Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


It's a place where just private people driving between cities announce that they have free seats and they can take others on these free seats for the proposed price. Like eBay, but for car rides :-). They have a rating system, so if you choose a driver with good rates (read also the opinions), everything should be good. I haven't heard about problems with this. You can see what kind of car the driver drives (also the color - might be important rather for women), you also can read some opinions, for example whether he drives calmly or aggresively etc.

Bus ticket price will be comparable or lower.


For most of us in Poland so spicy food is just too hot and difficult to eat. Some people like this, but many - not. I think if you say you want it very spicy, they will know what to do.


I think Kraków may have more polluted air. It's not only the matter of the industry, but also the cars in the city, and in winter - also lack of connection of many houses to the city heating network (so they must heat themselves locally and generate pollution in the city). And Kraków lays, basically, in a hole, which results in the pollution concentrating in the city.

Although I believe that in the countries like Singapore it's not much different.

A good advice with the lake, especially in a good weather!

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]

Not each country has this system with tickets stamped once entering the bus/tram (although most European countries have it), so I understand, that someone can be confused.


Good advice, a döner kebab is usually the chaepest food you can find. Also Chinese food places are often cheap and offer big portions for low prices, or small diners with Polish food (often marked as "obiady domowe").


Not necessarily. When you are in another city and you don't have your car with you, will you pay for a taxi each time? A rich person will probably do it, if you are in a group of a few people, it will also work, but if you are alone, bus/tram is much cheaper and it's pointless to use a taxi, unless you are in hurry.


It comes in such a way, that it's impossible to buy a ticket for a shorter ride from the driver. Buy the ticket in a shop, then you can adjust its duration to your needs.

There is also a possibility to get a public transport card, with which you can pay exactly for the needed number of stops, but it doesn't make sense to bother to get it, when you are there only for 10 days.


Exactly, the price list tells everything. This price list should be present also somewhere inside the tram, and probably also at the stop.


Exactly. At the hotel they should know everything, just ask there.


If you buy three separate single tickets, you can use them, of course, on different days. Or even after a few months, unless they change the prices in the meantime. It doesn't say anywhere on the ticket, when it was bought (on those from a ticket machine it may say, but it doesn't matter).

If you buy a ticket valid for a 3 days... I don't know how it is in KZK GOP. Let's see... It seems there is no 3-day tickets, there are 48-hour and 5-day ones, and both these types are also subject to validation in a machine on the board of the bus/tram, so you can start using them whenever you want, but then they are valid for exactly 48 hours or 5 days from the moment of validating (the 5-day one just for 5 days, including the day of validating).

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


Below the table it says:


So everything is ok, just the tickets bought from drivers are more expensive. It makes sense, otherwise people would massively buy them from the drivers (because it's simpler than to go to a newspaper kiosk and do it there) and cause delays.


No, 2,40 zł is a discount ticket, for example for students - it seems that the driver had no more 4,80 zł tickets, so he gave you two 2,40 zł instead You should stamp both one after another, since you should pay 4,80 zł (unless you buy a ticket in a newspaper kiosk or in a ticket machine). Then it's perfectly ok.


Milk chocolate is the standard, mild one. It will not be bitter, rather sweet.

If you were in Carrefour, there should be also a kiosk/shop selling newspapers, magazines etc. in the same building (I mean, there are usually such places in the buildings of big supermarkets), and they very likely sell also tickets. If you live close to this Carrefour, this might be the best place.


As it says on the website, the ticket bought from the driver expires after an hour from validating it, unless you don't change trams. If you don't leave the tram in which you validated the ticket, you can travel up to its end stop, even when it takes more than an hour. If you leave it and take another one, or a bus, then it's valid only for one hour.

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]


Yes, after the vocational school you can go to so called "liceum uzupełniające dla dorosłych" - "supplementary secondary school for the adults" (yes, the name is quite stupid), and then take the "matura" exam. There used to be also "technikum uzupełniające", but it has been removed. Its part connected with the professional subjects (what is more in "technikum" than it was in "szkoła zawodowa") was moved to so called "vocational courses" (kursy zawodowe), and the general education part can be realised as "liceum uzupełniające dla dorosłych".

