Is This The Best Order To Visit?

I’m not sure how your flight from Budapest will work into your itinerary, but as far as transportation within Poland, trains will easily work if you start in Warsaw, then Kraków, then Wrocław, then Poznan. If you have some extra time, I highly recommend a trip to Gniezno, which you could do as a day trip from Poznan, but an overnight trip would be nice (you have a string of larger cities so I think Gniezno would be a nice addition).

I think the order to visit is good. If possible I'd add 1 more night to Krakow as there are many excellent nearby daytrips. Also maybe 1 more night in Poznan wouldn't hurt if you plan to take advantage of the nearby day trips.

I also highly recommend Gniezno too! It's the historic and legendary birthplace of Poland, the first capital before even Krakow. Home to the impressive Gniezno Cathedral, one of the oldest religious buildings in Poland, filled with all manner of interesting art and relics. Gniezno is blissfully off the radar, I doubt you will see another foreign tourist there.

Another day trip from Poznan to consider is the Biskupin archeological site. An Iron Age fortified settlement of the early Slavic and Lusitanian cultures. Nicely reconstructed with a great adjacent archaeological museum.

Andrea, I have nothing to offer but I will be watching your posts with interest. Poland is starting to appeal to me more and more!

I would add a night to Krakow, especially if you plan to visit Auschwitz, which I highly recommend. It’s a wonderful city, one of my favorites, and there is a lot to do. I would take a night from either Warsaw or Wrocław. Gdańsk was my second favorite stop in Poland, but it is a bit out of the way for your itinerary and you would need more time.

Thanks for your thoughts so far. This is so hard! I can’t extend my 76 night trip, so adding nights in Poland will take away from time in Germany. In December I’ll be going there for the 8th time, but we’ve never been to the eastern part. After time in Berlin we will be with my family who live there to celebrate my aunt’s 80th birthday. I’m not sure if that will be in Hannover, where she lives, or in Cologne, where my cousins live. To be completely honest we are going to Berlin because I feel like we should see it, not because I have a burning desire to go. My husband rarely expresses any opinion on where we go and is just happy for me to plan the trip. Lol! I had planned 2 nights in Dresden and already removed them to add to Poland. I can take 2 nights from Berlin and add 1 to Poznan in order to do a daytrip to Gniezno and an extra night in Krakow.

My itinerary would look like this:

• Krakow 5N
• Wroclaw 3N
• Warsaw 4N
• Poznan 3N

That would leave approximately 2-3 nights for Berlin, but enough to give us an overview. I’m not sure exactly about when exactly we would be with the family, and they are my priority at that point. I think I’ll consider Berlin to be disposable, since I know we will be back in Germany, but unlikely to get back to Poland. Hmmm…maybe we should skip Berlin altogether. I would love to see Gdansk, but couldn’t figure out how to work it in because, as Carroll mentioned, it is out of the way. Where would that fit into this puzzle?

Berlin has a lot of modern architecture and is distinctly short on Old World Charm. It has magnificent historical sites and museums (especially WWII- and Cold War-related), plus the large museums on Museumsinseln and other art museums scattered about. There's a wide range of restaurants, which I always appreciate. If none of that sounds particularly interesting and you don't have a burning desire to visit Potsdam, I see nothing wrong at all with cutting Berlin from the itinerary. I spent 6 days there, which wasn't enough, but we're all different. Germany is a huge country chock-full of atmospheric towns to enjoy.

Actually, Warsaw and Berlin have rather similar pluses, though the former does have the rebuilt Old Town area.

Andrea, I totally agree about seeing Poland well while you are there. And with cutting Berlin since you aren’t dying to see it. Save it for later and use your days for Poland - harder to get back. You could always pair it with Gdansk on a later trip. Or……

I am not necessarily suggesting this because I haven’t worked out logistics. But it would be possible to train from Warsaw to Gdansk, then Gdansk to Poznan - then on to wherever. You, as always, have a puzzle with many pieces to put together. :)

I haven’t been to Poznan so no comment there, but you now have a nice number of nights otherwise.

I haven't been to Poland (yet!), but I think that since you don't have much interest in seeing Berlin now and that you believe you will be back in Germany on future trips, I would skip it on this trip.

I recently spent three nights in Berlin with two friends, part of a longer, multi-country trip. Before going, I didn't have that much interest in Berlin either, but my daughter went there about ten years ago and said I should go and one of the friends I was traveling with wanted to go. I was very pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed Berlin even in the short time that I was there. I would like to visit again, this time taking my husband since it has obviously changed a lot since he was there in the early 70's.

It’s not that I don’t want to see Berlin, but I won’t feel disappointed if I don’t make it there on this trip. If I skip Berlin entirely and spend 3 nights minimum in each place I would have enough time for this:

• Krakow 4N
• Wroclaw 3N
• Warsaw 4N
• Gdansk 3N
• Poznan 3N

I could drop a night in Poznan and not do a day trip from there and add it to Krakow or Warsaw, but I would lean towards Krakow.

Does this look better?

Just noting that Gdansk is a large city with airport connections to Berlin and onward, so ending your Poland time there might be an option. Or rail from there to Berlin.

If you are adding a night to either Krakow or Warsaw, I would agree with Krakow simply because you are flying in and all of that will take much of a day. But adding a night to Gdansk would also not go amiss. 🤣

If including Gdansk, then the order of Warsaw, Poznan, Gdansk or Warsaw, Gdansk, Poznan ought to be determined by train schedules between these 3 and train or flight schedules on to wherever “next” is (now that we stole all your Berlin days).

