Tag Archives: Poland

From Riga to London by coach and train

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We can travel long distances quickly and relatively cheaply, especially if it is possible to get to the destination with one of the low-cost airlines. However, sometimes, for one reason or another, you must travel by land.

The easiest way, of course, is to get into your car and drive. But not always there is such an option. Then we need to look at the opportunities offered by other means of commercial transport, for example, to travel by coach or train.

So, after spending about a month in Latvia, we boarded a coach in Riga to go to Berlin in Germany. Our final destination was London, this was only the first leg of the trip.

Inside Ecolines bus
Inside Ecolines bus

It must be mentioned that we were planning the trip a while in advance and had purchased tickets for all sections of the trip several months before the trip itself. This is mainly because train prices in Europe become more expensive as the departure date approaches. In the end, this helped us to save a considerable amount of money.

Fortunately, we were able to plan the trip in a way that our waiting times between getting from one transport to another were quite short – just enough to change stations or departure gates.

The first day – Riga – Warsaw

To get from Riga to Berlin, we booked the Ecolines (Estonian carrier) coach, which departs from the Riga bus station. We hadn’t travelled by bus for a long time, and we also had such a long journey by coach for the first time. The ticket price from Riga to Berlin was about 70 euros per person. Departure from Riga was scheduled for 11 am and arrival in Berlin at seven the next morning, a bit more than 21 hours with a few rather short stops on the way.

As there were not many stops planned during the trip, we took a couple of bottles of water and some food for a couple of meals. The carrier offered the opportunity to buy sandwiches, but only a few travellers used this option, most passengers had taken their food with them.

Bus station in Lithuania
Bus station in Lithuania

The first stop was Panevezys in Lithuania. The coach stopped there for just a few minutes. We got an opportunity to get out and stretch our legs in Vilnius, where we stopped for about fifteen to 20 minutes. There also was a similar a bit longer stop for stretching legs in Kaunas.
After departing Kaunas, we went to Mariampol, a town near Lithuanian – Polish border.

When we arrived in Mariampol, it was already around sunset time. I wanted to buy something to eat, and a bottle of water, however, I only got a bottle of water. Unfortunately, there was not any takeaway option for food to buy in the bus station buffet. We stood at this stop for at least about twenty minutes, as it was possible to stretch our legs after the seven-hour journey.

The next stop was in the Polish city of Białystok after a few hours after departing Mariampol. In general, the journey at this stage was the most difficult, because it was raining outside, it was dark, but I didn’t want to sleep yet. Fortunately, each seat on the bus has its TV screen and you can watch movies, the selection of those was surprisingly good.

From Białystok we headed west and arrived in Warsaw shortly after eleven in the evening. The road was much better after we left Białystok, mostly a motorway.

Warsaw

I must mention that when we left Riga, the war in Ukraine had started a few days before that, but we did not notice any specific changes along the way, although at some point we were less than 200 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. However, arriving at the Warsaw bus station, the feeling of the war was somewhere around.

There were police cars near the station with the emergency lights on. There was a bus serving as a mobile information point for refugees from Ukraine. Free food and other things were available at the station. All this made the feelings quite unpleasant, for the first time we felt that there was a war somewhere nearby.

Bus station in Poland
Bus station in Poland

This time, the bus stopped at the station for quite a while, and we left the station only around midnight while the baggage was loaded and all those who wanted to travel got on the bus. Some people even did not get tickets because the coach was full at that point. It seemed that some of the riders may have been those fleeing from Ukraine to continue their escape trip to Germany.

Then the journey by coach continued through the rest of Poland and the most sensible thing to do at this time was to sleep. The next stop was planned to only be in Berlin after about seven more hours of driving. From Berlin, we planned to immediately go to Brussels by train.

Easter in Poland

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Poland is a big country, one of the largest in the European Union. Usually, we have been crossing it as a transit country, however, there are many places in Poland worth visiting. One day, we decided to see how people celebrate Easter in Poland.

Here are notes of our trip made during the Easter Holidays in 2010. This time for the trip was chosen because the majority of Polish people as very active Catholics and visit churches and celebrate Easter according to their traditions every year. Some sites we visited for that reason were of religious character.

City of Krakow

We went to Krakow which is one of the oldest cities in Poland and is located in the Lesser Poland region famous for its architecture, and religious and cultural heritage. Since 1978, the old town of Krakow has been on the list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites.

