Travel / Tourism in Poland [41]


I'd agree with that since I've usually had pretty good experiences in Polish hotels, however the last one I stayed in in Germany a few weeks ago was exceptional. Better than one a couple of years ago in Neukolln near Hermanstrasse U-bahn where I was the only guest who wasn't ar*SSian streetwalker and where there were junkies passed out in the street outside. I was a bit worried about leaving belongings there.


I can live without that. Must have a kettle though which many don't. I have a folding travel kettle though for such eventualities.


In my experiences, that's not been a problem in Poland however it's normal in parts of the Arab world. Sometimes they reset automatically every day, no matter how long your stay is so you get locked out of your room every day, often at random times.

Travel / Tourism in Poland [41]


I'd guess the lunch since it was after a conference organised by a publisher. It would have been nice if the hotel had lost out for the whole stay for 30 rooms though.

The owner may well have been able to go to the police however the amount of money she'd have got in total would have been less than the individual money each woman there would have received had they sued for defamation.

The courts take it quite seriously if someone calls a married woman a prostitute in front of witnesses.

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Travel / Tourism in Poland [41]


This was with a hot horseradish sauce as I recall. It was nice.

There's another story. Not my own however I knew a couple of people there at the time.

There was a three day conference, organised I think by one of the big textbook publishers for Directors of Study and Senior Teachers at language schools. It was in the mid or late 90s in a hotel in I think the South West. On the final day, they had a farewell lunch.

The hotel was run by a rather stern woman of a particular type. Some of the participants at the conference were married and their wives were Polish. Their wives came to the lunch. The woman who ran the hotel walked into the dining room, saw the participants' Polish wives and shouted at the top of her voice "you have brought prostitutes into my hotel. This is a respectable hotel and these women must leave now".

So they did. With their husbands and all, very rightly, refused to pay the bills.

Travel / Tourism in Poland [41]


The ones I've been in have ranged from superb to comically dreadful. Most have been OK.


A few. I stayed in a hotel in Olkusz that turned out to also be a sort of brothel for lorry drivers. The client I was visiting couldn't believe that my employer had put me up there. My underwear was stolen from the room. The restaurant was actually OK with rather nice food however the main thing on the menu was "sztuk mięso" (jaki sztuk? jaki mięso). I also stayed in a hotel in Kołobrzeg (that was supposed to be 5 star but definitely wasn't a 5 star clientele) where there was a massive fight in the bar, vodka bottles and all, and the hotel receptionists had to sit on the perpetrator until the police arrived.

I stayed in a lovely one in Bialystok however it was next to the big Orthodox Cathedral in the centre and it was Easter Sunday for them. And my room was right next to the bell tower with the giant bell that they ring at various points during the liturgy. Not great when you've a hangover.

There's a few more stories though those three will do for now.

Travel / Best route for driving Berlin to Leszno, Krakow, and Vilnius [12]

@EricRDD
95% of hotels in PL are OK in fact. That was maybe just unlucky.

Food / Buying alcohol, wine in Poland. It's very difficult. [86]


With a lot of luck.

They have a few good things however ours seems to specialise in dull wine in fancy bottles.

I used to buy as M&S which had a good (ish) selection but now it's gone. Leclerc has some good wines at reasonable prices though.

History / Pol-Shorpy Photo Thread [950]

I grew up around them and have quite a few longstanding friends from that subculture. They're usually fine as long as you don't get into discussing religion.

Often very nice people, albeit with a rather bleak worldview. Plus the converts to it are very keen and when doing missionary work some can be a bit persistent. Others are more half hearted and the6 actually get very few converts despite all that standing in town next to racks of leaflets.

I always smile and say hello when I pass them though.

History / Pol-Shorpy Photo Thread [950]

A few years ago, we used to get Ukrainian people knocking on our door. They'd heard that a Ukrainian persno lives there who has a good job and citizenship and wanted to know how it was done. Now we get old ladies kockig on the door saing they've heard that a Ukrainian lives there and would he like to come to an important meeting. When pushed, they say it's a meeting about the Bible and leave copies of The Watchtower.

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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News / European News and Poland Thread - part 4 [1096]


He wasn't.

Travel / Best route for driving Berlin to Leszno, Krakow, and Vilnius [12]

A train from Wroclaw to Krakow is about 3 1/2 hours but comfortable.

The trains that sometimes get crowded tend to be just before or after a public holiday or at the start/end of university terms. These tend to be the cheaper 'TLK' and 'Interregio' trains. The normal intercity ones are pretty good for space. For one to be very crowded, you'd really have to have caught it at a bad time.All intercity trains have reserved seats and there's usually plenty of room, though of course Fridays and Mondays will be a bit busier.

Incidentally, when booking trains (I use the booking service intercity.pl), always have a look at first class. Because of dynamic ticketing, if seats in second class are selling well and seats in second class aren't, the first class tickets can sometimes be cheaper.

Poznań is a pleasant place to stay. There are some good quality hotels at a fair price near the seventeenth century Old Town Square (it's a gem) and some big hotels near the conference centre by the railway station on the edge of the city centre. Looking at booking.com etc, just a minute ago there seem to be a few new ones in the old town, in nicely restored buildings. There's also the Puro and the Radisson which are in great locations. One thing that Poznań does well is restaurants, especially around the Old Town.

I'd avoid some of the hotels around ul.Sw. Marcina and ul. Ratajczaka, particularly the larger, older PRL-era ones that look as if they're good value. Most are a bit more run down than the pictures of them online suggest.. One charged my Amex card twice and tried very hard not to refund the money. If we hadn't both spoken Polish well and threatened them with the courts for weeks, I'd still be waiting for the refund. They assumed we were naive foreigners who didn't speak Polish and could be ripped off. Well-known chain hotels are fine though.