(sorry for cutting most of the quotation, a stupid forum system says that the quotaton is too long)

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]

Gimnazjum is not a secondary school. It's more a kind of primary school, it's obligatory for every one - just as a 3-year continuation of the 6-year proper primary school. Maybe it was mistaken with "Gymnasium" from the German educational system, which is a secondary school, being a rough equivalent of the Polish "liceum".

The basic types of secondary education institutions in Poland are:
- liceum (secondary school) - it doesn't give any professional education, it prepares to higher studies and ends with so called "maturity examination" (nicknamed "matura"), which actually allows to start higher studies

- szkoła zawodowa (vocational school) - gives only basic professional education in a given job, you cannot take "matura" after it, but you take an exam in the given profession (e.g. hairdresser, car mechanic, baker, electrician)

- technikum - gives more advanced professional education than "szkoła zawodowa" (you pass a more difficult exam in the given profession), and also prepares to higher studies (although much weaker than "liceum"), lets you take "matura"

"Szkoła policealna" is the next level - for those, who have graduated from "liceum", but for some reasons don't want or cannot take higher studies (because, for example, they don't manage to pass the "matura"). Hence the name - "policealna" means "after liceum". It's an equivalent of "technikum", but it doesn't include the general subjects, like history, geography, maths etc., it includes only those preparing to the given profession (so, for example, for a computer technician, it may include operating systems, computer networks, hardware etc). It might be also chosen for those who graduated from "technikum", but want to get an education in a different job.

By the way, there might be also a case, when someone fails a year in the school many times. Although it's not much likely, usually teachers try to push the student to the next year anyway. And to be still a school-level student at the age of 24, you would have to fail a year 4 times. And go to technikum, not to szkoła zawodowa - while so weak students usually go to szkoła zawodowa, as technikum is usually too difficult for them (not to mention liceum and higher studies).

Courts usually let the child get the maintenance money up to the moment of getting a master degree in a single study field, unless, of course, the child finishes its education on a lower level, stops the education, or has much difficulty graduating.

Law / Child maintenance - at what age can I stop paying child support in Poland? [9]

There is no defined age. Basically up to the moment he finishes his education (also higher education) and starts working. If it's decided by the court that you have to pay, you also have to go to the court to cancel that.

Travel / Question about Layover - transfer flights from/to Poland [4]

So do you have a Polish visa or a Polish passport (i.e. you are a Polish citizen)?

If you have a Polish passport, you don't need any visa for Athens. You can move around the city and outside of it without any problem.

I am not sure about a Polish visa, but I think you also don't need anything; from what I know, Polish visa = Schengen visa, and Greece belongs to the Schengen zone.

Have a read: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visa_policy_of_the_Schengen_Area

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]

You will get them in each supermarket, for example in the Carrefour you told already about. In a special store you will just have a bigger choice of also some maybe more unique specialities - but a supermarket should be enough.

You will definitely get some souveniers in Cracow. Chorzów/Katowice is not such a touristic site, so it might be more problematic. You can check the tourist information office, they will probably have some there.

Did I get it correctly that you live in a hotel next to the AKS shopping mall? If so, it seems that if you take any tram from there (in the proper direction, the other one is to the centre of Chorzów), you will get to Katowice. Get off at this stop: goo.gl/maps/wFS1Z5tdw762, turn right, walk and after a short distance you will reach the bus terminal, from where you can get to Cracow.

Very close to your place there is also a very big and known park, one of the biggest in Europe.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


Looking at this stop at the Google Street View, I can see a kiosk there, which would most likely sell tickets as well, but on Sunday it's probably closed. There is a big shopping mall nearby, there is probably a newspaper shop inside as well, and most likely they are open on Sunday and they sell also public transport tickets.

Theoretically you should have an exact amount of money to buy the ticket for the driver, but maybe he will sell it anyway. It's always better to have a ticket bought before. Ticket is "bilet" in Polish.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


It may depend on the city. In Łódź the tickets don't have any magnetic strips, in Warsaw, from what I know, they do. No idea how it's in the Silesian metropoly.

Wawel is a good chocolate, Goplana as well. Don't buy Wedel, it's probably the most known, but it used to be good in the past, until it was bought by one of the western corportations.


Belvedere.

Yes, Żubrówka is most known.