Also, Krakow is the second largest city in Poland with many beautiful sites for visitors. For example, Old Town (Stare Miasto), Wawel Castle, St. Andrew’s Church and the district of Kazimierz. Kraków has also been the royal capital of Poland for many centuries.

Although Easter is a very busy time in Krakow, we managed to get an apartment for short-term rent in the heart of the old town, just two hundred metres from the Main Market Square.

To book our apartment, we used the services of booking.com as usual. I am mentioning this here because shortly before arrival, we found out that our booked apartment was already occupied.

I immediately contacted customer services at booking.com and after a few hours this incident was solved – we got even better rooms and conditions than initially! This was the first incident of such kind with this company and I am really satisfied with how quickly it was handled.

Easter Celebration

Our main goal was to see how they celebrate Easter. On Saturday afternoon we went to a church. There were lots of local people. It was interesting to see that, according to the local traditions, people carried to the church small baskets with eggs and other components of breakfast (they call it a “blessing basket”). The basket was put down on the table in the church and consecrated by a pastor.

After the service, people took their baskets and went home waiting for Easter morning to consume the content of the “blessing basket”; the family breakfast is an important part of the Easter celebration in Poland. To be honest, I never saw this kind of action before and it was really amazing to experience. Just to add that the taste of our breakfast basket eggs was excellent.

During those two amazing days in Krakow, we enjoyed the festive atmosphere on the Main Market Square, booked a horse cart for sightseeing, tasted many different sweets, and local beer (for sure, it was better than fermented grape juice known as wine which is offered in local pubs), visited Wawel Castle and other sites of historical centre of Krakow.

Travel around Poland

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Wielicka Salt mine

This is one of the episodes of our travel around Poland during the Easter celebrations, although we have visited this country many times. On Saturday, after a night spent in Krakow, we visited Wieliczka salt mine which is one of the world’s oldest operating salt mines – it is in operation since the Middle Ages. The salt mine is also on the list of UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Sites since 1978. This site represents the progress of mining technology, the development of work organization and management. Over more than 700 years, 7.5 million m³ of post-excavation voids were drilled in Wieliczka.

Raps field in Poland

The mine is normally open for visitors from 9am to 5pm, adult ticket costs approximately 22 Euro per person. Visitors should be aware that the route includes approximately 800 stairs the temperature underground in the mine is about 17–18ºC. During one of the stops, it is even possible to buy cold and hot drinks and snacks. Town Wieliczka is located in the Krakow metropolitan area and can be reached easily; cheap parking spaces are available all around mine close to its entrance.

Area around Krakow

Before coming back home, we continued our travel around Poland and wandered around another surrounding area of Krakow. That’s how we found a small town decorated with “palms” made from pussy willow twigs during Palm Sunday. Palm Sunday is a commemoration of Christ’s entry into Jerusalem and people in Poland follow these traditions every year. Some of these creations were really tall, even up to 35 meters high!

Easter decorations in Poland

Near Krakow there also is a famous religious object listed as UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 1999 – a monastery, landscape and pilgrimage park in Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. We went there for a moment to see how the monastery looks both from inside and from outside. If you are somewhere near there, this place is worth visiting.

Jasna Gora monastery

On the way home we booked a hotel in the Polish city Czestochowa. It was a good reason to visit the famous Pauline Monastery of Jasna Gora. Millions of pilgrims every year visit the monastery to see a painting of Black Madonna. This is the only available icon of Black Madonna in Poland; there are about 21 paintings of Black Madonna in France, although this one in Czestochowa is also well known abroad.

The monastery itself looks fantastic on the top of the Jasna Gora hill, especially in the evening during the golden hour before the sunset.

Monument in Poland

It is possible to park the car near to entrance of the monastery. If you are passing Czestochowa, visiting the monastery may be a very good idea. The whole complex is really visitor-friendly. You can spend a few hours relaxing and, even if you are an atheist, enjoying the creations of humans made to praise God.

Other great Polish sites

According to my experience, I would also recommend visiting other interesting sites in Poland, for example, the capital city of Poland Warsaw, the old town of Poznan, medieval castle in Malbork, which has been UNESCO World Cultural Heritage Site since 1997. Southern and south-western parts of Poland are known as ski resorts. Especially nice is the area around Zakopane located in the Tatra mountains.