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Mrs YP and I were thinking of a short road trip through Germany, and to end up visiting Krakow. We want to go by road so that we can include several locations en route and return via Berlin.
I'm confident of driving in Germany, but have never driven in Poland. I looked for advice on Trip Ad, where it suggests that its not fun and I'm almost certainly going to get my car nicked whilst left at the hotel.
Is this true, should I be concerned, or just get on with it?
I hired a car for a week in SE Poland, last October. We had no problems, apart from finding somewhere to part in the centre of some towns. Admittedly we spend most of the time in rural areas, but it seemed pretty much like driving anywhere else in Europe, to me. Some road surfaces were a bit iffy.
We had a hire car around Krakow for a week. It was fine. Quite busy round the city but we always found somewhere to park in the old city. On the rural roads it was great. No different to the rest of Europe and probably better than the UK. No issues with crime.
i don't know how current the advice on crime is. We drove round there in 2003, the only advice we received was to use 'guarded carparks' overnight i.e. there was an armed security guard there! Poland has got a lot posher since then though - I doubt you'd have any issues.
In general though (we were around Krakow) it was great, the roads were very quiet although there were probably a few more nutters than you get here.
We drove from Sheffield to a place called Elk in Poland last Christmas.. Elk is North East, and nearly on the boarder with Lithuania / Belarus.
We did Sheffield - Dover - Dunkirk - Belgium - Netherlands - Germany - Poland.
Coming into Poland on the main E30, from Berlin (German road 12). Its a fantastic road that was re-built for the Euro 2012. Just watch out for Tolls, as you have quite a few separate booths heading East towards Poznan/Lodz/Warsaw. Not particularly expensive, with the most being around 40zl (£8 ish).
Basically if you stay around the main areas and roads its pretty normal to any other countries. If you start going North you do hit a few dodgy roads (Bialystok direction). And similarly South towards Zakopane and the boarder with Slovakia. This is an absolutely amazing area though, and well worth the visit if you have time.
We have done the journey to Krakow a couple of times too. Your best bet if you want to be direct is the E30 to Lodz, then take the A1/E75 down towards Katowice, then East along the A4 into Krakow. These are nice wide roads, and super easy to get around.
If you end up wanting to travel North-East from Krakow, try to stay away from the E77. It might have been a bad day when we are travelling but it was horrid!
If you are looking for something amazing to do while your around the Krakow area, I would highly recommend a place called the Pieniny Nation Park, we got a boat/raft East along the river, with Poland to our left and Slovakia to the right. A photo for reference below -
(The guy in the hat is the guide, not me!)
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I could keep on typing for absolutely hours. But i'll stop here, if you want to ask anything though please do. My other half is Polish, and we have spent many many weeks/months driving around!
Cheers
J
Just to add, as i didn't really read your original post.
We have never had any issue with crime, or found leaving the car caused any issues.
We've stayed in some pretty remote places, as well as some city center places, and honestly its no different to here.
Only thing we found is that the Police like to hide in funny places to catch speeding drivers. Just worth keeping an eye out.
A lot of Polish drivers have radios in the cars and send warnings out to each other.
Thanks for that Handyman. I'll probably be in touch once we're sorted.
Did a few days driving in the north with no issues at all. Treat like any other European country. Russia (where I drive to) on the other hand....!
Take a dashcam.
Just remember to make sure your headlamps are on, even during the day. It's the law in Poland. We got stopped by a kind German man moments after crossing the border into Poland, who warned us.
^^^ Same in Switzerland now
In true STW style I cannot help with the exact question but I'll post anyway 😉
Have driven a bit around Eastern Europe, seemed pretty sensible really. Frankly less mad than some Italian and Spanish cities. Roads can be a bit variable, new dual carriage way / motorway just runs out etc. Fairly agressive lorries. Otherwise relatively familar. The only thing that spooked me was a "no guns" sign in a Czech petrol station
Theft etc etc ... just get full zero excess cdw and park safely
Drove from Czech into Poland to ride in a place called Wisla. Zero issues at all. Nice place...
There's hardly anyone there... 😉
The only thing that spooked me was a "no guns" sign in a Czech petrol station
it's the amount of pornography DVDs for sale in Czech petrol stations that always spooked me 😆