Poland info

PAz said:
Stay at the flamingo hostel. The location is absolutely amazing - http://www.flamingo-hostel.com
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I was looking at staying there but it was fully booked. We also thought being gay would be a prerequisite of staying at such a pink place :D Ended up at Hostel Giraffe which was OK but I wouldn't recommend it. We had no curtains in our room and the guy at the desk wasn't too bothered about sorting it out. It was a little out of the was as well. It did have clean facilities and a good atmosphere though. The bar in the hostel had a pool table, table football, piano, guitar and free internet.


And I just want to say again how good the Auchwitz tour was. £20 isn't a lot of money by any means. You can pay that to see a game of League 1 football and have a minute fraction of the experience. I can imagine the hassle of finding the bus and what it would be like just looking at the place without hearing the guide so trust me, it's worth it.
 
11 lads in Krakow, well, if youre not used to drinking vodka neat, then i recommend you get yourself a few pints of okocim, the 7% stuff, not the weaker variety, its on sale in most of the eateries/bars in the main square, sometimes they have a big show on in the square, you may get lucky, theres usually a gang of kids that come round with an old school ghetto blaster and flat cardboard boxes and do breakdancing while the youngest comes round with his cap off for cash, i love poland, its almost like there are no mingers there at all, only the tourist ones
 
I've been to Krakow a few times now and would add this advice.

Get a train from the airport, it costs a couple of quid and comes frequently. The walk from the train station to old town is about 5 mins.

Check out this place http://www.ckbrowar.krakow.pl/index2.php it's basically a micro brewery that sell great food. The beers are served in normal glasses or large 3 or 5 litre (i think) tubes which they fit into the table for you so you pour more when your ready. Make sure you have some change in this place as there is a woman who wont let you in the toilet unless you give her 12p or something.

At night I found the Jewish district the best. Not too sure about clubs but there are some great bars there. I would recommend this place http://www.alchemia.com.pl/eng/index.html and also the place over the road from it on the corner.

We also found it useful to get one of those tourist bus day tickets for a day of sight seeing. They cost maybe £8 for the day and you get on and off as many times as you like. Helps to have a map and a few places aounds the city you want to see.

Salt mines are amazing. You have to walk down about 300 miles of stairs to start the tour. Some of the older people were under the impression they would have to walk back up them at the end, listening to them was quite funny.

The last time we were there we stayed in a cheap hotel in the Jewish district. For me this is the best location I've stayed at due to it being so handy for the bars at night and the old town being 10 - 15 mins walk away.

The Zoo is a nice afternoon out, Meerkats stand up if asked :D
 
strang3r said:
Salt mines are amazing. You have to walk down about 300 miles of stairs to start the tour. Some of the older people were under the impression they would have to walk back up them at the end, listening to them was quite funny.
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We had a few of those. The "lift" on the way up was novel.
 
I've been to Krakow but only briefly. As other's said, totally amazing. Auschwitz should be first on your agenda and then the salt mines. However, I posted to mention something else. Should you have the opportunity to venture outside Krakow, head south. Some of the little towns close to the Slovak border is so beautiful I wanted to sell up here and move there. I kept thinking how lucky people must be to live here (should they earn a decent wage I hasten to mention). It made ANY place in the UK look third world. It's also much cheaper than Krakow. We spent one night in Mszana Dolna and drank and ate the whole night for £30. Just be prepared to take your vodka neat.
 
Got back yesterday from Krakow. We stayed about a 5 minute walk from the main square/street. Definately one of the best cities I have ever been to. The bars and clubs are fantastic, you dont know what to expect until you are inside. One place was like the Korova Milk Bar from clockwork orange, one had a load of fake arms sticking up from the bar, one had giant prints of 3d tunnels, random face masks stuck on walls etc
The most random but amazing bars/clubs I have ever been to.

There are loads of shops, things to see and restaurants.

Auschwitz is definately worth seeing, even if it is quite disturbing

The only downside is that we only had 3 nights there, I dont think 3 weeks would be enough to take in Krakow. Oh and Polish generally hate the English. English get ripped off for prices too, we met a group of Polish in a club (Prozak) and they asked how much we pay for a beer there. We said 9 PLN, they said "you english get ripped off" then went to the bar and got us 5 beers for 10 PLN! (still, 9 is only just over £2)
 
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