I’ve created myself a precedent now by merrily writing about Müllermilch whenever I try a new flavour, so I don’t want to end that routine in case it’s unlikely. Anyway, for my long rail journey from Warsaw to Budapest, I had a couple of these and they were both really rather lovely.
The Angel Hair one tasted of pistachio and was really quite sweet (who would have thought….), although there’s a place for such things…. I preferred the Apple Pie style one, a richer and more decadent taste.
And they’re about 90p each, seemingly with some addictive qualities as I keep finding myself drawn to them…..
After a quick visit to Carrefour for snacks, I embarked on what was the longest rail journey that I’ve taken in Europe (I went for over 24 hours in the US….) from Warsaw to Budapest. Here’s the display screen at Warszawa Centralna, with the departure being second from top on the right-hand screen.
Waiting at Platform 3.
Here’s the train layout, and I had gone for first class as it wasn’t much more expensive as I’d booked it at the last minute.
It’s all happening now with the departure board on the platform updating to show the train. I had a flight booked for very early the next morning, so if something went wrong here, it would be hard to resolve. Well, hard to resolve cheaply anyway.
The train after it had pulled into the station and I was glad to see it.
I was disappointed that it was a compartment train, it wasn’t meant to be and I assume it was swapped in at the last minute. These are old fashioned and being removed from the rail network with a preference for open seating which feels safer. It transpired that the lady in the window seat (who had briefly left the compartment when I took the photo) was only going a short distance, so I had that window seat with table for nearly all of the journey. This did make me happier at matters as I do like a table for my laptop.
I switched this down to cold at the first available moment.
A view down looking at the compartments. There was a refreshments carriage next door, but it didn’t look very exciting.
For a long time, it was just me (and my bag and laptop) in the compartment, although a couple came in later on and were annoyed it was a compartment train.
Being in First gives no luxuries other than a free bottle of water and a little more space. It was a nice bottle of water to be fair as far as these things go.
Not only was I going from Poland’s capital to Hungary’s capital, but the train also stopped in Slovakia’s capital of Bratislava. I must admit that I was tempted to get off here as it’s one of my favourite cities, but that would have caused me some logistical issues….
And here’s the train in Budapest Nyugati railway station at the end of the journey. I did take a lot of photos of stations en route, to remind myself I quite fancy going to some of those locations (Ostrava in the Czech Republic looked interesting which has the nickname of Black Heart which I like), but there were no great pieces of scenery that I felt the need to photograph. There were a lot of fields though.
And safely in Hungary.
Overall, I rather enjoyed gazing out of the window for hours, but there was no wifi and the phone connection was poor for much of the journey. It’s generally cheaper by plane, it’s obviously quicker and ultimately much more convenient. Flying isn’t though very environmental and there is a push towards more long-distance trains, although this was 11 hours in total so it’s hardly a fast-paced arrangement.
The cost was relatively expensive for European rail at £50, although as an experience it was worth it. But, there’s going to need to be modernisation here, basic things like allowing for ordering food and drink on the train for either collection in the refreshments car or delivery to the compartment. I had no idea when meal service was, they needed to be clearer about that. They also do need wifi, although they did have power outlets and they were useful.
I had eight ticket checks during the journey, which is excessive by any means. The US system is better here, they check tickets on entry and write the journey on a card above the seat. I also didn’t like the compulsory reservation system, I was lucky to have a quiet carriage because there were no-shows, but I’d rather just sit where there’s space and not be tied to a certain seat (although I had moved across one from my middle seat I had been allocated). I thought that it all went quickly, so I certainly enjoyed the restful nature of the whole arrangement.
The whole thing felt a little old-fashioned and there’s a place for that, but I can’t see passenger numbers ever soaring for services like this unless they can speed them up a bit and make them more comfortable and modern. However, there is a sleeper version of this service so you get a choice between the two trains and that makes more sense in terms of time efficiency. However, I wanted to look out of the window at things as this was more of an experience.
The train arrived into Budapest just twenty minutes late, which isn’t bad given the complexity of going across four countries, namely Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary. There were announcements throughout the journey, just about all of them in English. The service is run by České dráhy, who are the national rail operator in the Czech Republic, and I’d say that this sort of long-distance train service is certainly an experience worth trying at least once. So all really rather quite lovely and a reminder that I’ll take more trains on the European mainland.
