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Tag: Warsaw

  • 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

  • Warsaw – Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska

    Warsaw – Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska

    And another short post as I’ve stayed at this hotel many times before and written about a fair number of them, so I won’t try the patience of my two loyal blog readers for long. There are limits even to my commitment to documenting budget hotel consistency, although admittedly I keep testing them.

    It’s routinely the cheapest of the Accor hotels in Warsaw and it’s not hard to get to on the tram or bus, so it’s a very viable option. It’s probably not the best hotel to use as part of an airport layover, but travel should have challenges sometimes as where’s the fun in efficient?

    I had arrived too late for my free welcome drink, which is never ideal, but they had given me a welcome gift of some teas and a biscuit. These little gestures are always much appreciated.

    Although the hotel is located by a busy road, the view from my window was rather more pleasant.

    And a rather lovely breakfast. The meat looked quite frightening, so I went for some more healthy options. And a heap of bread and pastries at the back, alongside coffee, orange juice and tea. And a big dollop of strawberry yoghurt.

    With that, I had to start planning my return to the airport, which was slightly annoying as I had only been at the hotel for a few hours. But, there were no noise issues internally or externally and I was able to catch up on sleep after a warm night in Faro the previous day. It was not a long stay, but it did exactly what was required which was a clean room, quiet night, decent breakfast and a biscuit-based welcome.

  • Warsaw Airport to Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska

    Warsaw Airport to Warsaw Ibis Ostrobramska

    I won’t linger too much on this post as I’ve written about public transport in Warsaw so many times before. However, this is the train to the city centre and I’ll note here that a 24 hour public transport ticket is under £3. A single underground journey in Zone 1 in London is the same price.

    The train stopped for a few minutes at Warszawa Zachodnia railway station, which is all new and shiny. This is moderately annoying as I realised that the Ibis Budget I usually stay at had suddenly become available and if I had realised earlier, I would have switched to this one. But, it meant I instead got to see more of Warsaw at night and there are worse things.

    Getting off at Warszawa Centralna railway station.

    I needed to change from a train to a night bus and there’s the Palace of Culture and Science. I sent a photo of this to my friend Liam who asked me why it was purple. Unfortunately, no-one seems to know, but it looks rather lovely at night and it is certainly a bold choice for Stalinist architecture, which is not usually known for its playful approach to mood lighting.

    On the night bus.

    It was quite busy and we sat in the dark for a while which I think was to add anticipation before we departed. Public transport often lacks theatricality, so perhaps Warsaw is addressing this with a brief blackout sequence. Either that or the driver hadn’t turned the lights on yet, but I prefer the more dramatic interpretation.

    Let there be light. And off we went, all suddenly illuminated and reassured that the bus had not, in fact, been designed by people who believed passengers should travel by instinct alone.

    And safely at the hotel. Public transport in Warsaw really is very easy, it’s cheap, frequent and well signed. Their trams and buses are shown live on Google Maps which helps if anything is delayed and, I know I say this frequently, but no-one was playing music or had their feet on the seats. This is a proper culture. A civilisation can be judged in many ways, but “can I sit on public transport without listening to someone else’s phone or inspecting their shoes on the upholstery?” seems as good a measure as any.

  • Wizz Air (Faro to Warsaw Chopin)

    Wizz Air (Faro to Warsaw Chopin)

    After my little beach walk in the morning, it was time to return to Faro Airport just a few hours after arriving there. And, I will admit that the planning element of all of this was a little sub-optimal. I had flown from Norwich to Faro as the Ryanair flight was very cheap and I noticed I could then fly from Faro to Warsaw with the last minute flight availability from my Wizz Air Multipass. I like Warsaw, as I might have mentioned, so my plan was to spend some time there.

    That was until I saw the hotel prices, which have been becoming consistently high over recent months. Warsaw has clearly worked out that I like it and is now attempting to monetise the emotional relationship. I then noticed that there was a flight from Warsaw to Bilbao, which is where I planned to spend a few days. So the new arrangement became Faro to Warsaw, then Warsaw to Bilbao, which looked perfectly sensible on a screen and slightly less sensible when exposed to time, distance and human comfort. Anyway, travel is about the journey and not the destination.

    So the issue was that I had managed to not really think through the fact that the flight from Faro to Warsaw was four hours in length and then I discovered that the seating Gods had given me a middle seat. This flight was looking a little less appealing, especially as I knew that I was flying back to Spain the next day.

