Driving to Poland from England - any tips?

This is the route i would take:

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  goto Google maps for an exact breakdown
  

Get it before you leave, the exchange rate on, or near the border could be crap. Plus it,s handy to have PL currency as soon as in Poland so you can have a good meal stop (better grub in Poland than Germany). Also fuel will be cheaper.


As long as the co/driver sleeps on route. Once in Poland though, he may be needed to assist with over-taking.

No idea about the toll-roads/prices.

Safe journey.

Wrong.


Right.

My experience ..... Right. ( Based on some 40+ trips 1990-2010 )

Thanks Wroclaw Boy, yes thats the route we are going to take

Thanks for your help Antek.

Lots of Pillows..............unless someone has got their finger out and sorted the roads just inside the Polish border on the dresden/ jena way into poland................

Exchange some cash at the Post Office,even the smallest branches have Zloty in stock these days :)

I live in Tarnów, if you have any questions you can PM me.

You can pay with your debet card (Maestro for example) or withdraw money at an ATM in a petrol station. No worries to get PLN's in England or wherever.

Very wrong. The border often offers the most competitive rates.

Thanks Avalon - Can you recomend somewhere to get a nice meal, and what is there for 3 lads to do for a couple of nights in Tarnow or nearby?

There are plenty of Bars and good restuarants around the "Rynek". When will you arrive here and will you be here midweek or on the weekend?

We hope to arrive on Thursday evening, we have friday to do what we want and then we are racing on saturday, maybe stay over saturday night after the race meeting and set back home on sunday morning.

What date, type of race and have you fixed up accommdation?

Racing....??? cars , bikes , horses...what...?

Ever check your statements ?


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Youre both wrong exchanging before you leave or exchanging at the border will both incur excessive FX rates similar to that found at airports, but what the hell he's only going to need about £40's worth till he gets to a city Kantor in which case all is well. In any case unless hes changing around £2k the difference will be minimal anyway.

Hi Stu.

Yeah you are correct about the location of ustron,

we left calais about 6am and got to hour hotel in ustron at about 10
distance is about 1457km 16 hours driving. however i just want to point out i had only my
mum sharing the driving with me on the way out and shes old and had to **** every freakin
hour lol.

i want to save up and get a 4x4 diesel so i can do it it one fill up lol

i think we are planning to spend 30 to 37 days in ustron in the summer next year.
i cant make up my mind if i should drive through most of the night as less traffic
any thoughts anyone?

cheers

it will only be dark for 5 or 6 hours.

check sunrise/sunset times. it might make a difference to your plans.

Wroclaw:

hi again, yeah thats why i have been thinking about driving through the night because of small amount of darkness and well would you say there would still be less traffic on the roads at night?

it should be safe to stop for petrol at night right?

thanks for any advice

cheers

wireless, I have to tell you the large truck traffic is also heavy at night. As long as you drive motorways or dual carriageways, no problem at all. Still, night driving will not relieve you from large trucks because many of them take the advantage of night time, too.

Yes, it is safe to even take a nap at a petrol station, yet I recommend choosing large "brand" stations such as Statoil, BP, Shell, etc.

antek:

thanks for the advice :O)

i dont suppose anyone knows of any web sites that show petrol stations on maps or anything like that?

thanks again

cheers

I think corporate websites should have such but of course every brand only have the map of their own stations

Nothing wrong with the most of Orlen or Lotos gas stations which both thankfully are still Polish

Don't you use GPS and navigation, wireless? A good navigation program tells you where petrol stations are, moreover, you can search nearest ones by brand name.

Grubas, Orlen and LOTOS have terribly bad shops and bars, this is why I don't use them. Try to buy a sandwich at ORLEN at night, good luck.

True. but for example when there is a long weekend somewhere you might find traffic travelling in one direction and not the other.


you'll be ok.

Its perfectly safe at night at the petrol stations in Poland....

the only place you may get some dodgy people hanging around is at the border....but you will be safe enough...don,t worry....

Wildrover, Wroclaw and antek:

Thanks so much for all your advice, I think i will drive though out the night.

im going to do a search for all the petrol stations in europe and see
which one are on my route.

cheers :O)

There will be plenty of good fuel stops...

When i rode my Harley from UK to Poland i was a bit worried about finding enough fuel stops , as the silly little fuel tank on a Sportster only holds enough for 120 miles , with a reserve that can get you only 20 miles... I had a five litre fuel tank strapped to the rear seat just in case....

It was not a problem , even at night in Poland , found plenty of places to get fuel...

The last time i drove from England to Poland it was my mates call to pay for the hotel, we pulled off at a small city in Belgium only because we'd both seen the film In Brugge, any way it was a lovely town but at 23:00 at night all the hotels were strangely occupied. I said well fcuk it lets just drive straight through the night were only going to sleep for a few hours anyway, i was knackered as i'd been driving since 9:00 am and didnt get to bed till 03:00 the night before through a farewell party. So we just drove or should i say i drove (he was to scared to drive on the other side of the road) till about 02:00 then i was just falling asleep so we pulled over in Germany somewhere and just crashed as well as you can in a sports coupe, i awoke to the smell of coffee and croissants god knows when but it was good so I zombied over to the station and consumed some of the best croissant and hot chocolate ive ever tasted.

Credit where its due those German stations really know the meaning of good quality chow no matter what the time. As it turned out we had Pizza in Prague central a few hours later and made it back to my place in Poland by 15:00.

Ive done London - Wroclaw in about 10 hours if you really move, its a natural 13'ish hour trip.

I'm sooo jealous of you Europe-boys! Being able to cruise from country to country. I'll be doing that soon.