After flying back to Warsaw from Genoa, I was able to catch one of the last trains of the evening which got me into central Warsaw by midnight. There was a ticket check of everyone on the train, but in typical Polish fashion, everyone had one.
Safely into Warszawa Centralna and the ticket cost about 90p.
Walking past the Palace of Culture and Science….
Free fries in the late night opening KFC…
I had had a long day….. And Polish KFC is much better, and cheaper, than KFC in the UK.
After getting through the main door entry panels this was the entrance to the hostel…. It looked a bit much at first, but they did send clear instructions in advance, so it didn’t take too long. Incidentally, the main door downstairs to get into the building was also the entrance to Thai Me Up and PiwPaw, two rather lovely food and drink options in the city.
I paid just under £30 for a private room for one person with two beds. They’d run out of those so they gave me single occupancy of a room with eight beds. It felt like slight overkill….
It’s certainly spacious and I wasn’t going to run out of power outlet options either. There was free wifi and the beds were sufficiently comfortable.
As for the hostel, it’s a particularly good option for larger groups as they can just book an entire room for themselves and the prices were very reasonable. I’d never stayed here before, but it was sufficiently clean and there were no internal or external noise disturbances. It was just a shame I couldn’t have arrived back in Warsaw an hour earlier so that PiwPaw was still open….
After two interesting days in Genoa and environs, it was time for the next £8.99 adventure and it was back to Warsaw. I had taken the train to the nearest station and enjoyed a pleasant ten minute walk to get here.
They’re reconstructing the lounge here and that reopens next year, but the airside space was sizeable and had power points. I think that there are plans to increase the size of the airport and make it a more important one, so there are a series of renovations taking place.
This is not a major international airport and Wizz Air have quite a limited presence here. There’s certainly potential for more passengers to use this airport, there is a decent public transport link, the terminal is large and Genoa would likely benefit substantially from more tourists and commercial connections.
I’m conscious that I’m very much repeating myself here, but, yet again, the boarding process was well managed with friendly gate agents. Everything was clearly signed, it was efficient and it felt organised.
Boarding the aircraft, which was registration HA-LXS which I last went on in February 2022. Boarding was smooth and efficient, with the aircraft being clean.
The seating Gods had given me a window seat and my bag is visible there having a little rest. But, since the entire row was clear, I moved to an aisle seat. The aircraft was about 60% full which makes matters more comfortable.
I nearly never get anything from the trolley on flights as it’s far too decadent, but I was hungry and so felt the need for some noodles. These are around £4, which doesn’t feel unreasonable for an aircraft.
Delicious, although I won’t get used to this level of decadence.
And safely onto the bus to take us to the terminal and as this was a Schengen flight with no border controls it meant I went from here to the train in just five minutes.
The flight cost me £9 and once again I was surprised and delighted by Wizz Air. Everything was smooth, well managed, comfortable and organised, with plenty of space on board. I accept that my splashing out on fine dining took the price of this to £13, but that still feels decent value to me.
After a few hours in Warsaw, it was time to get the train back to the airport for my onward flight. The S2 railway line takes around thirty minutes to get from the city centre to the airport, with a 24 hour ticket to use all public transport in Warsaw costing around £3.
The Preludium Executive Lounge was at near capacity, but I found a quiet spot which was helpfully next to a power point. Here’s the chicken kebabs with green beans, alongside an espresso, beer and Fanta.
And salad is my middle name is healthy.
Mine was the 17:30 flight to sunny Genoa.
I allowed thirty minutes to walk to the gate, although it took me around fifteen seconds such is the delight of Schengen. I like being early…
Just for reference, the price of things at the vending machine (divide by 5 to get the approximate GBP cost). I had some time to kill at the gate as I had arrived early.
Over half of passengers, including me, were sent to another queue for additional document checks. It transpired that the Italian Government had decided to reintroduce border control checks because of the football game between Napoli and Eintracht Frankfurt. The staff dealt with all this admirably, it was quite a lot of extra work performing extra checks on tens of documents.
The document process meant that we departed around thirty minutes late. The aircraft is 9H-WNN, another new one for me.
The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat, but I noticed that the row of three seats in front of me was clear when boarding was completed. Some other passengers started to eye them up, but I planned to move forward so that the two passengers on my row had more space. And also because I would have more space if I’m being entirely honest….
Most lovely.