    This is where rail ticketing needs to improve across countries, it’s just too expensive at the moment and I ideally like to use trains. But it was going to cost me £18 to get from Faro to Bilbao (via Warsaw) which also gave me two lounge accesses. Google informed me that to get from Faro to Bilbao by rail required six trains, would take over 28 hours and would cost somewhere around £150.

    Security at Faro was efficient from a staffing perspective, but I was slightly inwardly annoyed that the passenger in front of me didn’t know that liquids needed to go in their own bag. This has been the rule for over a decade so perhaps I should be fair. There then followed five minutes while she located her various liquids spread across three bags, as though she had prepared a small toiletries treasure hunt for the benefit of airport security. I remained outwardly calm, which is one of my lesser-known heroic qualities.

    Anyway, after that, I got to turn right at the above sign for the first time, which means that I was heading from the Schengen area. Last time I went left and was faced with long queues due to border control requirements.

    I could see the non-Schengen area and the queues didn’t actually look too bad, although I still preferred the Schengen option of not needing to show a passport.

    I then popped to the lounge, but I wittered on about that separately.

    There were plenty of seats in the terminal, there were numerous power points and it all felt relaxed.

    We were departing from Gate 220 and the whole process was well managed and it was clear where the priority and non-priority passengers needed to wait. The staff here seemed rather laid-back and I noticed that they weren’t checking bag sizes.

    The boarding process was all well managed and we weren’t in the extreme Portuguese heat for long. Did I mention that it was too hot? The aircraft was 9H-WDX which I’ve been on twice before, although as it’s part of their Polish fleet, that’s perhaps not entirely unsurprising. The crew were Polish and were impeccable in terms of their friendliness during the flight.

    The middle seat arrangement isn’t ideal, but wasn’t problematic and I managed to combine sleeping with watching YouTube videos to make the time go a little quicker. The aircraft was clean, the pilots were professional and we arrived into Warsaw a few minutes ahead of schedule.

    Oh good, a packed bus from the aircraft to the airport. Although I was a little time restricted as I needed to cross Warsaw, I knew that there was no border control and so I would be able to get on the train quickly enough. That transpired to be true, it took eight minutes from getting to the terminal to getting on the train, which included buying a ticket from the machine.

    Overall, this flight cost me £9 and everything went as expected, so I was pleased with the whole arrangement. It’s rare that I get the middle seat allocated and the flight was relatively full, but there are worse things that can happen. Once again, I thought that Wizz Air’s operation was all well managed and I was delighted to be back in Warsaw, even if just for one night. It might not have been the most logical routing, but it was cheap, efficient and let me continue my little adventure.

  • Wizz Air (Warsaw Chopin to Bucharest Băneasa)

    Wizz Air (Warsaw Chopin to Bucharest Băneasa)

    Safely back at Warsaw Chopin airport and ready for my next flight to Bucharest. As usual, there was a minimal wait for the security process and it took under five minutes from scanning my boarding pass to being airside.

    That meant a quick stop in the lounge.

    It was all clean, comfortable and spacious as usual, with plenty of power points available.

    Very healthy.

    The spring rolls didn’t look entirely appetising as they were quite broken up, but it transpired that they were really quite agreeable.

    The boarding process was efficient and I was flying within the Schengen zone, I didn’t have to wait for an hour for the EES system like last week.

    Oh good, a bus gate.

    And ready to board. It’s aircraft 9H-WDS, which entered Wizz Air’s fleet in late 2023 and appears to be yet another aircraft that I haven’t been on.

    Unusually, I was first to board the aircraft. The excitement of it all….

    So here’s a photo of an empty cabin, I don’t get to post these very often.

    The seating Gods had given me a window seat and also no-one sitting next to me, which was all very handy. Wizz Air seems to pad their schedules to cover a small delay so the estimated one hour fifty minutes flight time was actually only eighty minutes. The crew were friendly, the aircraft were clean and, once again, there were no negatives for me to mention.

    Safely in Bucharest on time and able to walk to the terminal.

    I’ve written about Bucharest Băneasa airport before and it’s beautiful, although rather small.

    The central dome of the airport.

    The bus stop is a short walk away on the main road although not overly well signed. Anyway, with that I was on the bus to the hotel.

    The flight cost £9 because of my Multipass, again representing excellent value for money.