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Category: Poland

  • Wizz Air Flight from London Luton to Lublin

    Wizz Air Flight from London Luton to Lublin

    Safely at Luton Airport, I had the excitement of staying up overnight whilst waiting for my early morning flight to Lublin. A cheap filter coffee at Pret was in order, which also allowed me to keep my devices fully charged. I do wonder, as an aside, whether this Pret might need to be more proactive about people who aren’t customers occupying several tables and preventing paying customers from finding a seat. Arriving early means I don’t have a problem here, but I notice that some potential customers do.

    I’m not sure that I’ve ever noticed before how early security opens at Luton Airport, as I saw numerous passengers going through at 02:00 which is much earlier than somewhere like London Stansted. I decided to go through at 02:30 to help keep me awake and it was suitably quiet and peaceful.

    The security process was efficient and the staff were kind and helpful as usual. No shops were open airside at this time, but there was plenty of seating.

    A couple of hours after I took this photo, the terminal was packed and there were hardly any seats available.

    Mine was the fourth flight of the day out of the airport.

    Big Smoke is meant to open at 04:00, but this well-run venue seems to routinely open shortly after 03:00. They’re the first main food outlet that passengers see, so this seems a sensible call if they can get their staff members through security this early. I arrived at 03:30 and received a friendly welcome.

    I get an £18 credit to spend at Big Smoke with my lounge pass and this cost exactly £18. A latte alongside avocado, eggs and sweet pickle on sourdough toast. This is actually really decent, there’s a depth of flavour and taste to the food, with the coffee having the required caffeine in it. I’m not in the market to spend £18 on breakfast, as I’m not decadent, but for those who are, this isn’t a bad option.

    I thought that I’d pop into the lounge as well to get more coffee. And I managed to get another little breakfast.

    Very nice. I’m not sure it would be worth paying £30 for access to this lounge, but my lounge pass means that I don’t need to be burdened with that decision.

    I thought that it would be a little busier than this, but everything was clean and they had remembered to polish the cutlery this time. It’s normally caked in dry food which is entirely sub-optimal.

    The gate was called a little early and so I meandered over there. The boarding process was clear and well managed, with the staff members ignoring the numerous passengers who seemed to be pushing their luck with large bags. It was a busy flight and there weren’t many free seats left on the aircraft.

    Boarding the aircraft, which was G-WUKT that had taken me to Bratislava in June 2025. The seating gods had given me an aisle seat near the front which I was pleased with as it meant I could disembark quickly and I wanted to make a connecting train. The passenger in the middle seat asked me to switch with her boyfriend who was sitting around fifteen rows back. Although I am endlessly helpful, I refused this request as this seems to be happening on over half of flights now. The passenger was shortly afterwards moved by someone else as it transpired that she was in the wrong seat herself, so I was pleased that there wouldn’t be any awkward moments.

    We had a wait at Luton Airport due to a lack of slots, but the pilot said he planned to push back anyway and see what happened. It transpired that we had just a short delay before we took off and all was well. The crew were professional and helpful, although they didn’t have much to do as the majority of the passengers were more interested in sleeping than buying food and drink.

    I was delighted that by efficient speed walking I was able to be the second person at the border desk which sped things up. I’ve mentioned before that on Wizz Air, it feels that most of the passengers aren’t British in the way they often are with Ryanair. That meant I was through the border quickly and faster than many Poles who were using the electronic passport gates, with the member of border control deciding not to ask me what I was doing in Poland.

    It was my first time back in Lublin in nine years and as we had arrived without any significant delay, it meant that I could catch one of the few train services of the day that departed the airport. My flight cost £8.99 and, once again, Wizz Air delighted me with their service.

  • Wizz Air Flight from Katowice to Barcelona

    Wizz Air Flight from Katowice to Barcelona

    I’ll write about my visits to some towns near Katowice in a future instalment of this exciting blog, but for the moment I feel the need to record the flights back home so that I don’t forget more than I already have. Here’s the bus station in Katowice.