In a huge supermarket, like Auchan, a big Carrefour or a big Tesco, it shouldn't be so difficult. But the whole range can be found in their factory shops.


I would recommend Play, but someone else will probably recommend T-Mobile...

Play usually has the best prices.

From Chorzów/Katowice to Kraków it's better to take a bus. The train route is being renovated and it takes more time to go by train because of that. You must buy a separate ticket for the train or bus from Chorzów/Katowice to Kraków, and if you want to use the city public transport in Kraków, you also need separate public transport tickets there (although if you want to see just the old town and Wawel, the old Polish kings' castle, you will not need to use the city public transport).

You will probably have take the train or bus to Kraków from Katowice, there is no direct trains from Chorzów. There is a direct bus, but it's in the afternoon from Chorzów to Kraków, so it will not work for you as well.

A good and usually very cheap bus company is polskibus.com - for them you have to book the ticket online. You don't have to print it, the "ticket" is just a long code consisting of numbers and letters, which you can write down.

Remember that the bus station in Katowice is in a bit different place than the train station (although not far away, at 500 m distance). From Chorzów to Katowice you can take a tram, a bus or a train (especially if you will live close to a train station), the website gop.jakdojade.pl can find all the connections - but remember that the city public transport tickets aren't valid on the train, you must buy a train ticket for the train. It seems that a train ticket from Chorzów to Katowice costs around 5 zł. If you board the train at the Chorzów Batory station (or back from Katowice), you have to buy the ticket at the counter, otherwise - from the train staff (buy the ticket immediately once you board the train).

For the other bus companies you can usually either buy the ticket directly from the driver (although it seems it may not work on this route), or at the office at the station, some of them offer also online tickets on their websites.

You can find all the bus connections at e-podroznik.pl

The biggest bus companies on this route seem to be, apart for the PolskiBus, also Neobus, Inter and Uni-Bus. There are also some buses making longer routes and going through Katowice and Kraków. As a result, the bus connection is very frequent, every 15 minutes or even more frequently, so it seems you can go to the bus station in Katowice whenever you want, look at the timetable, buy the ticket for the next bus (unless it's PolskiBus) and take it.

Travel / Poland Travel Help, first time visitor from Singapore - ways to cash withdrawal, cost of meal in McDonald ... [58]


If the Google Maps can find public transport connections in Chorzów, it should work.
The website jakdojade.pl might be better, as they update the data more frequently, and you are less likely to get timetables which are not up to date.


They do.

Actualy in the Silesian metropoly the system of tram/bus tickets is that they are valid either for specific time, or for a single ride (without changes) within one, two or more cities/towns (covered by this public transport system).

You have the total price list here: kzkgop.com.pl/strony/p-1-cennik-oplat.html?lang=en


You put it to the validating machine, which stamps some number on it (including the current time and date and the number of the vehicle), probably also punches holes in it (but not necessarily).

It looks like that, or similarly (this one is quite an old model, I don't know if they still use it in Chorzów - but newer ones work in exactly the same way, they also have a single slot for the ticket):

Law / Are non-Polish senior citizens entitled to use free public transportation ? [20]

Warsaw: ztm.waw.pl/?c=142&l=1
- any person that is at least 70 years old uses the city public transport for free, ID card or any other document with a photo and the birth date is needed

- pensioners below 70 years old are entitled to a 50% discount, document: pensioner ID or a bank printout showing that the person gets a pension
In both cases it doesn't say that it must be a Polish or Warsaw citizen, so foreigners are also entitled.

Wrocław: mpk.wroc.pl/bilety/prawa-pasazera-i-ulgi
- persons from 70 years old up: travel for free, they need to have an ID card or another document that has a photo and confirms the age

- pensioners (in practice - those below 70 years) are entitled to a 50% discount, but a Polish pensioner ID card is demanded

Kraków: mpk.krakow.pl/pl/bilety2/uprawnienia
- as in both previous cities, persons being at least 70 years old travel for free with a document confirming the age and the identity
- pensioners below 70 years old need a pensioner ID card

So, in all these cities, 70+ members of your family can use the public transport for free with a passport or ID card. Those who are below 70 years old and are pensioners - rather not. Remember that, at the entrances to the Warsaw Metro, there are gates, for which you need a ticket to open them, so if you want to use the Warsaw subway, either enter and exit the station using the elevators (then you omit the gates), or follow this advice:

Food / I SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM - the best ice cream shop in Poland? [34]

In Poland we have also this type of ice cream, which is not popular in many European countries, where the ice cream comes from a special machine directly to the cone. Known in Poland under different names: "lody włoskie" (Italian ice cream - even though I haven't found them in Italy), "lody z automatu" (ice cream from a machine), a very specific type of them is called "świderki", "lody kręcone" (curly ice cream) or "lody amerykańskie" (American ice cream).

