2 week itinerary in Poland REVISED

Lady with an Ermine is in the National Museum of Krakow through the end of November 2019.
https://mnk.pl/exhibitions/current

Maybe because I've spent many years in Southern California, Sopot (and Gdynia) definitely seemed a bit underwhelming. Not bad, but just underwhelming (I say this as someone from Poland). But it's a good way to see some water and have a relaxing time.

Did you check out the In Your Pocket guides for each city? They're pretty good. The Warsaw visitor website is also very good.

Your itinerary looks fine to me. If you had more time in Warsaw, I'd say to go to Lodz for a side trip (interesting old industrial center with neat architecture that's been refurbished for the 21st century). Other than that, your itinerary looks good. Praga (where the Neon Museum is) is a cool neighborhood (parts in gentrification mode), even if you miss the museum, you should check it out.

Also, someone else posted here that they really enjoyed the Crazy Guides Communist Tour of Nowa Huta (https://www.crazyguides.com) so maybe that's worth checking out as a unique experience. You'll be tooling around in an old Trabant, and it will give you the chance to see some good ol' Stalinist architecture and hang out with some young folks leading the tours.

Hello, glad to see some of my recommendations were helpful! Here would be my answers to some your questions:

1. Personally I would pick Zamek Książ, I found it quite impressive, while nice, Jelenia Gora has a lot of what one would find in Wroclaw, for me Książ is more unique.

2. If you are interested in WWII history, Westerplatte may be an interesting half-day trip, fairly close to Gdansk, it is, after-all, where it all started.

3. The Churches of Peace took me about 1:30 hr to see each, however I went there with a rental car, so I can't comment on public transportation.

4. If by now you are a bit tired of baroque palaces and castles Wieliczka Salt Mine should be a good day trip, if not then by all means Pszczyna Castle (Schloss Pless).

Hope this helps! :)

We saw Lady with an Ermine in August, 2018 at the Main Building of the National Museum in Kraków located at al. 3 Maja 1. The National Museum has several branches, so make sure you go to the Main Branch. She is there until Nov. 30. We did buy our tickets online ahead of time at bilety.mnk.pl and we're glad we did because the day we were there, a Sunday in August, there was a long lineup at the ticket office, we were able to walk right in. Other members of this forum have not experienced a lineup there, and most likely Nov. will not be busy. The tickets are not dated, it says on them "Valid until the end of the exhibition", so even if you buy your ticket ahead of time you will have flexibility on what day you go. She is lovely - so glad I saw her.

Definitely buy ahead for the Schindler Museum.

Looks like a fun trip! I recommend that you take a minibus to the Peace Churches. We took the train to Swidnica and we got started later than I would have like because of the train schedule. The minibuses run more frequently.

I took a walking tour of Nowa Huta, which was very interesting.

Buy the Auschwitz ticket ahead of time.

I liked the neon museum, but I walked around quite a bit before I found my way to it. There were barriers. Unfortunately, I don't remember how I ended up reaching it. Search online for specific directions; someone may have included them in a TripAdvisor review if they aren't on the museum website.

Quite near the neon museum is a small museum of communism, worthwhile if you're in the area and haven't been to the DDR museum in Berlin. The Warsaw place is small and doesn't take long to see.

We went to Poland for the first time last year and absolutely loved it. Our route wasn't hugely dissimilar to yours and we were happy with what we did (knowing that we clearly missed so much too). I say all that in case the following sounds too negative.

• Warsaw is spread out and initially for us confusing. We got a better handle once using http://wyszukiwarka.ztm.waw.pl/bin/query.exe/en
• the Uprising Museum was hard to fillow, we should definitely have bought the audioguides; the royal castle is fine but I'd allow time to see the rest of the wonderfully recreated Old Town and also the neighbouring New Town
• Gdansk is a delight, but the older part is quite small so you may well find you have time to visit Westerplatte even after the blockbuster Solidarity and War museums. It's easy to get to by ferry.
• Torun gingerbread museum is okayish, but the Copernicus museum is also worth seeing. Best, we liked the skansen type museum just outside the centre.

Thank you all so much for the helpful advice! Sounds like my itinerary is just about good to go.

I'm very excited to visit Poland and provide a trip report for you all :)

I don't remember if this was brought up before (and I know it's too late) but are you OK with gloomy/ rainy/ even bitterly cold weather? The time you're visiting may not put Poland in the best light, so to speak (in contrast, May is just glorious and early to mid October could be quite lovely - later than that, it can take quite a dive). It's not much different than Pittsburgh at that time of year, and you may get lucky (I lived in both places). But you may get snow too in early November. The key downside is it will be less lively, but the upside is that it will be (even more) inexpensive and not crowded at all with tourists. Either way, I hope you have a terrific trip!

It's not my ideal travel weather, but I recently got a new job and am now fairly low on the seniority scale when it comes to vacation priority.

I don't mind the cold but I sincerely hope there is no snow. I'm optimistic since I'll be ending my trip in Krakow.

As a budget traveler (so am I), would you consider staying in a hostel? Say, in Krakow? That's an option I have open when traveling solo.