    Waiting for the bus to the airport, which is both cheap and runs regularly. It’s possible to buy a ticket on the app, but mine had stopped working for reasons unknown and I just bought a paper ticket which cost the equivalent of just over £1.

    I had the back row of seats to myself on the airport bus, although I was primarily taking a photo of the validating machine in case that was ever useful to anyone. My friend Gareth managed to get fined within ten minutes of arriving in Poland for failing to validate his ticket, although he’s not a very savvy traveller.

    Safely at Katowice Airport around forty minutes after leaving the city centre.

    Katowice Airport is the fourth busiest in Poland and has gone from serving around one million passengers in 2005 to nearly four million in 2017 and 7.3 million last year. The growth, like so much in Poland, is continuing and an entirely new central passenger terminal is planned to accommodate the increasing numbers.

    I was at this airport a few months ago and remembered from then that there’s a lounge for non-Schengen passengers, but the one for Schengen passengers can only be accessed by paying separately. I instead went to the gate area to find a seat and power, which was a successful little quest. I noticed that the airport staff were checking every bag at the gate to see if they fitted into the little cage. There were a fair few extra złoty raised in this little exercise and I was slightly concerned myself as I like to worry about these things.

    I went to the back of the queue whilst merrily rearranging my bag to make it seem even smaller. The passenger in front got their bag into the sizer, but spent some time trying to extract it again. I was moderately annoyed to be the first passenger in my queue to just be waved through without my bag being checked after all my rearranging, but it is fair to say that I do travel light. With that, it was time to wait for the aircraft whilst some passengers were positively grumpy about being charged extra.

    Boarding the aircraft and the seating gods had given me a window seat near to the front which was more than suitable for my needs. The aircraft was 9H-WAG, yet another new one for me, just in case anyone was asking. The flight was, as nearly always, uneventful and the cabin crew were friendly, the service was efficient and the aircraft was clean. For the £9 cost of my flight, it all went smoothly and represented I felt excellent value for money.

    My window seat gave me some impressive views during the flight, this is the Hohe Tauern National Park in Austria.

    Flying over Nice, a city that I haven’t been to before, partly because it sounds a bit expensive.

    Approaching Barcelona, which is one of my favourite cities that I’ve been to a few times before.

    And safely into Barcelona Airport on time and the aircraft is just visible at the end of the jet bridge. My plan was to go into central Barcelona by train and then return to the airport late in the evening, as I had a flight back to the UK in the morning. Staying awake at an airport, yet again, seemed a marvellous idea but more on that soon.

  • Katowice – More Problems at the Polish Border

    Katowice – More Problems at the Polish Border

    One of the reasons that I find Poland so agreeable is the country’s tendency to do things properly and efficiently, although this creates problems when the European Entry/Exit System has been handled differently elsewhere in the Schengen Area. Last year I had the excitement of being stuck at the border as there was confusion over how long I had been in the EU, officials eventually agreed that I had not overstayed.

    This time there were quite long delays at the border and officers appeared to be conducting some detailed interviews. The very polite border control officer noted that there was a discrepancy at Bilbao Airport and this isn’t a surprise as I wrote about the confusion at the time. This meant that it looked like I hadn’t left the EU and so I had technically exceeded my number of days in the bloc.

    A manager came over and she was efficient and helpful. I was pleased that Wizz Air stored all my boarding passes in one place, as this made it easy to show her the relevant flights. That evidence was sufficient to resolve the discrepancy. She mentioned that this was a failure by the Spanish border authorities and that it would be noted by the airport, although I’m not sure what they do with this information. I do like to imagine that somewhere in Katowice there is now a carefully maintained spreadsheet containing a sternly worded entry about Bilbao.

    The delay wasn’t substantial, but it took me fifty minutes to get from airside to landside, meaning that I missed the bus by one minute. The border authorities had accepted that I was legally present, but the bus demonstrated rather less flexibility and departed without me. I’ll be glad when the EES is operating consistently across the Schengen Area.