Language / The shame! I can't pronounce my Polish wife's name (Ola) [69]


They will make something between Polish Ola and Ala, and Ala is a different Polish name. Ola is a diminutive of Aleksandra, Ala of Alicja (Alice) :)

It should be just o. Clear o. Not like the name of the letter "o" in the English alphabet, where it starts to be Polish "o", but then goes to something closer to English "w", Polish "ł" or Polish "u".

You don't have to be perfect, the same as Polish people aren't perfect in English pronounciation. Think, how many Poles can correctly pronounce "th", or "a" in, for example, "man" (so that you can distinguish it from "men")? Just remember that you have to pronounce "Ola" as "Ola" (with short, clear "o"). If you pronounce it like in "coast", then if you want to spell this pronounciation in Polish, it will be something like "Oula" or "Ołla". By the way... let's get rid of "a" in "coast". You have "cost" with... something looking like exactly this kind of "o" which you need.

See: dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/cost - and play the recordings of the pronounciation. The American version is wrong (I mean, if you want to use the same vowel for Ola; in American English for coast it's correct), it goes too much towards "a", but the British version sounds - for me - perfectly OK. Even though the phonetical symbol present there looks like "a" wirtten upside down, this what I here is exaclty what is needed in your's wife name.

Language / How to correctly pronounce "złoty" in Polish? "ł" letter [4]


zwoty - something like that.


Only talking to foreigners. Don't ask me why. Even the English teacher in my school, already quite a few years ago, was telling "zloty", not "złoty", and even creating plural as "zlotys" (for English native speakers: how would you create plural from that? złotys or złoties? or would you just leave the singular, telling e.g. "twenty złoty"?), explaining that "there is no letter ł in English". Well, I understand writing "l" if you don't have "ł" on your keyboard (actually we don't have it as well, we type it using Alt+L), or if your computer is not able to handle it; I understand pronouncing it as "l" when you don't know that it's actually "ł" and it should be pronounced like English "w" - but when you know it, just pronounce it correctly...

The same is with the city Łódź. I understand that many foreigners may know it as Lodz, pronounced "Lotz" or "Loch" (with "ch" like in cheer, not like Loch Ness), and it is so actually, they are often amazed when I tell them it's pronounced "Wooch". But if I know how it should be pronounced - I always tell "Łódź" correctly. Only adding, that is maybe known for the person I talk to as "Lodz", when the person tells he has never heard about this city.

In German there is an adjective from this city name: "lodzer", and this one I would definitely pronounce with L, not Ł, and with DZ, not DŹ. It comes from this incorrect pronounciation - but I have never seen nor heard "łódźer", this looks really awkward in German, while "lodzer" is something I have seen and even heard; there is even a noun from that, used also in Polish: Lodzermensch. Not Łódziermensch, but Lodzermensch.

By the way, is it possible to create an adjective from Łódź/Lodz in English, similarly as it is possible in German? Will it be also Lodzer (analogically to Londoner), or will it look differently?

Law / Are non-Polish senior citizens entitled to use free public transportation ? [20]


Each city has its own regulations on this topic. The age threshold might be different in different cities, there can be special conditions, the public transport for senior citizens may be also not free, but only discounted. You must tell us the city you think about.


If I am not mistaken, you are from Germany... Is public transport free for seniors in Germany? I don't know, but it's likely that it isn't at all, since Germany has a totally different system of discounts in the public transport.

