Warsaw is a difficult city to adjust to (coming from Canada and having lived in South Africa) Prague?

Ziemowit, you misunderstand! I was saying the Szczecin is a provincial, if large, city in comparison with Praha:-)

Not only the beer... Czechy win the comparison with PL in other areas such as ice hockey, car manufacturing (Skoda), awesome women and the omnipresent amateur porn industry... quite impressive for a relatively small country.

I don't know why'd you'd ever leave Prague - that is by far my favorite city in Europe. I'd definitely take Warsaw over Cape Town, Johannesburg, etc. though.

I could see why Warsaw would be a hard adjustment. It doesn't have the best layout and even for someone who is pretty fluent in Polish it's hard for me get around the city. I remember the two times I thought I'd be adventurous and skip the 1 hour flight from Warsaw to Wroclaw and just drive instead... yeah never doing that again..

Did you move to Warsaw for family, work, school?

Another few months and you'll be able to do the journey from Okęcie to Wrocław's Rynek in 3 hours maximum. The motorway connection on the east side of Łódź is almost finished - they might not get it open by August, but October is certain. Once that's in place, there'll be a direct expressway/motorway connection from Okęcie to Psie Pole.

Likewise to Poznań - almost all of the S5 is now under construction, meaning that in 3 years, you'll be able to drive from Wrocław to Poznań in about 1:15 or so. The train line is also undergoing massive reconstruction, and journey times should be cut to roughly 1.10-1.20 by 2020.

It's ridiculous it's a pretty short distance actually but if you travel during the day it can easily take 5 hours. I honestly don't like driving long distances in Poland. Road trips in Poland are not for the faint of heart, especially when you're used to wide highways and driving a large car. In Poland people in tiny fiats are passing people going 100 kmh through the villages - even on corners sometimes.

I still can't believe this poster left Prague... hope she had a really good reason. That is one liberal country I honestly wouldn't mind living in - liberalism seems to work a lot better there than the larger Western countries.

Yeah, Łódź is still a pain in the neck. Once the A1 opens, it'll be much more pleasant - especially as there won't be (at least until 2018) any tolls between Warsaw and Wrocław.


Depends which roads, really. The A1 around Katowice is immense fun for instance.


Not in some ways. The Czechs are totally incapable of constructing roads for instance, so it's highly unlikely that the R52 will be finished to the Austrian border (it's the main road to/from Poland towards Vienna and Croatia) anytime soon, and they haven't got a clue how to get the D11 built to connect to the Polish S3.

The country has been stagnating for years - Slovakia isn't far behind at all, and if it wasn't for the large rural populations in both PL and SK, they would be ahead of the Czechs by now. I like the country, but it has some severe issues.

The country has been stagnating for years - Slovakia isn't far behind at all, and if it wasn't for the large rural populations in both PL and SK, they would be ahead of the Czechs by now. I like the country, but it has some severe issues.

That's not true - I read one statistic that actually the Czech economy actually grew (in terms of percentage) the most of any EU country.

bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-08-14/czechs-power-eu-s-fastest-gdp-growth-as-romania-hungary-stumble

I really like Czech society - I've been there only about 3 times but I'm absolutely infatuated by Prague. I could totally live there - and the wages are a bit higher than Poland, on average.

It might be very recently, but for years, they were only ahead because they started from a pretty decent level compared to East Germany and Poland.


Wages are a bit higher, but only because Poland has that massive black market rural economy that the Czechs don't have. If you took into account all the undeclared income, they would probably be about equal.

Once-dark city is becoming the darling of Europe - BBC about Warsaw
"Every time I go there it seems like the city somehow transformed."

bbc.com/capital/story/20160504-this-once-dark-city-is-becoming-the-darling-of-europe

Poland has easily the worst international food scene I've ever seen. Mexican, lebanese, indian, chinese, greek. Every time I eat something non-Polish it's a disaster.

Also, it's famous that Poles have an extremely difficult time taking criticism. I think it's not part of the culture to make fun of each other so any criticism is taken seriously.

This extends to restaurants, if you give them some feedback they often feel like you're insulting them instead of trying to help them.

I totally disagree - for all of those cuisines I can think of at least one great place in Warsaw and a few in the other big towns. In that respect Poland is ahead of Czech and Hungary but obviously a long way behind places like the US or UK or Germany that have big expat populations of Indians, Greeks etc

There's a great Egyptian restaurant in my town - but yes, for the most part I will agree with you the foreign cuisine isn't that good in Poland. However, Poland's meats, cheeses, delis, etc. are way ahead of the rest.

Delph czech black market economy is significant - maybe not in terms of agriculture but certainly in terms of vice. I wouldn't necessarily consider a guy standing on the road selling blue berries and not paying taxes as 'black market' - typically this is classified as grey market by economists. Black market is huge in Czech - ever since they're decriminalized possession of all drugs there's been a big meth boom and marijuana was already huge there.

I was living in Toronto for 4 years prior to this, and my byfriend who is Canadian, recieved a Post-doc offer with one Institute in Warsaw. Initially I was like, no I was not going to join him but then I tagged along.

Yes Prague is amazingly beautiful with a cool and charming sense in the air - however since I did not grow up in Czech, it does not mean too much to me as say an english speaking city / country. I always thought Prague was special until we discoevered Venice a few months ago - this city by far tops the list for me as most beautiful and charming city in Europe.

"Szczecin, gdansk, 10 other examples. All different. "
Yet all ugly. Except Krakow, Torun and Przemysl. Even classical buildings in Poland look Dutch- or Prussian-inspired, i.e. uglier than Czech ones. Gdansk is so ugly, looks industrial with those red bricks. Also not fan of the long Polish villages shapes and flat-roofed houses. That said, Poland has more varied nature and the more beautiful girls. I think Poles are also friendlier.

Show me a Polish city with population that equals that of Plzeň (120k) that looks as well-maintained, clean and classic. No such thing exists. I like Polish girls, nature, food, language and culture but the architecture of Poland is one of the worst I've seen anywhere. Odessa's like Dubai compared to Rzeszow.

Interesting viewpoint, I have a soft spot of czech cities myself, but I am not too sure about your points that the architecture is vastly different. Both czech and south/west poland would have austro-hungarian architecture.

why did you single out torun and przemysl? what is special about them?

Yes, for sure it's Austro Hungarian but Polish ones were turned into industrial-looking ones by PRL authorities. If we just compare the various -Zdrój (bath) cities to any Lazne/Vary ones in CZ it is evident Poland suffered not just destruction under WW2 but the PRL regime obviously was worse than the one in ČSSR (well Slovaks would disagree, their cities were also made into concrete socialist hells). But tge Czech part was mostly well-maintained. Another example is the ugly panelaks right in the center of Ruda Śląska vs the way Železna Ruda looks.