  • Wizz Air Flight from Kutaisi to Katowice

    Wizz Air Flight from Kutaisi to Katowice

    After I discovered how cheap the fixed fare Bolt taxi was between Kutaisi airport and the city centre, I decided to do the same on the reverse trip. This was the only option I had if I wanted to get breakfast at the hotel, as the airport bus only runs once every couple of hours. The journey was therefore an easy one, with the taxi arriving only a couple of minutes after I booked it. This time, the driver didn’t feel the need to interrupt my plans to put my seat belt on and I was also pleased with his driving.

    There are some subtle signs around the airport that this is a country looking towards the European Union and away from Russia. The political process of Georgia joining the EU has stalled at the moment, but opinion polls show that more 70% of residents support joining.

    There is an airport lounge although it’s a paid one which doesn’t allow the various lounge cards access. I was aware of this in advance and so had ensured that my breakfast at the hotel was a substantial one.

    The airport itself was clean, bright, functional and there were plenty of power outlets, but despite what it might look like from the above photo, there wasn’t really enough seating. There were a couple of cafes, a shop and an external smoking area for those who felt the need.

    When the redeveloped airport opened in 2012, it handled fewer than 200,000 passengers during the following year. Wizz Air’s enthusiasm for serving Kutaisi has since helped push that figure towards two million, while expansion plans would eventually enable the airport to handle around five million passengers annually.

    The walk to the aircraft confirmed that Georgia remained substantially warmer than my preferred operating temperature.

    The aircraft was 9H-WDI, another new registration for me and therefore an important addition to records which nobody has yet requested to inspect.

    The seating gods gave me an aisle seat just behind the emergency exit row seats. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, this led to the excitement of watching passengers attempt to upgrade themselves, before the Wizz Air cabin crew told them either to pay €20 or return to their allocated seats.

    The flight itself was, yet again, uneventful which pleased me greatly. It was busy on board, but the service was efficient, the pilots were clear with their announcements and nothing fell off the aircraft.

    And safely into Katowice Airport a little earlier than expected and with no incidents to report. All really rather lovely. Well, until there was a border issue, but more of that in the next post.

  • Wizz Air Flight from Warsaw Chopin Airport to Kutaisi

    Wizz Air Flight from Warsaw Chopin Airport to Kutaisi

    After spending the night at Warsaw Airport, sustained by lounge coffee and an increasingly theoretical sense of alertness, it was time for the 09:10 flight to Kutaisi. I wasn’t entirely excited by leaving from 3N as it’s a bus gate, but I was by this time too tired to be much concerned.

    We arrived at the aircraft and I took a photo of the registration number whilst still on the shuttle bus to save me looking it up later. Anyway, 9H-WNB was lined up to take us to Kutaisi and I was on the second shuttle bus so around half the passengers were already on board. There was some frantic waving from the ground staff, signalling that the shuttle-bus doors should remain closed, and we stayed where we were for around twenty minutes. It gradually became apparent that I probably had time for a little nap.

    It transpired that 9H-WNB had just flown in from Kutaisi, but that was the limit of what it would be doing that day as perhaps there had been a minor technical issue that they wanted to look into. It had a nice day off at Warsaw Airport and was then back in service the following day, so this remains an aircraft that I’ve never been on.

    After some faffing about we were driven to another aircraft, 9H-WNN, which has previously taken me from Warsaw to Genoa. We then had another twenty minute wait, by which point any remaining novelty associated with travelling around Warsaw Airport by bus had largely disappeared. One child felt ill and the doors were opened so he could collapse in an area with some space, although he perked up relatively quickly. No-one explained at any stage, either in English or Polish, what was going on so there was an air of surprise about what was unfolding. I don’t really like surprises when flying so I wasn’t entirely delighted.

