Do people in Poland live "better" than here in the UK?

As mentioned in my comment, I get the idea behind it and I like it. I was just having fun with the stampy stamp nature of Poland!

That is true that in UK there is bigger choice of dishes but it is slowly changing in Poland. You can easily find lamb/game in bigger towns like Krakow/Warsaw.

But....saying that most pubs in UK serve home-cooked food?- I think that you live in 'dreamland-cockooland ,- Most pubs in UK serve awful processed food as most of them don't even have proper kitchens.I would say that most people working there don't have much idea about cooking except warming dishes in microwave.

Not in the budget of someone living/working in Poland. They do have it on menus as a novelty, but Pork and Chicken rule in Poland...even in the city. If you don't see that, you either don't live here or you are earning far too much (if the latter, I accept donations).

Not sure what pubs you have visited, if any at all? Most pubs are now making more money on food than they do on drinks, and if the food wasn't to a high standard then they would lose customers and may have to close down. To serve food to the public, they must obtain a licence, and this is only given when their kitchen is inspected by health inspector and meets all hygiene and safety demands. The health inspector will also return on frequent visits to check that the proprietor is still meeting health and safety regulations.

Do yourself a favour and try a Sunday roast in a nice country pub, then you can then talk from experience, instead of judging 'most' of the pub food in the UK from one grotty little pub at the end of your street;)

Obtaining licence and meeting hygene and safety demand's doesn't mean 'home cooked food' served :-).

Of course they are busy , after few drinks and if someone never tried anything better it is what it is.

Of course there are lovely country pubs ,well advertised and well priced with good proper food. But there are few of them. majority pubs serve have processed and cooked food brought from some factories which is just warmed up on premises.

Yes, some servr nice Sunday lunch but only some of them cook it on premises.

10iwonka10, I really think you're trying hard to go in the wrong pubs! When I lived in Cambridge, I could walk to about 15 pubs in 10 minutes from my house. At least 10 of them does 'home-cooked' food, on the premises, from Thai to Greek.

She knows nothing anyway ! why answer her.

It is pretty obvious you have little knowledge of the food which are being served in the pubs.

Same in Poland, most pubs use Prymat ready made spices and "pomysl na". Even Magda Gessler promotes it.

You can argue until you are blue in the face that Polish food in the home is better than food in the UK. But, until restaurants in Poland embrace it, it won't compare. I can go to my Mum's or Grandma's house in Glasgow and get great food, but I can get as good a food in restaurants in Glasgow. The same can not be said about Poland.

Spot on. Even restaurants in PL tend to serve frozen chips and often frozen veg too - assuming they've got veg and not some sort of surówka which is not always much good - a lot gets wasted by people who just don't want it all if they go out for a meal. Also the variety - a menu in Poland rarely contains many surprises and how many times in their life does anyone need schabowy, karkówka or pierogi, especially if they see it daily.

I can tell you whole heartedly that British people don't consider Poland as a tourist destination apart from the odd trip to Auschwitz. Compare the amount of UK trips to Poland to Prague. Most of my mates back home are amazed when i take them to Sopot as the general bloke in the street still asumes that Poland is still stuck in the Communist 70's.


I bow to you superior knowledge of British people. After all I was born and only lived in the UK for 40 years and have spent 5 years convincing people back home and abroad how different Poland is from their perception of it. What would I know. The British people would tend to be polite to your face. How many of these 'people' that you know have been for a holiday (not a stag weekend) in Poland? None?

Local Police chief here told us that all lanes are legal to drive/cycle or walk on.....unless the owner has clearly marked that it is a private lane. They may also ask you to leave their track but not be abusive (had a family member come and apologise for an abusive drunk farmer moaning (swearing) at us for something we didn't do - Gmina spilled some gravel on a track, on the same day we had some delivered, drunk farmer hit the gravel pile with his 'woz' and fell off!!!!!) The forest tracks here are all used by everyone because they mostly tend to go somewhere...to a village or as a shortcut to a road to another village. (There are signs in the forests that clearly tell you that it is a reserve and you are not supposed to even walk there....but mushroom enthusiasts ignore this!) One thing that as an Englishman has always shocked me is when driving along a lane and meeting a farmer on a tractor etc he will often just drive onto someone's field of corn!!!! and go past you!!! in England this was always considered a heinous crime..almost punishable by death!!!! it came about when UK needed every square foot of land to grow food during the WW2. Here apparently the attitude is.....arrrr.....he has to drive on it to spray it etc....what harm can it do? it will grow back!! I still find this cavalier attitude with other people's crops almost irreverent.

Gdyniaguy, I've lived and worked in the UK for as long as you have, and I can think of 5 different groups of friends/families in my immediate British circle who have been to Poland for holidays, including young families, elderly couples, and young single people, unrelated to me or anyone they know with a connection to Poland. None went to Auschwitz, none had a stag/hen party, it was city-breaks. Some have been several times. Funnily enough, only two of them have been to Prague (and I haven't either). Poland and the Baltic states are definitely seen and marketed as tourist destinations in the UK, and have been for years. Poznan was in the Times travel section last week, for instance.

The argument on a whole from the start of the post was that Poland was a better place to live and one of the arguments being tourism.

I'm not denying that there isn't a small amount of Brits who travel to Poland. As a nation we've been exploring the world for Centuries. But, for the posters on here to say that Poland is a better tourist destination then the UK. Your friends who have visited Poland have done mainly as a by-product of cheap flights used to ferry workers to the UK. Ask 10 friends tonight if they had the chance of a city break in the EU where would it be, I bet you'd be lucky if you hear Poznan.

