with "Tricky Dicky".

Time will tell.