    Meanwhile, the passengers who had already been on the other aircraft had been deplaned (this is a word I like, I don’t care if it’s seen as American) and arrived in another shuttle bus. This meant that they still had some hope of boarding the aircraft first as most of them were priority passengers who would have expected to get ahead of the non-priority people. My friend Richard would have been horrified if his priority status had failed to secure the expected seven-second advantage as he is a VIP.

    The flight itself is easy to summarise. I boarded, accepted the middle seat with which the seating gods had sub-optimally given me and fell asleep shortly after take-off. The aircraft was full, but the padded timetable absorbed most of the earlier delay and we landed in Kutaisi not long after the scheduled arrival time. I had therefore reached Georgia with remarkably little awareness of the flight itself, which is perhaps the ideal outcome when occupying a middle seat.

  • Overnight at Warsaw Chopin Airport

    Overnight at Warsaw Chopin Airport

    I had something like nine hours between my flight from Zadar landing in Warsaw Chopin Airport and my flight to Kutaisi departing. It didn’t really seem worth getting a hotel for the night, especially as they were relatively expensive, and so I thought that it would be easier, once again, to just stay awake at the airport.

    At this time of the morning, it’s bright, open and quiet as an airport with sufficient power outlets dotted around to ensure there’s no panic of running out of phone battery. The departure board offered its usual collection of destinations designed to interfere with my future travel plans. Incidentally, the no photography sign on the right relates to the security area, I wasn’t being rebellious. I’m not suggesting that the airport terminal is entirely comfortable, but it’s spacious and there are 24 hour food options available landside.

    The security checkpoints open early and that meant I was able to get through quickly before the bulk of passengers arrived. I’m not sure if they’re building a new lounge at the airport given this signage that was up.

    The last couple of times I’ve flown from Warsaw there have been some delays due to the Entry/Exit System and going through earlier in the morning meant that the process was rather quicker and took just minutes.

    By this point the airport was beginning to wake up, although there was still plenty of space and none of the usual competition for seats. I had survived the least sociable hours of the morning without falling asleep or losing possession of any electronic devices, which represented a satisfactory and optimal outcome for me.

    I had made good time and arrived at the lounge shortly before it opened, joining the small queue while considering how many coffees I could reasonably justify after remaining awake all night.

    I also didn’t have any problems finding a seat in the Etiuda lounge. I’ve always liked this non-Schengen lounge in Warsaw as it’s not too busy, there are plenty of power outlets and the food choice is decent.

    The breakfast of champions and all that. This was very much the sort of breakfast I like, with espresso, yoghurt, cheese, fruit juice, chocolate and enough salad to create a superficial impression of nutritional responsibility. The lounge was a comfortable conclusion to a surprisingly painless night at the airport and I could look forward to a little nap on the flight although I was aware that the seating gods had given me a middle seat.

  • Balkans Trip Day 16 – Wizz Air Flight from Zadar to Warsaw Chopin Airport

    Balkans Trip Day 16 – Wizz Air Flight from Zadar to Warsaw Chopin Airport

    After the excitement of getting to Zadar Airport, the rest was something of an anti-climax. The airport is very much lacking in seating, so I found a place to sit and wait outside, but it all felt a little sub-optimal. There were no seats at all in arrivals and just a handful in departures.

    Matters didn’t improve when I tried to go through security, as my boarding pass was rejected and I was told to return in twenty minutes. I did, only for it to be rejected again and for another twenty-minute wait to be imposed. After the third attempt failed, I asked when passengers were actually allowed through. The security officer replied, “We never know,” which didn’t fill me with much confidence about their operations.

    After popping into the lounge I watched the boarding commence and it was, as nearly always with Wizz Air, efficient and well managed.

    The aircraft was HA-LGW, which has previously taken me from London Luton to Wrocław.

    The seating gods had given me an aisle seat so that was most agreeable for the flight, which took around two hours. The flight was busy but once again beautifully uneventful, which is just as I like them. We landed around fifteen minutes early, although this probably owed more to Wizz Air’s generous timetable padding than any unusually enthusiastic flying by the pilot. One person applauded when the flight landed, but I’m pleased to record that they were ignored. There was the usual attempt by several passengers to push past everyone else when disembarking, a process that I’ve never entirely understood.