Not tourism, but "tourism infrastructure".

Gdyniaguy14, that's what spiritus wrote:


So you're arguing with something that wasn't even written.

And it seems to me spiritus isn't Polish, I guess he's British, isn't he? He made this whole thread in the first place.

What is meant by tourism infrastructure? If it doesn't mean tourism?......''Do Polish people live better then British people - better tourism infrastructure???? ''

Thomas Cook in July 1841 invented the tourist excursion. The UK has been creating tourist destinations both home and abroad since then. A lot of places I visit in Poland don't even have signs/information in any other language apart from Polish. This has improved since Euro2012 but it's still lacking behind the UK. When I take the wife home and we go and visit places I nearly always manage to pick up literature in Polish for her.

If the poster means internal tourism then fair enough. Poland has a bigger internal market because older and only Polish speaking Poles tend not to travel outside of Poland as much as British people do. British people used to stay at home until the mid-late 1970's when package tour become cheaper and the British Equivalent of Wladyslawowo died a death. Polish resorts were also always boosted by the state sponsored holidays.

How the hell am I supposed to know? Ask spiritus what he meant. I couldn't care less about the tourism infrastructure in Poland, the UK or Honolulu for that matter lol


;D

Gdyniaguy, I see you're very patriotic and proud of your country and probably you love it very much, but what you're doing in Poland then is beyond me... lol

You expect me to believe that the English people don't realise that Poland joined European Union over 10 years ago? If this is a fact then let me reword it to you: it only shows what kind of people you know back there in England. I have been here for over a decade and my gf's family and friends don't have to be "polite" with me.

When I first came, I was amazed at how pleasant the climate was. My, wrong, perception was that Poland was a cold country (like Siberia). I think my far east upbringing led me to think that anything north of the South of France on the continent was cold all year round.

When it comes to general holidays, British people are still sun-seekers and so generally will hit south Europe before they would go to the Tri-State. Just because a good number of British tourists come to Poland doesn't make it a major destination. People in the UK, sadly, will still flock to places that have sun, sand and British pubs with all day breakfasts and Only Fools And Horses on the TV.

Can't believe you've posted this. They'll say you are anti polish and a russian. wait and see.

this is true.

The Polish tourist board have a lot to answer for.

I have been bordering on evangelical explaining to my fellow Brits how great Poland is but now I'm starting to change. Maybe Poland is so great because it isn't overwhelmed with tourists ?

What has European Union to do with anything?


That could be one reason. Poland has over 3 x lower population density than England and far less foreign and local tourists.

I did not say that Poland is a more popular tourist destination than the UK (some people like to make stuff up).

I said I believe it has a better tourism infrastructure than the UK (not necessarily a physical infrastructure). It is possible for a country to have a well developed tourism infrastructure without being particularly popular to British tourists...hard to believe eh ?

What is an infrastructure, but is not physical? :)

spiritus, you'll have to explain to us what a non-physical infrastructure is, because I'm trying to imagine what an imaginary metaphysical hotel or metro system might be like to use ;)

If you mean things like the service culture or quality of restaurant food, I think we've already dealt with and dismissed those as something that Poland doesn't excel at.

While we're comparing, another thing that I've noticed, which does annoy tourists to PL, is the beggars. In every city I have been too right across the country, very often someone has approached me and given a long speech about how they need milk for their sick baby daughter, or how they have no fare for the tram. They usually have the glazed eyes and well-worn expression of an addict. You also see this in some British cities, and will occasionally get the same kind of monologue speech at London train stations, but it does seem to be particularly common and blatant in Poland. Many UK cities have a zero tolerance approach to this kind of scam begging - it was a big problem in the past but has mostly gone away.

Someone also mentioned graffiti - it is quite staggering how much of it you see on prime buildings/streets in places like Wroclaw. The UK has its fair share of graffiti, but usually in less prime locations. I still haven't decided whether dog mess is worse in PL or UK - I think it probably depends on the location.

Lol-sorry. Had quite a stressful morning and my brain wasn't working properly. Apologies for the confusion :)

The begging situation has improved a lot in Poland. I recall many pleasant encounters with Romanians some years ago where one actually grabbed hold of my trouser leg and I had to drag my leg half way down the street with this urchin stubbornly clinging to me.

Another time, a couple of kids approached every table in an ice cream parlour begging money for "food" but was happily scoffing on an ice cream.

In some ways I would expect the begging to be worse in Poland as the levels of poverty in Poland and the UK are not comparative.

Grafitti is a big problem in Poland although some frustrated artists have taken it to a new level creating rather impressive works of graffiti art. I can't decide would I rather live with the graffiti in Poland or the litter in the UK..........

It has nothing to do with level of poverty as we're talking about rich european countries. It's about enforcing the law and not allowing people to do that. Everybody in Poland has chance to earn at least for food (which is by the way provided for free to homeless) if is not seriously disabled.

According to
globalrichlist.com
a person earning minimum salary in Poland - 14844zł net per year is in the top 18.50% richest people in the world by income.

Sorry-I thought poverty levels were worse in Poland than in the UK. Perhaps I am mistaken ?

Not sure what your second post is trying to show. People beg in the United States, UK and Germany, some of the richest countries in the world.

Only because they are allowed to and often its easier to beg than work for your salary. My post was supposed to show, that Poland is not one of the poorest place on planet, where you cannot sustain yourself with work.

I wasn't suggesting it was.