Poland, Czech, Romania

I loved Prague the first time I visited, so I visited Czech Republic again a few years ago and Poland on the same trip. I visited Gdansk, Torun, Wroclaw, and Krakow, all by train (skipped Warsaw) then trained over to Olomouc, which Rick gushed about in his PBS episode on Czech Republic a few years ago as sort of an untouristy Prague. But when I was there (mid-September), Olomouc was completely dead - one of those places where you can't tell if the restaurants are open in the main square until you walk up to them, because there are no people around. I showed up at noon at the TI for the supposedly daily walking tour, but they didn't offer it because there weren't enough other tourists. I guess September isn't the best time to visit!

I suppose a night to check out Olomouc would have been OK but I made the mistake of two nights there. The big squares are pretty nice, and it sure was the not-touristy opposite of Prague, but I still didn't feel the need to spend much time there, whereas I hated to leave Prague both times I visited. Olomouc is worth a stop on the way to somewhere else but doesn't seem worthy as its own destination the way Prague is. I suppose you could do what I did after Olomouc: rent a car and drive west through Moravia to Southern Bohemia and stop in some of the cute towns like Telc and others closer to Cesky Krumlov. There are some nice little towns for sure, but I didn't quite fall in love with the area enough to want to return.

I loved the bigger towns I visited in Poland, however. The Polish countryside isn't so pretty, but the cities are lovely, at least in parts. Krakow is the most authentic of the towns I mentioned, because it was one of the few towns to escape serious bombing in World War II. But I still loved Wroclaw and Gdansk as well. They definitely have some communist-era warts not just charming old squares and buildings, but that's part of the appeal of eastern Europe, I think.

I'm considering a return trip to Krakow but heading east this time to L'Viv in Ukraine. I hear good things. I'd probably head on to Kiev just because I'd feel like I should. Might find a few other towns in Poland to stop in on the way.

Hi,

If it were my first time, then it would be a very difficult decision depending on the given time limit. But it isn't. If I got to Krakow now, it would most likely be on the night train from Vienna or Budapest, both direct routes on the EN train. I would do a repeat visit of a few days ( I was there in 2001), after which I would have to choose between heading towards Katowice and then south of it in Poland, or going to Brno and Olomouc, both well worthy of the time getting there.

Brno I've been to twice, still didn't see the Zentrum, centre ville yet. On this past trip in early June I made it to Brno as a day trip, had intended to do another one from Wien to Olomouc, the historical Olmütz with its fortress and chateau, but in the end lazied out.

Of course you can also do the train to L'viv

http://www.polrail.com/en/en/lviv-kiev-train-travel

https://en.m.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Lviv

I just came back from a trip to Poland. I planned on Warsaw and Krakow, then added Gdansk because of encouragement from the RS community and it was my favorite of the three. Leave enough time for a few hours at the Solidarity Museum (one of the best museums I've ever visited). I regret I didn't get to the new WWII museum.

Thank you for the replies. Another question would be people's recommendations for how to spend 10-11 days if we do decide to just stay in Poland, starting in Krakow. It seems like the bigger cities are obvious Gdansk, Wroclaw & Warsaw but any good day trips that can be reached in an hour or two by train that people recommend? I saw pictures of Zakopane, any others that people like? I am guessing we would not want to spend all of our time in the bigger cities?

I too am wondering about smaller towns in Poland (especially closer to Krakow) as I consider a return trip there. On my first trip, I spent a night in Torun, which is not a small town, either, but smaller than Gdansk, Wroclaw, and Krakow for sure. It sure feels smaller in the small town center - very charming and worth a stop if you can!

I also day tripped from Gdansk to Malbork (to see the castle, but there's a town too - the castle is amazing) and Sopot, a little resort town on the Baltic which I found a bit overrated.

From the pictures, Zakopane just doesn't look that appealing to me.

Re: small towns in Poland. I've been recommending the two I visited - Sandomierz and Kazimierz Dolny. They're roughly on the way between Krakow and Warsaw. Very nice, popular with Polish tourists. Zakopane is in the mountains, and very (non-American) touristy, but still worth a visit, especially if you want to hike.

We could give you more qualified advice if we knew which season of year you go and how much time you have for the whole trip. If you have only 11 days stay in Poland - Krakow, Warsaw, Gdansk with day trip to Malbork. Poland and Romania are relatively large countries; unlike Romania, Poland has fast trains (not superfast). Czech Republic is small. When you travel short distances countryside is changing quickly. You can see a lot in short time. Romania is very picturesque, distances are longer and trains are slow.
If you want to see all you originally planned you will need 3 to 4 weeks.

Thank you all for the replies. The small towns that were mentioned look very interesting and I am excited to read more about them.

We found super cheap tickets that will allow us to scratch the surface of these places. By no means was this an attempt to get to know whole countries in 2 weeks. We are not going until next summer.

The question was given our timeline 12 days, flying into Krakow and out of Bucharest - how would anyone who has been to these places spend their time?

I am liking the idea of Krakow to Kazimierz Dolny to Sandomierz to Warsaw with a day trip or couple days for Gdansk maybe. Then fly from Warsaw to Bucharest. We can simply fly through Bucharest or spend 8-9 days in Poland and 3-4 days in Bucharest/day trips from there? There are so many ways to do this trip I was just wondering how anyone else would set it up.

The other option being Krakow down to Olomouc/Brno, Bohemia(?) then fly from Prague to/thru Bucharest

I haven't been to the Czech Republic in 45 years (and only to Prague) and have never been to Poland, so I can comment only on Romania.

