Looking for help on holidaying in Poland

B0bbyEwing

I should've asked this 3 months ago when I originally had the idea!! Basically I'm looking to go to Poland next year around August / September. This will be the first time I've ever done any kind of booking like this myself. All the internal travel we've done is basically book a hotel and then train or drive & it's just basic. Any abroad travel we've done, my OH has booked it. Thing here is - I want this to be a surprise.  We've discussed it & it's somewhere she also wants to go so there's no concern of her being like - well I don't want to go.

For getting there & back I imagine it's just as basic as hopping on Google, searching some flight comparison site To/From (that's a point - what airport in Poland should I be looking at?) & then booking it.
Is there really any more to booking the flights than that that I should know about?


It's more the once in Poland that bothers me. Basically we want to tour areas related to WW2 but I'm wondering about the - where to go, how to get there & back & then once there what bothers me is like when you go to historic castles & you can either wander around yourself or you can have an audio device like one of those press 5 to hear about what you're looking at, or you can have a tour guide who takes you around & talks to you.

Just a thing on the tour guide (FWIW I don't even know if this is even an option that exists), if it's like a group of tourists walking around with the tour guide speaking to the group then that's fine. Neither of us are the most social of creatures so if it's a 1-to-1 thing like a guide & yourself then I can feel the anxiety levels rising just thinking about it. OH isn't great with it but I'm worse. Hate that kind of thing. Much prefer a group where you can blend in to the background & let the speakers do their speaking thing.

But yeah, right now I just know that I want to go there. It's the once there that I'm stumped on.

Oh and it'd be a case of get there day 1 (we prefer as early as possible to maximise the day), a full day 2 & then come back day 3.
We're already booked up for another costly break next year so don't really want to stretch this one out an extra day.

twopenny

Flights, don't just Google. Find out which airports from near you fly to which airport closest to where you want to be.
Make sure it's a direct flight.
Arrange transfer to the town your visiting , travel to your hotel.

It would have to be a very early start to arrive at your destination early. 
You have to get to the British airport, 2hrs pre travel, flight time, de board and immigration, travel to your destination/hotel and check in.

You aren't going to manage WW2 sites in one day.  Get to the hire car place, drive to one site, explore, drive to another etc.
No time to travel to a castle so you don't need to worry about that.

eskbanker

One option would be to fly to, and stay in, Krakow, and visit Auschwitz/Birkenau - guided group tours are available, including transfers to/from the city, about an hour away.

strawb_shortcake

When my friend went, she flew to Krakow from a regional airport, she stayed in an Airbnb and did not drive at all, relied on public transport or organised trips. 

She booked the Auschwitz tour the day before, I wouldn't recommend this as it was very difficult, little availability and nearly never happened. 
So plan trips early with reputable companies.

2 days does feel rushed, there's a lot to see and do, I'd certainly look into the cost difference between 2 and 3 nights and see if you can make it affordable 

Woodstok2000

If your time is limited to a couple of days,I would stick to a city. As above, Krakow is a good idea, or I would recommend Warsaw.  Not much in the way of historical buildings due to the bombing, but the actual history more than makes up for it.   The Polin and Pawiak prison museums are excellent, and the Ghetto uprising museum is unmissable. With a few sights thrown in (the Ghetto and Ghetto wall, Umschlagplatz etc) thats easily a day and a half. You can do the museums yourself and There are great group walking tours of the city. Transport is very good too, so no need for a car.

It has a castle too, rebuilt after the war, now a great art museum. 

elsien

If you can stretch to a bit longer, I’d  recommend the Jet2 city breaks. They usually have some sort of voucher  knocking money off the cost. I did Krakow last year, there was a variety of hotels depending on your budget so I just did bed and breakfast and then took food out with me. 

Hand luggage is enough for a few days, and public transport gets you from the airport into the city. Hotel was also near a supermarket for lunches. Then any amount of budget choice in the evening for eating out. Public transport was absolutely fine, Auschwitz I did the  tour just because of the difficulty in getting there otherwise although it is possible. 

B0bbyEwing

Just to clear up something on castles, as I think perhaps some think I'm requesting to go see castles which wasn't why I referenced them.