For example in Poland students are entitled to 50% discount in city public transport, and if I am not mistaken, it's guaranteed by the higher education law. Theoretically people from other EU countries shouldn't be discriminated with respect to the Polish citizens, the same rules should apply - but in some cities it's for example required from the foreign students (studying in other EU countries) to carry not only their student ID for the discount to be applied, but also a translation of the ID to Polish, made by a translator authorised for translation of official documents. Although... I have a German student ID, and it doesn't contain almost any text (only the words meaning "student registration number" before the proper number, and the name of the study field). What is more, on the rear side there is a... commercial. Should the commercial also be translated? :) Or for example in Łódź it's required from them to have... an ISIC discount card, which is treated as a student ID. But a competing Euro-26 discount card is not accepted. And it's quite weird to accept just a discount card, which isn't any official document. The same is, by the way, on all the trains within the country (although the discount there is based on other regulations).

And how is it in Germany? I am on a student exchange in Karlsruhe, and the students there don't normally have any discount for public transport, but in the city of Karslruhe, and in the area around, the public transport is free of charge for the students - only for those from the higher education schools in Karlsruhe - on the evenings after 18:00 and on weekends and holidays. And also for one semester for the whole week only for those of these students who live in Karlsruhe. So the system is totally different.

So you must check the regulations that hold in the specific city. This is the only way.

Po polsku / Pies rodowodowy/nierodowodowy w Polsce i w innych krajach [3]

A co jeśli ktoś po prostu chce sobie kupić psa nierasowego (kundla)?

Można oczywiście wziąć takiego ze schroniska - ale co jeśli ktoś chce takiego psa od kogoś kupić - bo np. chce go wychowywać jeszcze od szczeniaka?

Nie powinno być to zakazane, i mam nadzieję że nie jest.

A przepisy dotyczą chyba raczej psów rasowych pochodzących z hodowli - zdarzały się nielegalne hodowle, w których zwierzęta były po prostu źle traktowane i żyły w niegodnych im warunkach. Stąd wymaganie, by takie hodowle były rejestrowane i ich kontrolowanie jak najbardziej ma sens. Szczególnie, że ludzie zarabiają na nich duże pieniądze.

UK, Ireland / Should an English website in UK have Polish translations? [12]

In my opinion - English should be enough. From the people going abroad (for any purpose) it can be expected that they will be able to speak if not the language of the country they go to, then at least English - as it's kind of "lingua franca" now, the language that most people in the world learn as a foreign language. So a website of such a unit in any country should have at least two versions: in the language of this country and in English. In this specific case both of them are exacltly the same language - therefore it's enough it will be in English.

I understand that it is a multi-cultural society, but it's still the UK, and the immigrants are only kind of guests.

However it's always nice to make things easier for the people, and if there lives many Poles there, it's definitely a good idea to translate the website to Polish. But it isn't anything necessary.

The idea of translating only the most important things is very good.

Law / Required Documents for Buying a Used Car in Poland [17]

I have found some information that the PESEL number on the car sale contract is obligatory from 1. Januar 2016 to register the car, but maybe it doesn't concern foreigners not having this number (as for example this possibility is taken into account in the car registration form). I couldn't find any detailed information.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

Hm... equally well I could say "never drive in Poland" :)

The Polish railway isn't maybe the most reliable means of transport, but it's not much worse from the railway in the other European countries (ok, it is, in terms of the speed, but it's definitely not bad, and still in many cases faster than car or bus).

Taking a plane is also a good option, if you can find a flight in a good price. Lot should be better from Ryanair in terms of that in Warsaw it uses the Okęcie airport, which is located within the city, while Ryanair uses the remote Modlin airport, from where you have to take a bus or a train (to which you have to get by a shuttle bus from the airport anyway) to Warsaw. But will be also probably more expensive.

Law / Required Documents for Buying a Used Car in Poland [17]

You must sign a sale contract (umowa sprzedaży, sometimes incorrectly called umowa kupna-sprzedaży) with him. There is no official pattern, but you will find examples on the Internet. Normally you usually include the PESEL number, the address and the number of the identity document of both the seller and the buyer. If you don't have the PESEL number, it should be enough with the passport number and the address, but I am not sure if PESEL is not necessary to register the car.

If the car was registered in Poland before and you are going to register it in Poland now, it's enough.