I agree with Stan this would be the better order a visit to minimize backtracking:

Krakow 4N
Wroclaw 3N
Poznan 3N
Warsaw 4N
Gdansk 3N

If adding Gdansk then I'd probably take one night from Poznan to add to Gdansk, the city has a lot to offer.

Thanks everyone, this is such a hard decision. With this many days I’ve eliminated Dresden and Berlin, plus taken a day from family time in Germany. We have planned a week in Budapest before going to Poland. I’ll have to think about taking a night away from there. I appreciate the advice for the better order of the trip.

I'm currently trying to figure out where my Polish ancestors are from before we plan a trip there, so I will be watching this thread.

Andrea, I can understand why this is hard for you because I'm reading it and my head is spinning and I don't have to make your decisions. I also don't know much about how you like to travel, but the impression I'm getting from your descriptions is that this is a nice long trip with a little bit of time spent in a lot of destinations.

Is that how you prefer to travel? Not being critical, just asking.

Do you know what you're planning to do in some of these cities? Do you have enough time allocated to do those things? Or are you wanting to do a scan, and see where your relatives came from?

Either is OK, and I've certainly done scans of places for which I only had moderate interest or limited time. It's hard for me to comment without knowing your vision.

I can say that I spent 8N in Warsaw and will spend 7N in Gdansk this summer. I don't recommend that amount of time for most people. Depending on your vision, 3 or 4N each may be just right for you.

I'm sad that you've dropped Dresden, but without knowing your itinerary for eastern Germany, I can't advocate for it. It's a jewel of a city.

If I had to make a cut, as much as I hate to say this, it would be to drop Budapest and give the days back to Dresden and sprinkle them around Poland. This assumes that you can go to Budapest on another trip - because I'd also be sad if you don't go there! But I don't know whether you consider that likely.

And otherwise, if this trip is just a scan, then I think your latest allocation is the way I would do it.

I'm glad it's not my decision to make!

It is always a crapshoot when it comes to how many days in each place, especially large cities. We spent 6 nights in Krakow and had no problem filling up our time. We spent 4 nights in Warsaw and wished we had more. We were just warming up to the city when we had to leave. Whatever you decide it will be a great trip. I know people say you can always return, but it doesn’t always happen because of time, money, health, and other places to see.

@ mnannie, I am sending you a PM with a suggestion.

CWsocial, you are right that this is a long trip with a number of locations. The first two weeks will be with my daughter, with a week in England, mostly London, and a week in Ireland. She hasn’t had the opportunity to travel before and this could be her only trip, so she gets to decide the itinerary. I’ve been to England 3 times, including over 3 weeks last year and to Ireland twice including 2 weeks last year, so whatever she wants is fine. She will fly home and Jim will meet me in Geneva so we can spend some time in Switzerland, which we had planned and had to cancel in 2020. We will also spend some time in southern Germany to explore an area we saw passing through in 2006 and haven’t had the opportunity to return to, but coming from Switzerland we be so close that we want to see it. After some time in Austria we will have our 2020 do over week in Budapest, then on to Poland. We have some time constraints with wanting to be in Germany for my aunt’s birthday and home for Election Day. It doesn’t matter how much time we have, it is never enough. I doubt we will have the opportunity to return to Hungary or Poland, but who knows? We are primarily trying to go to places we haven’t been and we don’t have the luxury of time to do a deep dive everywhere. We try to not do a one night stay anywhere, though we have done a few over the years when we are passing through and just want a quick peek at a place. We also try to avoid 2 night stops, though occasionally we will do them if more time isn’t available. Ideally we stay somewhere at least 3 nights and longer is better. With Poland we can spend a longer time in fewer places or less time and see more places. I don’t want to sell Krakow short. I didn’t think we could fit Gdansk into the itinerary at all. Maybe I should skip Poznan and add those nights elsewhere? I only considered it because my ancestors came from there. I’ll have to do more reading about the other destinations and decide what our priorities are in each place.

I dropped Dresden and Berlin to allow more time in Poland. We will definitely be back in Germany and will try to make a point of going to the East.

As much as I would like more time everywhere, I think a taste of each place is better than not seeing it at all. Decisions, decisions…

“I know people say you can always return, but it doesn’t always happen because of time, money, health, and other places to see.”

@Barbara, you are so right about all of the above. We have been fortunate to have made the trips we have, but there are so many places we haven’t been to yet. I’d have more time for other places if Paris didn’t keep insisting I return. 😆

I agree with Carlos’ division of nights. Take the 3rd night from Poznan and give it to Gdansk.

I will counter CWsocial’s thought just a bit with the thought that you are actually spending quite a bit of time seeing POLAND, as opposed to concentrating on particular cities in depth. You definitely will not see all it has to offer, but you ARE going to see the country itself. You may find that parts of it are interesting enough that you do indeed come back - maybe for a Christmas market. 🤣 And if this is enough, then it’s quite a bit. After all, we can’t see everything!

Thanks TTM. I always struggle with wanting a reasonable amount of time without sacrificing other locations.

I just had a long FaceTime call with my aunt in Hannover. I told her when we would be there next year and she brought up the 2 times we have rented a large house so the family can all gather together and how we should try to do that again. I agreed, but mentioned her twin grandsons will be starting school in August (my cousin and I had a conversation about that) so that might not work out. Oh, there is an autumn break in October. It starts the same time we would be transitioning from Budapest to Poland. It looks like we might have to have a Plan B. Fly to Germany from Budapest for our family gathering first, then backtrack to Poland. Depending on how this works out, which I should hopefully know soon, we may just add back Berlin and Dresden before going to Poland and fly home from there. That means giving up time at the end of the trip in Paris, which makes me sad, but we do plan on going there in 2025.

Trip planning is a moving target! 🤣

That’s an understatement!