The pilot made an announcement that passengers on the left hand side of the aircraft could look out the window at something. He said it in Polish so I didn’t know what exactly I was looking at, but I think this is Venice. ChatGPT thinks it’s New York, but I’m relatively confident from my knowledge if geography that it isn’t.
The flight, yet again, was comfortable and well managed. The crew were friendly, organised and the service was quiet which worked well for my little nap.
And safely into Genoa Christopher Columbus Airport…..
The flight cost me £9 as usual as part of Wizz Air’s Multipass arrangement, which I considered to be decent value for money.
After an uneventful rail journey to Luton Airport, I popped in Big Smoke where I get £18 to spend with my Priority Pass card. There has been another price rise, which is the fourth of the year to my knowledge, which makes menu ordering slightly more difficult each time.
I opted for the dirty fries with beef brisket, the latter of which is just about hidden in the photo but there was a big lump of it at the bottom. It was entirely adequate, with the service being friendly and helpful.
And a quick visit to My Lounge to see their collection of dirty crockery and to try their Heineken 0%. They’re really nailed the flavour of it, it tastes just as bad as Heineken so that’s a win for the brewery. The Mexican chicken and spicy rice is actually decent, the food standards do seem to have improved here over the last few months. Or my standards have dropped, either is possible.
I was moderately amused as the customer in front of me asked for two Birra Moretti beers. They’re quite tight here, so every customer gets 2/3rds of a bottle, unless you have the 0% Heineken where they just give you the whole thing as I don’t think many people want that. This whole thing just makes matters more faffy and the bar server ended up with one glass of Birra Moretti full and the other 90% full. The customer complained he wanted 100% in each and the barman actually just tutted in response. The customer looked annoyed and the glass was topped up begrudgingly. Lounge entry here is nearly £40 (unless you have a lounge card or similar) so this tightness does them no favours. But, since I get free entry with Priority Pass, I won’t complain about anything else in here…..
They started boarding twenty minutes earlier than advertised, but Wizz Air are efficient and everything here was under control during the boarding process. One customer got charged £70 for having a large bag, he had got confused which bag sizer he was meant to use and I thought he was very gracious about it all. We were on the aircraft at the time that the gate was meant to have closed, something that British Airways always struggles to manage as customers faff about with their bags.
Boarding the aircraft which was HA-LGO which I don’t think I’ve been on before. The seating Gods gave me a window seat and it also transpired that there was no-one in the middle seat despite the flight being around 90% full.
The flight was, yet again, peaceful and uneventful. The crew were efficient and polite, sweeping down the aisle selling things without waking everyone up. The aircraft was clean, I had plenty of space and I was rather pleased with my £8.99 flight cost.
We were put on a bus to get the 75 metres to the airport terminal and they really struggled to get everyone on two buses, I think they’d usually use three. It felt slightly sub-optimal, but it was hardly a long bus journey so I was only briefly annoyed.
My shiny new passport, which doesn’t have around 120 stamps in the bloody thing, is allowing me to sweep through border control so I was able to get one of the last trains of the evening into Warsaw. I don’t have much leeway here, although there are plenty of night buses which serve the airport if required.
It’s always good to be back on public transport in Warsaw, peaceful and efficient.
Arriving into Warszawa Zachodnia (Warsaw West) railway station, which is currently being upgraded. However, it feels at times that Warsaw is constantly being upgraded, such as the fast rate of change here.
And there’s the Ibis Budget, hidden behind road works. This was only a ten minute walk from the railway site, and I’ve stayed at the adjoining Ibis several times, and fortunately I found a gap in the road works to actually gain access to the hotel.
All in all, I was once again pleased and content with the whole airport and flight experience.
The station, located on the M2 line, opened on 8 March 2015 which was a few years after the stadium itself opened, but there is also a national rail network station here. The stadium was built on the site of the Tenth Anniversary Stadium, which opened in 1955 and was built on rubble from the Second World War. The stadium was a bit sub-optimal, it was a ten minute walk for football players to get back to the dressing rooms, so half-time had to last for half an hour. It closed in 2008, ready for the development of the new site.
Here is the lovely shiny stadium, which is used by the national Polish football team amongst others.
It’s possible to walk around the perimeter, it doesn’t seem to be closed off at all.
