Poland (17-25 Feb 24) - Day 1 - Travel Plans

This week was 'Sportlov' the school holiday week that most Swedes use to go on a skiing holiday. We had discussed a few options back and forth, but had decided not to do anything this week because I had a stack of work and Tomas was still recovering.

By Wednesday of the week before I had somehow managed to catch up on my work and Tomas was starting to perk up, so we made the decision that we would go and visit Poland for the Sportlov week.

We sketched out a few options, the first was to take the ferry from Rødby and drive through Germany into Wrocław, Poland, but this would take almost 12 hours, with most of it being driving (877km).

Instead we saw that there was a daily ferry from Trelleborg (30min south of us) that would go to Sassnitz in Germany, making it a 10 hour trip (773km) with a 3 hour ferry.

Better still we found a ferry that would go to Świnoujście in Poland from Trelleborg. It was a long ferry trip (about 6hrs) but it would cut down how much driving we had to do to about 5hrs (485km).

Then we needed to work out where we wanted to visit. The return ferry was at 1am on Sunday morning, so we needed to make sure we were back in time for that. I was super keen to do Krakow, but it would be too far to get there comfortably in a single day. The city of Wrocław was nearby and apparently nice to stay at, as well as being surrounded by some nice forts and castles.

So the first part of the trip was locked in. We would take the ferry at 9am on Saturday morning and arrive in Wrocław around 9pm that evening. The first days could be spent exploring Wrocław and the nearby forts. Next we would head to Kraków, which was about 3-4hrs drive away. But of course, this changed when we found Ogrodzieniec Castle that was just outside the town of Katowice between Wrocław and Kraków. In addition to being a very cool looking castle ruin, it had been used as Sodden Castle in the Witcher TV show.

So the first leg was changed again:

Day 1 - drive to Wrocław
Day 2 - Explore Wrocław
Day 3 - Explore the forts and castles around Wrocław then drive to Katowice
Day 4 - Ogrodzieniec Castle then drive to Kraków

(Aside: The day set aside to explore Wrocław was a Sunday, which was going to be a bit of a problem as most shops were closed in Poland on Sundays, so the original plan was to do the forts on Sunday and then Wrocław on Monday. This changed when we realised how much of a pain parking was going to be and since we were comfortably parked (and on Monday would need to leave the carpark at checkout time -10am) and tired of driving we searched up to find most of the tourist stuff was still open. So, we did Wrocław on Sunday and the forts on Monday. The only issue with this was that it meant a longer drive to Katowice, which got us in later than I'd hoped for.)

Next we looked at trying to hit Warsaw, but it was another 4 hour drive from Kraków and took us further away from the ferry port making our last day a long drive. We considered Gdansk also, but again that was too far.  In the end we settled for Poznań which was between Kraków and the ferry port.

With everything locked in, we got an early start on Saturday. The car was packed and we caught the Nils Dacke, TT Line Ferry.

Parking on the ferry was a little chaotic - we were led into a tiny space with cars and trucks jammed around us. It must have had some pattern though as they got everyone in. It did take us about 40min to get off at the end though as we were packed in right at the back.

Our car

The drive from Świnoujście to Wrocław was uneventful except for two things...

First was the giant Jesus statue that we saw from over 7km away - we finally got to check it out on the last day:

Blurry photo as it was dark and we were driving

Second was us stopping at KFC for a meal. We ordered on the machines and our number appeared on their screen and then disappeared. We waited about 30min as they staff looked like they were starting to tidy up for the end of the day. Eventually a young lady come up and asked us something in Polish. When we apologised and said we only spoke English, she called up someone on the mic and few minutes later another girl came over and said "Can I help you?"

We were a little confused so said we were waiting for our food. She replied that they had nothing in their system. It must have looked weird to them that we'd come in and were just sitting around for half an hour... They checked the receipt and made the food, but it ended up turning what should have been a 15min stop into just over an hour and made us arrive at the apartment much later than we planned.

Our apartment in Wroclaw was the Zielińskiego Wrocław Centrum by Renters which was well placed in the middle of the town and even better, came with parking.

The big issue was when a bunch of tired Aussies arrived and tried to work out how to get in.

The road was completely filled with parked cars so we ended up just pulling up to the carpark entry which was blocked with a boom gate. We had a code to get into the building and then we could find the keys in a lock box in the foyer. The instructions said that it was the building across from the boom gate, and the whole area was dark, so I left Kris and the boys in the car and tried to open the door - the code didn't work. After a few minutes trying, I messaged the company and got a reply that there was a youtube video showing the entrance. It turned out that our room was down the end of the complex about 4 buildings down. I raced down there, got the keys and came back to let Kris in. The next issue was finding a carpark. Yes, parking was available (they did say they couldn't guarantee a spot), but the carpark was packed! There were even cars up on the grass edges. Parking outside was not an option as the road was also full and there were no parks available nearby. Eventually Kris found a spot on the grass out of the way. The next morning we found a single carpark free and moved the car there (hence our reluctance to leave and go driving to the forts on Sunday).

Carpark the next morning

If you squint you may be able to see where we parked. In the top right there is a dark red car parked on the curb at the entrance to the back part of the park. There is a caravan on the grass behind it and a silver car on the curb in front. The gap between them was just big enough (that with a lot of manoeuvring and a 78-point turn) Kris managed to back our black car in next to the caravan. The park we then moved into was between the white van and black car at the end of the front part - the only free park visible. It was going to be risky to get out as there wasn't really enough room to pull out and turn (we decided we could also go four-wheel drive mode and back over the curb and grass), but luckily when we went to leave the van had gone and we had space to get out.