Hotel Recommendations for Warsaw and Bialstok - Location important

For Warsaw, consider staying near the intersection of Nowy Swiat and Jerusalem Avenue - great access to the Royal Mile, and easy transport to the train station and other parts of the city. I stayed at the Chopin Boutique B&B - it's a bit Bohemian, with a lot of character - but perhaps not for everyone. But everyone should attend one of their Chopin soirees, held most evenings. There are many hotels in that area, including Hotel Indigo and Motel One.

We’re leaving on our Poland adventure in a week, and are staying at the Chopin Boutique B&B, recommended in Rick Steves’ guidebook. There’s a tram stop one block over, and it looks like a great location for sightseeing. Do you have a particular need that makes the location important?

If this helps narrow your search for Białystok, the Lonely Planet guidebook recommends the Esperanto Hotel (modern and close to the center) and the Hotel Branicki (romantic and centrally located, with a generous breakfast buffet). Both the train station and bus station are near each other, and are about 8/10 of a mile west of those hotels. Maybe you’ll see some of the elusive European Bison if you go to the Białowieża National Park, southeast of Białystok. Hope you find your relatives, too!

Thank you - i will check out those hotels for sure

Also, i didn't realize Bialystok had Bison!

You’d need to reach the national park, but Białystok seems to be the biggest city near it. Apparently, just as American bison once covered the plains in the middle of what’s now the U.S.A., European bison once swarmed the plains in central Europe. There aren’t very many left, from what I’ve read, but a herd of wild bison live in that park. If you hook up with those relatives, perhaps everybody could make a trip to the park, and spot the herd.

Great idea - when we attempt to write the relatives in our VERY broken Polish and are lucky enough to actually reach someone, we will see if they know about the Bison and hopefully get a group visit - that would be awesome!

There are 2 bisons in the Bialystok Zoo. Otherwise you have to go to the Bialowieza National Park where they are in a protected reserve and there also wild herds roaming free in that region - lots of videos on youtube, for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z3PnqxORQGI

We stayed at the Chopin Boutique Hotel and it was charming. Know that you have to carry your luggage up a few stairs to reach the elevator. The breakfast was served buffet style and you sat at a long table with other guests.

I stayed at Motel One two years ago and it was very nice and modern, but no free breakfast. Don't worry about being close to the attractions. They tend to be scattered around and UBER and taxis are quite inexpensive in Poland.

I have heard that a car is pretty much essential to visit the nature park near Bialystok. We are spending three weeks in Poland this September and taking buses and trains. No car.

Thank you! We will look at all the info. We are also considering to stay at either the Hotel Indigo or Motel One. We are not too concerned about transportation as taxi's do seem easy to find, and we may be able to hire a Rick Steves recommended tour guide, who should be able to pick up and drop off at either one of those hotels. We have sent an email to a tour guide and are hoping for a response. Also, does anyone have a recommendation if there IS a direct train between Warsaw and Bialstok, or if we should just focus on a Bus between the two cities? Once we reach Bialstok we could then consider renting a car, depending if we reach our relatives. Thanks!

We are not too concerned about transportation as taxi's do seem easy to find...

Bus and tram in central Warsaw are so frequent and coverage so extensive that there is little need for taxis - maybe for coming back from a distant restaurant in the evening. Might be good to install the Bolt app for summoning cabs - note that most likely you won't be able to create a Bolt account until you arrive in Poland - or at least a market that Bolt serves. For bus and tram, the Jakdojade app is quite useful.

No idea why you think you should focus on the buses - long distance trains have always been preferable to buses in Poland. Of course they are direct, Bialystok is one of the largest cities in Poland, just because it's not on the tourist radar does not mean that it's not well connected by train.

Yes I see in looking a bit further that there are frequent trains... thank you.

Has anyone been to the Bialowieza National Park. Not too far from Bialystok. I would need a driver or a car. Preferably a driver.

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