This is the Ryszard Siwiec (1909-1968) Memorial and is one of the heroes of the Polish nation. On 12 September 1968, he set fire to himself in front of the country’s leaders and 100,000 spectators. The communist authorities were livid, it took the shine off their day and they pretended that he was an alcoholic who was mentally unstable. They seized the letter that he sent to his wife and tried to pretend that the whole thing didn’t happen. But it did, his vision for Poland took a long time to come about, but it has.
The neighbouring rail station.
A tunnel under the railway line which gives access to the stadium.
There’s a nearby park to the metro station, Skaryszewski Park.
A long path through the park, which was built on the site of a floodplain in 1905. Some beavers made the park their home in 2006, but they caused so much damage that they removed the little angels and plonked them in the nearby zoo.
This memorial needs repair as it’s nearly impossible to read, but it commemorates the lives of those Poles who died in the 9/11 attack on the Twin Towers in New York.
A sculpture outside the park of Ignacy Jan Paderewski (1860-1941) who served as the Prime Minister of Poland for most of 1919. He was perhaps more well known as a pianist and he served as part of the Polish Government in exile between 1940 and 1941. The entire park has now also been named in his honour.
Apparently, if AI is to be believed, the circular wheel is a telecommunications mast.
The old looking building is one of the towers constructed as part of the bridge which was designed to be ornamental and it also houses the staircases.
This Adam Roman (1916-2013) sculpture is named ‘The Relay’ and is located outside of the stadium and it dates from the previous 1955 structure. It was originally meant to be located at the Central Park of Culture in Powiśle, with the artist adding a third runner to his initial plans to have just two.
Back into the metro station, which is also planned to be one of the ends of metro line M3 which is currently under construction. There is another island platform and two tracks already in place for this, but they’re not currently in use. Hopefully by the time the first section of the M3 line opens in around five years I’ll have actually finished visiting all the stations that are currently open….
Nestling in the leaves at Pawła Włodkowica 10-12 is the reporter gnome which takes its name from the adjacent Kładka Radiowej Trójki (Radio 3 Footbridge) which crosses the former moat.
It took me a little longer to work this out than it should perhaps have done, but it marks when each country gave women the right to vote.
There was a group of people sitting around the monument at one end, so I focused my attention on the middle bit.
There’s the right for women to vote in Benin, Gabon and Comoros (all French colonies) as well as Egypt in 1956, followed by Lebanon, Mali and Malaysia in the following year.
It’s quite an understated artwork in many ways, but if it makes people have a think about what it represents, that seems sensible and actually quite positive. It’s located on Słoneczny Boulevard and the artwork (or monument, whatever feels the best description) consists of 162 paving slabs. It was installed in 2018 as part of a redevelopment of the area.
And another Wizz Air flight, this time from Wrocław to Gatwick Airport once again. It’s a handy flight time this as it’s in the early afternoon, making it much easier to get back to Norwich without having to rush for trains.
There’s my flight, the 14:45 to Gatwick Airport South. This is a spacious and well organised airport, with the security process only taking a few minutes.
A quick visit to the lounge. They have a decent choice of craft beer, a rather good Greek salad and lots of meat products.
I didn’t experience any issues with my new passport, so that’s one less burden to have to deal with when arriving or departing from a Polish airport. They haven’t introduced the new entry and exit system yet, but I don’t think it’s long away from introduction and the kiosks are already set-up and just roped off.
The boarding process was efficient and easy, another smooth Wizz Air operation here, although we had a wait of around fifteen minutes on the air bridge.
We then had a nice wait in the rain. The aircraft was G-WUKV, it’s the third time that I’ve flown on this plane in case anyone wanted to know that.
The seating Gods had allocated me a window seat, so that was a positive for the journey, giving me a lovely view of the now rainy Wrocław. The flight was only around 75% full which meant that passengers could move themselves around a bit, so I probably wouldn’t have been stuck on a middle seat.
Some clouds. This was taken near Gatwick Airport, but we were caught on yet another series of loops as we waited for our landing slot. The flight was quiet and the crew members were efficient and polite, the whole arrangement as once again well managed. There was no queue at the border control at Gatwick Airport, so I was able to get straight through the kiosks there.
The flight cost £8.99 which is quite clearly excellent value, with the aircraft landing on time and there were no eventful moments during the flight. I had a quick nap during the two hour flight and I’ve again been surprised and delighted by Wizz Air.