The seller has to give you the registration certificate (dowód rejestracyjny) of the car, the vehicle card (karta pojazdu) and the insurance documents. The obligatory civil liability insurance is automatically passed from the seller to the buyer, but the prices depend on the person who is the car owner (for example you pay more if you are younger), so it might be so that you will have to pay something extra, even though the insurance paid by the old owner is still valid for a few months. Contact the insurance company in which the car is insured. If you buy the car from a private owner, apart from registering it, you also have to go to the tax office and pay the tax (2% of the price).

Be careful while buying the car - it's good to have a specialist with you who will check it's technical condition. Don't trust the km counter (it's common to modify its indication before selling the car), rather look at the wear-out of the surface of the elements like the steering wheel, the gear changing lever or the seats to determine how intensively the car has been used. If you buy the car from a reseller (komis) and you want to take the car for an inspection to a local car service, also be careful, it happens often that the reseller and the local car service owner know each other well and the closest car service won't necessarily tell you the truth about the car. It seems to be better to buy a car from a private owner than from a reseller.

There is also a lot of sale offers for cars imported from Germany, and sometimes from other EU countries. They may look very good, since the prices are usually lower, but you will have to pay quite a high tax, do a lot of paperwork, and those cars aren't usually in a perfect condition.

Here (in Polish) is everything you need to register a car: motofakty.pl/artykul/wszystko-o-rejestracji-samochodow-oplaty-podatki-dokumenty-poradnik.html

In short, you need:
- a filled-in registration form (you will find it in the office where you are registering the car, or you can print it and fill it in by yourself before - DOC: bip.um.wroc.pl/attachments/download/13188, PDF: bip.um.wroc.pl/attachments/download/13809)

- proof of owning the car (usually the sale contract)
- the old registration certificate with a valid (not expired) confirmation of a technical inspection - a car must pass such an inspection every year
- vehicle card (unless it's an old car, from the times when such cards weren't issued yet)
- ID card or another identity document (passport in your case)
- the old license plates

If the car was registered in the same county (powiat) before as you live, you pay 81 zł for everything. Otherwise, you need new license plates, and you pay 180,50 zł altogether. Also, if the car still has old black license plates with white letters, you will have to pay the higher price and get new plates - even if it was registered in the same county before. If you have white license plates with a blue bar on the left, then they can stay if the car will be registered in the same county as before, regardless of whether they have the Polish flag on the blue bar, or the EU flag.

If the car is very old and doesn't have the vehicle card, you will also have to pay 75,50 zł for issuing one.

After doing all the formalities and paying all the fees, you get a temporary registration certificate valid for 30 days. In this time they will print the proper registration certificate, which you will have to receive in the same office where you registered the car. If there is such a need, you will get also new license plates, a new sticker with the registration number for the windscreen and a new vehicle card (the last one only if you didn't have any before, the vehicle card is a document which stays with the car forever). If the old license plates stay, then they will only put new legalisation stickers on them.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

And will charge you service fee, while you can do it online by yourself without any problem...

Booking the tickets through a middleman may make sense only for international tickets from Poland other than to Berlin, or maybe, sometimes, tickets for connections involving changing between trains. Because it's impossible to buy them online.

By plane it's faster and also cheap, for a distance between Cracow and Gdańsk it makes sense, but you have hand luggage only unless you pay extra for registered luggage.

Travel / Optimal order of Warsaw-Gdansk-Krakow for train travel September [8]

It doesn't matter.

Between Gdańsk, Warsaw and Cracow you have quite fast "EIP" connections with Pendolino trains. Buy tickets early (they are released always 30 days before the departure, and it's best to do it immediately when they appear), then you will pay much less - you can do it online. The fastest train connection between Cracow and Gdańsk is exactly through Warsaw.

Is it smart to travel overnight? It's 5,5 hour by train, so it may make sense to do it overnight (the night train is deliberately slower, so that you don't have to leave Cracow or get to Gdańsk in the middle of the night, and it takes around 8 hours). But then book a sleeper, or at least a couchette (the night train is an ordinary train, not Pendolino). Travelling overnight in an ordinary compartment you risk being robbed, the thieves are active in the overnight trains in Poland.

News / Poland Sports News [981]

Throughout the history != now.

Although we currently have some players who are really praised in the European football clubs, but when it comes to the national representation, it seems that they cannot create a good team...

Maybe the thing is that they change the coach every Europe or World Championships, and it takes more than 2 years to make the team playing well?