    Oh good, a bus from the aircraft to the terminal at Warsaw. Unusually for this generally efficient airport, there was a delay of around half an hour before the buses arrived, which isn’t something I’ve experienced at Warsaw Chopin before. However, I was in no rush as I would be staying at the airport for a few hours before my flight to Georgia. Despite the delay, I still reached arrivals more quickly than those who had pushed past me, but I decided not to dwell on that modest victory. Given that this was a Schengen flight, there was no border control to go through, which made matters a little easier.

    And this marks the end of the Balkans series of posts. Well, it does chronologically, although I am now going back to fill in several gaps, meaning that even the conclusion requires further instalments. It had been a rather lovely way to spend a couple of weeks, taking us through Serbia, Montenegro, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Croatia without any genuinely serious transport disasters. By the standards of this trip, that represented considerable organisational success by Jonathan and me if I may say so myself.

  • Wizz Air (Warsaw Chopin to Bilbao)

    Wizz Air (Warsaw Chopin to Bilbao)

    I’m not sure I need to write too much about Warsaw Chopin Airport given that this is not short on content about the building. There are only so many times I can photograph the same airport before it starts to feel less like travel writing and more like a long-term monitoring project. Still, here we are again (as a friend would say), because I am nothing if not thorough about documenting the movement of myself through transport infrastructure.

    It was busy though and my usual security entrance was closed due to the number of passengers, but there’s another entrance further down into the terminal and that was quieter.

    The lounge was busy, but I was able to get a high table next to a power point, which seems to be something of a theme this week. Anyway, the chicken and carrots were rather lovely, alongside beer, Fanta and coffee. I know how to live. Not extravagantly, perhaps, but with a balanced approach to liquids.

    And some salad.

    I gave myself twenty minutes to get from the lounge to the gate. I hadn’t realised that the gate was literally ten metres away, it’s there on the left and the lounge entrance is on the right.

    There was a long queue to get into the lounge, which says quite a lot about how airport lounge access has changed. I’m afraid there are now too many people doing what I’m doing, although possibly with more sensible travel times and fewer self-imposed routing experiments. Lounge usage is more popular than the space allocated for it, and given that there are four airport lounges at Warsaw Chopin, with two reserved more for legacy airlines, it is an indication of their popularity. The modern airport lounge is no longer a tranquil refuge. It is now a competitive seating environment with pastries.

    I don’t normally pay any attention to what the weather will be like in a destination as I neither care nor worry about it. However, it was hard not to note the temperature in Bilbao and so, as ever, I was pre-annoyed. This is one of my more efficient emotional states, allowing me to be irritated before the actual inconvenience has occurred.

    I wasn’t surprised that it was a bus to the aircraft.

    The aircraft was 9H-WBE which was a new one for me and I’d add that I do realise this interests no-one else, but I like to keep a record for me. Some people collect records, some collect art and I apparently have a register of Wizz Air aircraft registrations, but I suppose we all find meaning where we can.

    The seating Gods had allocated me an aisle seat which had pleased me greatly.

    As for the flight, which I often find myself writing less about, it was once again operated professionally by Wizz Air and the crew were friendly, engaging and helpful. I noticed that the elderly guy sitting next to me had his wife on an aisle seat a few rows up and I decided to be pro-active and helpful offering to swap. That pleased them, so that was my good deed done for the day. I like to get these things completed efficiently so I can return to my normal programme of mild judgement and annoyance.

    A decent number of passengers purchased food and drink from the crew and they completed a few pass-throughs of the cabin. One element of people watching is to see how passengers manage when they’re stuck behind the cart. Some are casual and accept their fate. Some try to calculate whether they can edge past without making physical contact with half the cabin. Others simply stand there looking deeply annoyed, as though the trolley has violated a principle of natural justice.