Off-Topic / Music Thread - part 2 [970]

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Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


The running dogs of late stage capitalism.


Me too.

There's English English and there's local variants.

Travel / Best route for driving Berlin to Leszno, Krakow, and Vilnius [12]


They're safer than some of the older roads but still have their moments. It's worth having a look online for accident stats Europewide. Poland is high on the list.


This is a good idea. Driving long distances after flights isn't pleasant, and Berlin is a nice place to be.


This is a good idea.

It sounds a very thorough vacation with lots of places to see. Personally I'd find it interesting but tiring. Doing the journeys by train is a good way to mitigate that and certainly more relaxing.

You mention a visit to the Auschwitz Memorial. That's a heavy place to go. What you see stays with you for ever and it's good to clear your head a bit afterwards by relaxing. After a first visit there, if I was driving afterwards my mind wouldn't be on the road.

Edit

You also mention Poznan. That's a lovely place to visit and worth a day/night. The Beekeeping Museum in Swarzędz (next to Poznań) is great.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


Criticising the grammar of second language speakers is never nice.

Though (and I'll hope your not offended), the word criticise is spelt criticise.

News / Future of Polish-Ukrainian relations [669]


Heads of State meet Heads of State and attend ceremonial events. Heads of Government meet Heads of Government and attend political events.

Quite simple to understand. We're surprised you didn't know that. Or perhaps not actually that surprised.

Life / The climate for gardening in Poland [340]


I like them.

A friend has grown an avocado from a stone and it's looks quite good. Indoors only of course and she keeps it in a smallish pot so it doesn't grow too large.

Life / The climate for gardening in Poland [340]


I didn't know that could happen. Palms are very hard to grow.

We've planted a few acacia seeds from Africa and got seedlings from them however they aren't hardy enough to grow outdoors that far north.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


You didn't and you can't, since you aren't a mod.

And since you're pretending to be, what's the location associated with the IP I'm posting from now and have mostly posted from all year?


And you never have.

Switch it on, and make one post or admit you're a liar.

Life / The climate for gardening in Poland [340]


We have an olive tree, grown from an olive from a jar of Biedronka salted olives.. It's a few years old now.

It has to come inside as soon as the frosts starts. The problem is, year on year it gets bigger and it's now getting harder to get inside. It has to go in through the window. Sooner or later we'll have to make a decision.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


Socialist for sure.

What Poles and others from more absolutist societies don't grasp about the U.K. is that we invented Socialism, via Owenism and the Cooperative movement. Nothing was ever imposed from outside, there were no revolutions, no Esbeks and Ubeks and any corruption there was never a fraction of what it was in Poland or is even today.

And if we had been Communist, don't think for a second that there would have been the sort of repression that existed in Central and Eastern Europe.


It's ee cummins.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


That's pretty well it.

A writer (I forget who) wrote two interesting things about Communism. One was that if it had been achieved first in Japan rather than the Soviet Union or China, it would have worked very differently and the other thing was that if it had been achieved in 1950s Britain, especially the northern industrial regions and Scotland's central belt, nobody would really have noticed much difference.

The countries that got it were an uneasy mix of rural poverty, intellectual ideological absolutism and a huge military infrastructure.

I slightly knew someone (he was called Professor Ludwik Haas) who spent 17 years in the Gulag for being a Trotskyist and 17 months in a PRL jail after the Soviet Union let him go. He was certainly a Communist however they hated him because he was a real one. And sometimes I think the far left in the U.K., the Trots and Tankies, hate people like me who are middle of the road Labourites from the trade union movement even more than they hate capitalists.

Off-Topic / I am a polish communist. [83]


Quite. Nobody in that party is, despite the toxic rhetoric from reactionaries.


It isn't. Promoting totalitarianism is I think illegal, however Communism in itself isn't totalitarian; people confuse it with the failed iteration of it in the Soviet Union and other states which weren't even ready for Social Democracy, never mind anything else.


This is true. These were third world countries so chaotic it was possible to create chaos.by dictatorial, usually military, regimes.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1450]


Thanks. I'll go to the big one at Arkadia.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1450]

I've not seen it in PL (Warsaw, anyway) for a long time, despite looking. If I saw any, I'd stock up on it. It lasts for ages.

There are/were two kinds, both in metal tubes. One hot, one mild. It's a good alternative to tomato purée if you don't much like tomatoes.

It's a bit like Ajvar which you can buy in jars in a lot of shops in Poland. Any decent sized "Eastern European Supermarket" in the UK should have Ajvar however it's worth mentioning that Ajvar also has (I think) garlic and sometimes aubergines and can also vary in heat. Ukrainian Ajvar is usually aubergine free and is nice.

Life / Is stamp collecting popular in Poland? [7]


I suspect it will have a revival since stamps are no longer used much in many/most countries and soon won't be used at all. This means there are a finite number, especially for 19th and early 20th century stamps.

UK, Ireland / Question about UK Government Reach! Polish citizen vs HMRC [4]

There are agreements between countries. The Polish "Urząd Skarbowy" and the British "His Majesty's Revenue Commission" both share information.

Food / What do non-Poles think about eating the following Polish foods? [1450]


I used to buy that in metal tubes. It hasn't been in the shops for an age.

Life / Neighbours complaining about Barbecue - what is the law in Poland? [21]


That was so obvious I thought it was a trick question and didn't answer.


In jackets. Jacket Potatoes.

Delicious, I had some small ones for breakfast (very quick in an air fryer) with strong Cheddar and Yorkshire Blue.