Law / Old Polish money banknotes - what's their value today? [414]

I am afraid, it's no longer possible (if it's the old złoty, from before 1995). And how much of that do you have?

1000 zł from before 1995 (PLZ) = 0.10 modern zł (PLN) = roughly 0.02 EUR

Language / Use of Kochanie in Polish [37]

Exactly.

moja miłość, moje kochanie

Law / What banks are people using in Poland? [50]

How is Poland different from another countries in terms of that?

And what is your problem? What should we help you with? I cannot see any question in your post, so I don't understand what was the point of opening this thread.

Travel / Best place to exchange money in Poland? [98]


Exchange shops are a good option. If you have a bigger amount to exchange, like 1000 USD, negotiate the price. Exchange shops in the airports and train stations may have worse exchange rates than those in the city center.

I don't know how it is with banks, if their exchange rates are comparable with those of exchange shops, or worse.

Exchange shops are called in Polish "kantor", but they usually have English signs as well.


Big supermarkets sometimes accept euro, but they will have a bad exchange rate and you will get your change in the Polish currency. Definitely exchange the money to Złoty earlier.


It depends on your bank, the one that issued the card. If you have a card with free withdrawals in the whole world or Europe, it will be free.

If you withdraw the money from an ATM and it asks you about the currency of the transaction, don't choose the option with the "guaranteed exchange rate", select the option that you want that the transaction will be carried out in the Polish currency. The exchange rate of your bank/card operator/whoever is responsible for that will be better than the one offered by the ATM operator and showed to you.


If you are from Saudi Arabia, then it's good for you.

Law / Need help with Allegro in Poland, I'd like to sell a few things. [5]

It should be OK, although an offer with shipping from abroad will be always less trustworthy. There is many people reselling on Allegro products from AliExpress, then the shipping is from China and it also works.

How will the shipping work? You have to take care about that. Send the products by post, or by courier service. I don't know how it is with the British post, but once the parcel gets to Poland, everything should be ok. The Polish post is fast and reliable.

Another thing is payment. Sellers on Allegro usually offer both payment in advance (by a bank transfer) and at the moment of receiving the package (the post offers such a service, the courier companies offer it as well). If you are new and you don't have any reviews yet, many of the buyers will not trust you if they have to pay in advance. But it's good to offer such an option anyway, and it will be best for you to use the Allegro paying scheme (if I remember well, it's called PayU), then they will not have to send money to a foreign bank account, which might be problematic and which would make you much less trustworthy. Then you can withdraw money from the PayU system to a foreign bank account as well.

Life / What's the best Polish radio station? [36]

For many PiS voters Radio Maryja would be an appropriate station. But no, don't do that.

RMF FM and Zet are biggest and most popular stations, you can receive them almost everywhere, but they are nothing special. If I listen to them every day on my way to school, I get fed up of them after a short time, as they repeat totally the same songs all the time.

What I personally like most are regional stations of Polskie Radio (the public broadcaster), e.g. Radio Łódź (not everywhere the name of the station comes from the name of the city, for the Wielkopolska area it's Radio Merkury, for the Mazowsze it's Radio Dla Ciebie, for the Lubuskie region it's Radio Zachód).

A station playing a bit more ambitious songs is Trójka (the 3rd channel of Polskie Radio).

RMF and Zet play both modern and a little bit older songs, a station which is more focused on modern songs is Eska. But as for me, it's the same crap, after some time I can't listen to that any more.

Rather than RMF and Zet, I prefer Złote Przeboje more. The profile of the station is similar, maybe they play less modern songs and more 80's or 90's, but it's somehow easier to listen to that than to RMF and Zet. But they don't have coverage everywhere, as the first two mentioned stations do.

Sometimes local stations may be better.

If you want something with spoken, with discussions, you have yet less choice.

The options are:
- Tok FM
- Jedynka (Polskie Radio Program 1)
If she is a PiS voter, don't choose Tok FM. Jedynka is quite universal, they have some music too.

Spoken is also Maryja, but this is a catholic station, which is very church-oriented.

And Tok FM will not receive all the time as you drive through the country, only in a distance like 30 km from bigger cities. There is no much choice if you want something receiving in the whole country.