Poland

A view of Wroclaw in 1938

Albert — Sun, 06 Jan 2008 11:00:09 +0000

Below is a unique film, made by a German Whermacht officer in 1938. In the first 2,5 minutes you’ll see Breslau, which is the German name for the city Wroclaw. Before the second world war this was all German territory.

Early snow in Poland

Albert — Sun, 18 Nov 2007 21:41:14 +0000

First snow is not unusual in november is some parts of Poland, but it has been a while since snow fell down mid-november. It does result in beautiful pictures like this one taken from a webcam in Nowy Sącz.

Great forum about Poland

Albert — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 15:44:57 +0000

I recently was surfing around and stumbled on a great forum about Poland called www.polishforums.com. It has an active community and the common language is English. There are threads about almost every topic. If you are interested in exploring Poland than the ‘experience Poland’ section is probably the most interesting. It also has an area about Poland Vacations and Travel where you can find a lot of usefull information.

Pieniny

Albert — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 19:27:16 +0000

Pieniny is on of the most beautiful National Parks in Poland. What makes it unique is the Dunajec. A narrow river twisting it’s way between the mountains which at some points give you a canyon-like view. If you visit the Pieniny Park you really should go for the complete three hour rafting experience starting from Sromowce-Kąty all the way to Krościenko. A pretty unique experience and one you won’t find in many places in Europe.

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Moszna

Albert — Sun, 21 Oct 2007 22:39:54 +0000

Moszna is a small village with a beautiful ‘disney’ castle in the south-west part of Poland, south of Opole. The castle is now used a Centre of Therapy of Neurosises. Also, every year in May, there is a Musical Festival.

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A hope for better roads

Albert — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 20:55:08 +0000

I often visited Poland by car, driving from The Netherlands through Germany. The first time was when the Berlin wall was still standing and we had to wait hours at the Polish border. When we drove into Poland heading to Warsaw we left Western Europe behind us and with it … all highways….

The quality of roads in Poland was terrible in those times and most haven’t improved much since then. Poland is the largest country in central or Eastern Europe but it’s civil infrastructure belongs the worst. Only 3% of the roads meet standards set by the European Union. In short: travelling by car in Poland is not advised for the unexperienced driver.

There is hope however!

In 2012 Poland and Ukraine will be hosting the UEFA euro 2012. If Poland wants to be able to handle the thousands of visitors, the infrastructure has to be massively improved. That’s why the government has announced the plans to construct about 1000km of highway and approximately 1500km of other main roads to connect the most important cities and neighbour countries.

Some parts have already been completed for the most part, like the A4, but others like the A1 exist for the the most part only on paper.

The EU will invest € 60 billion for the next 5 years to improve the transport infrastructure in Poland. A part of that amount - probably around € 20 billion - will be used specifically for roads.

Not everybody is convinced the plans will become reality on time. Between 2005 and 2006 only 174km of highway was build so the building speed has to go up fast, but if it gets done it will give visitors much better ways to explore Poland!

Unusual stories about Poland

Albert — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 11:18:57 +0000

This isn’t going to be the regular tourism site about Poland. There are plenty of those. I’m not going to write about its history and culture either or any other facts you can easily find elsewhere.

My goal is to write about interesting and unusual things to do, places to see or stuff to know about Poland. Digging from my own personal experiences and travels. Basically it’s going to be about anything I find worthwhile to share and of which I think you might enjoy!

For example.

Maybe you haven’t ever been in Poland and when you think about Poland you visualize a poor country with old fashioned streets and stores. But did you know one of the largest shopping centers in Europe is in the heart of the Polish capital?

In februari 2007 ‘The Golden Terraces‘ were opened in Warsaw. The center houses 200 stores, cinemas, restaurants and numerous office buildings. It already received an award for the best commercial project in the world. The price tag? About 500 million euro.

It seems that over the last years these mega-malls popup in every major city in Poland like mushrooms after a rain shower in fall. However, if you want your Poland visit to be a budget vacation, you better avoid these places for shopping, prices are much higher than in other places. And besides - you’ll find little ‘real Poland’ in these centers. Still they are often pretty impressive structures.

Mapped pictures of Poland

Albert — Sat, 06 Oct 2007 10:33:16 +0000

Great photos of Poland. Just click on the map and you will see a larger clickable version with some beautiful pictures of each region.

The map is divided in :

Northwest
West
Center
Southwest
South
Southeast
East-Roztocze
East-Polesie
East-Podlasie
Northeast