    I suggest the best approach is to be inwardly annoyed but outwardly calm, looking at one’s phone as though entirely unfazed by the matter. This allows a person to maintain dignity while still experiencing a full internal complaint process. It is a very British arrangement, even when not in Britain.

    As this was a Schengen flight there was no border control and so the whole process of getting through the airport was quick and efficient. I then had problems with finding the bus and ended up at the tourist information office to get help, but more of that in the next riveting instalment….. I appreciate that “Julian struggles to locate bus” may not sound like peak travel literature, but I have built entire posts on less. At least the flight had gone well, the aisle seat had been secured and my brief Warsaw visit had ended with chicken, a power point and a new aircraft registration for the personal archive. That feels like a perfectly respectable little arrangement for under £9.

  • Warsaw – Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (Central Transport Hub)

    Warsaw – Centralny Port Komunikacyjny (Central Transport Hub)

    I hadn’t actually realised until this week that Poland’s Central Transport Hub was still very much an active project, which shows the sort of detailed international infrastructure awareness my two loyal blog readers have come to expect. Known as CPK, and now sitting within the broader Port Polska programme, it is planned as a major new airport and transport hub between Warsaw and Łódź, combining flights, rail and road in one large national statement of intent. The airport is expected to be ready for passengers by the end of 2032, which gives me several more years to develop opinions about it without having to use it.

    The plan is for CPK to take over much of the role currently played by Warsaw Chopin Airport, and I must admit I’ll be a little sad if that happens. Chopin is not perfect, but it is wonderfully convenient, close to the city and connected by rail in a way that makes arrival in Warsaw feel straightforward rather than like the first stage of a regional expedition. There is something very civilised about landing and being able to reach the city centre quickly, cheaply and without issues.

    The new airport may have strong national rail links, including the planned fast line between Warsaw, the airport and Łódź, which could make it genuinely useful as a Polish transport hub. But from the narrow and selfish perspective of someone who mostly wants to get into Warsaw, it does sound like more of a faff.

  • Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska to Warsaw Chopin Airport

    Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska to Warsaw Chopin Airport

    I accept that this will be another mundane post, although I rarely set the bar that high. There is a certain freedom in operating at this level of expectation. Nobody arrives here demanding drama, revelation or moral transformation, not even my two loyal blog readers. This was essentially the reverse of the journey I had made the previous evening, but I like to document things. One day someone may need to know precisely how I got from a budget hotel in Warsaw to the airport, and I intend to be ready for that moment.

    This photo was taken just outside of the hotel and I resisted popping into the McDonald’s, which isn’t something that I’ve always managed to achieve. Still, I resisted, which I think shows character. Not a lot of character, obviously, but enough to get me across the pavement.

    I had initially planned to visit some more metro stations before going back to the airport, to complete another half-finished project of mine. But the temperature was just too hot and so I decided that I’d walk to the tram stop and take one of the longer routes into the city centre and use it as a tourist experience.

    The tram was air conditioned so I was all set and this immediately improved the mood of the entire arrangement.

    Pootling along over the River Vistula.

    And back into the city centre.

    There’s Warszawa Centralna railway station in the background and I was already getting quite sad to be leaving Warsaw.

    There we go, the 12:24 from Platform 3.

    It’s the next Warsaw Beer Festival in October and I’ve decided I want to go to that, but the dates haven’t yet been released. I hope I’ll be back in Warsaw before that though.

    The airport train looked like it would be on time.

    And it was. There is something about standing on a platform with an airport train due that makes the trip feel suddenly over, even if technically there is still quite a lot of travel bureaucracy ahead.

    And that was that, my short trip to Warsaw was over. It had been a slightly ridiculous routing, a brief overnight stay and probably not the most sensible use of geography, but it had worked. I had slept, eaten breakfast, ridden trams, resisted McDonald’s, crossed the Vistula and reached the airport without incident. That may not trouble the great travel writers of history, but it was all rather pleasing