Romania is a fascinating country, but--as already noted--transportation is slow and distances are not particularly short. I figured I covered about 30 mph on trains (of which there are not a great many) and buses.

I visited the towns/cities of Timisoara, Sibiu, Brasov, Sighisoara, Oradea, Cluj-Napoca and Bucharest, plus the rural areas of Maramures (wooden churches) and Bukovina (painted monasteries). Of all those places, I would least recommend Bucharest. It has points of interest, but Ceausescu entertained himself by knocking down a great deal of the historic architecture. I found the other towns much more interesting, visually.

So my vote would be to use your vacation time elsewhere to the degree that you can do so without risking missing your transatlantic flight. Plan another trip to Romania and allow enough time to see more of what it has to offer. Bulgaria is also very interesting.

chervman, if you do visit those small towns in Poland, they're described pretty well in Lonely Planet guidebook.

@ chervman.....Every town or city I have been to in Poland I liked and found interesting. The smaller places were Malbork, Torun and Chelmo also on the Vistula. You don't always take the train but also the bus. The bus from a city has a net work. From Torun I took the bus to Chelmo. I would recommend seeing the towns in the lower Vistula area, some survived the war intact, ie south of Gdansk. See the towns where international tourists don't go to.

There are numerous small towns In Poland I would go to, ie, south of Katowice, the lower Vistula area, southeastern Poland. A good friend of mine flew from SFO to Warsaw via Paris CDG in August, went to Lublin, found the city interesting and "very Polish" and used mostly elementary Polish, some French and English to get around

The only stop that I can comment on from experience is Olomouc, which my wife and I really enjoyed on our 2011 trip to Hungary/Czech Republic. The fact that there are not that many things to do there was very liberating on a two night stop. Krakow is very much on my radar screen for a future trip, my research suggests it's an extremely worthy stop.

Thank you for the recommendations! I will begin my research with the ones mentioned. Bucharest has been getting a pretty bad rap from what I have heard, most people suggesting getting out of the city to see the rest of Romania. Might have to wait until our next trip to invest more time into that area. Just out of curiosity do people usually stay one night or two in smaller towns?

Sandomierz
Kazimierz Dolny
Malbork
Torun
Chelmo
Lublin
lower Vistula area
Zamość
Pszczyna
Poznań

In general terms (I haven't seen any of the towns you list), I hate-hate-hate one-night stops and almost never use them unless I need to break up what would otherwise be a terribly long travel leg. What I do is try to find a cluster of things I want to see that can be visited from a central point so I can spend at least 3 nights in one place. Other folks are more tolerant of 2-night stops than I am.

A string of one-nighters can cause laundry issues, aside from the mental exhaustion from dealing with a new hotel every day. I've had this issue when traveling in areas that are not consistently warm and sunny, because sink-washed clothing may not dry overnight.

I spent three summers in Lublin and love it. It's a beautiful town and would be a good base for you to make day trips to several of the cities you listed above (It's also where you'll find the Majdanek concentration camp, if you're interested in seeing more than just Auschwitz). Sandomierz is about 90 minutes away by PolskiBus; I'm not seeing a listing for Kazimierz Dolny on their website (perhaps someone else has better luck?) , but it's about an hour away by car. Not on your list but place you should definitely consider is Zamość, which is also about 90 minutes from Lublin by bus. The main issue here is that it's not as easy as you would think to get from Krakow to Lublin. The train can take anywhere from 5.5-7 hours, with up to two transfers, and the bus looks to be about 5.5 hours as well. You're almost better off taking the quick, direct train from Krakow to Warsaw, and then down again to Lublin. I was in Katowice for about nine months and while I enjoyed living there, I'm not sure I can recommend visiting, if that makes sense. However, from Katowice you can take the regional train to Pszczyna, which is perhaps my favorite Polish small town. There's a very nice square and Pless Castle (which looks more like a large manor house), which you can tour. It's a very pleasant way to spend an afternoon. Gdańsk and Toruń are also excellent places to visit, as are Poznań and Wrocław. It seems like you might need to decide if you want to do a Northern Loop (Toruń, Malbork, Gdańsk, fly out of Warsaw) or a Southern Loop, through the smaller towns between Krakow and Lublin.

@ chervman....Depending on your level of interest in the history of the towns you choose to visit, that should determine whether it's one night or two. or more. I spent 4 nights in Torun when we went in 2005, one of the days was going to Chelmo on the Vistula by bus. This town was bypassed by the Russians in 1945, ie survived the war intact. The lower Vistula country side interested me on that 1.5 hour bus ride Malbork I saw as a day trip by taking the train from Gdansk.

Great that you intend to go to Pszczyna, south of Katowice. If you know the modern history of the Upper Silesian area, it will be more meaningful as to what you are seeing. Kattowitz, as it was then known, was the province capital of Oberschlesien. (Upper Silesia) In 2001 the train stopped at Katowice after departing from Krakow, as I was riding back to Berlin, ca 10 hrs.

The chateau at Pless (Pszczyna), as suggested above, has been refurbished, restored, turned into a historical museum, etc , Schloß Pleß served as the German Army High Command HQ (Oberste Heeresleitung-Ost) and that of Austro-Hungarians (which they called AOK) on the Eastern Front in WW1. The chateau was also the residence of the Kaiser when he went there. Evidence of this history is displayed in the museum.