Take Edinburgh castle as one example. You can go there & just wander around yourself, reading plaques & going oh that old thing looks nice, I wonder a bit about it.
Or you can go with those headphones & you press this button to listen to some info about what you're stood in front of.
Or you can walk around with a guide telling you stuff about what they're escorting you around.

1 attraction, 3 different ways of doing it.

I don't like option 1 because that's just like - well that's an old rock, I wonder if there's a story with it but I'll never know.

Option 2 is fine because you're still learning stuff about what you're stood in front of.

Option 3 is fine ..... so long as it's not us & the guide. If there's a group of people & the guide then that's fine but we're not keen on these things where it's just you two & a guide. Did that on something last year & didn't enjoy it purely because you're having to interact with the guide otherwise it feels awkward & we prefer to leave that to the more vocal type people, assuming there'll be any (but then if there aren't then you're not highlighted as bad because there's a group of you).

Hope that explains the castle reference I made - basically I want to learn stuff but not where it's just you & the guide only.

Speaking of guides, have heard about people getting scammed on tours. Getting a bus to a location, dropped off way before opening times & then sort of left to sort things out yourself. How do you make sure you don't get scammed like that? How do you know who's reputable & who isn't?

Travel - 100% I will not be driving. I hate driving places I don't know locally, never mind the idea of it abroad. So any sort of travel will be either public or walking. Recently been away and we walked everywhere. Went for 2 days & walked 16 mile day 1 & 15 mile day 2 and it wasn't even a walking break, it's just how we choose to get around that city. 

There's every chance we may have to go back another time to cover things we didn't get to see. I'm fully prepared for that to be the case.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions so far. I'll take a look in to those.

elsien

You use Tripadvisor  or other review sites to check out which companies are reputable and which ones aren’t. 

Emily_Joy

Speaking as someone who commuted between Warsaw and London for a year every fortnight. First, pick the city you want to visit. Warsaw, Krakow, Gdansk are options. If you really want to visit a castle, Poznan. The go to skyscanner and enter UK in the first box and the Polish city in the second, with some dates. This will give you a list of UK airports with direct flights and prices. Choose the departure that works best for you. August is the most expensive month to do it, so I would recommend any other month, if you can. You can monitor prices for a little while or setup alerts on places like trip and kayak. 

Pick up a guidebook of your choice in a local library and choose the places you want to visit. Google them up and find "group guided tours" they will typically tell you the starting times and duration, as not every tour will be in English. Then you can show up at the time and walk around in a group.

TheShape

eskbanker said:

One option would be to fly to, and stay in, Krakow, and visit Auschwitz/Birkenau - guided group tours are available, including transfers to/from the city, about an hour away.

If I'm travelling to Poland and doing anything related to WW2, this would be my choice.  No WW2 related place more famous/infamous than Auschwitz/Birkenau.

When I visited Krakow I did a day tour that included both Auschwitz/Birkenau and a visit to The Salt Mines. Two places well worth visiting and a day tour is an efficient way to visit both.  When I did such a trip, a driver picked us up from our hotel.  There were only four people in our vehicle (plus the driver).  There will almost certainly be tours where the transport is by a larger vehicle such as a mini-bus or coach but you'd probably then have a designated meeting point rather than direct hotle pick-up/drop-off.  At Auchwitz they passed us over to the tour guide at the site and did the same at the Salt Mine.  We had a lunch stop near the Salt Mine.  We we taken back to our hotel at the end of the day.

Both tours at the actual sites were in large groups where you would be relatively anonymous.  

As for booking, you might use skyscanner to start your search.  Select airports near you as the departure point and Krakow, for example, as the destination. When you've got an idea of which airline is flying there, I would recommend going throught the airlines website to book.  Do carefully check the luggage allowance/rules.

If you can get an early flight out and/or a late return flight the daytrip can be done on your full-day (Day 2) and some other sites in Krakow on Day 1 or Day 3.  Be sure to check what is open/opening times for the days you are there.

daveyjp

Another vote for Jet2 city breaks if they fly from a convenient airport.  They also have a sale on at the moment.

We visited Krakow in 2023.  Well located hotel, plenty to see and do.  Hotels can book you on trips.  Unfortunately our Austwitz Tour was cancelled last minute due to a shortage of on site guides.

View from the hotel.