Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Wroclaw

Wrocław to Oleśnica Rail Journey

Having been to Wrocław many times before, including four times over the last year, I thought that I’d get the train to somewhere new as I move across Poland to get to Warsaw Beer Festival. Here’s Wrocław Główny railway station looking rather lovely in the morning sun.

Wrocław Główny was originally constructed between 1855 and 1857 according to the Neo-Gothic designs of royal architect Wilhelm Grapow. At the time of its completion it stood as one of the largest and most architecturally ambitious railway structures in Europe and served as the primary gateway for the Upper Silesian Railway. Throughout the twentieth century the station underwent several significant expansions and survived the Siege of Breslau in 1945, being comprehensively restored in 2012. It now also has a rather lovely shopping mall attached to the back of it, which is also home to the city’s coach station.

And there’s my train, which is a regional service.

Very shiny, this is part of the Koleje Dolnośląskie (KD) fleet.

The journey to Oleśnica takes around forty minutes and costs around £3.

I bought my ticket at the railway station as it was a short and regular regional service, I normally buy them in advance. The train was clean and comfortable, with power points available under the seats. My ticket was checked by a cheerful guard as she meandered down the train.

It’s a reasonably beautiful journey across the Polish countryside.

Safely into Oleśnica railway station which officially opened on 28 May 1868 as a key stop on the new line connecting Wrocław Nadodrze with the industrial regions of Upper Silesia. Its arrival marked something of a transformative era for the town, prompting the removal of medieval city gates to accommodate increased transport and establishing the station as a major Prussian transport hub between the Oder River and Greater Poland. This reminds me of the hole in the city wall that they punched through in York for the city’s railway station, then promptly built the new railway station outside of the city walls…

Like seemingly many things in Poland, the railway station has received a large investment and the building is being restored back to its grand former past.

And this is what it’ll look like when the work is completed.

March 26, 2026
Wrocław – Ibis Wrocław Centrum

And at just after 02:00, I arrived at Ibis Centrum in Wrocław, which is in the same building as the Novotel. The hotel had sorted out the payment earlier in the day (well, the previous day) for me and so the check-in was prompt and efficient. Accor in Poland, as I’ve mentioned several (hundred) times are operated by Orbis and they are a reliable option to stay at.

The hotel has some themed rooms and I was in the Game Room for this visit.

The room decoration and they’ve put some considerable effort into this.

Not that I had time to play it, but there was a games console in the room.

And some board games.

Very nice.

There was also a welcome drink of a decadent apple juice and some ginger biscuits which were rather lovely. There were also teas and coffee, it all proved reasonable value at under £40 for the night. Given the relatively small amount of time that I had in the hotel, I opted against getting breakfast as I didn’t want to get up too early.

I’ve stayed at this hotel, both the lower floors which are Ibis and the higher floors which are Novotel, before and had views over both sides. This is looking out the front and they’re making progress on that building to the right as they were digging the foundations out when I was last here.

I didn’t have any noise disturbances either internally or externally, but the hotel is ready for the construction noise.

Anyway, this was a rather lovely stay once again with everything being trouble free and as expected. Arriving at 02:00 meant that the welcome drink wasn’t an option, as not unsurprisingly they don’t want to keep the bar open that late, and I wanted to get going to my next stop early the following morning. The team members were friendly and it’s just a slight shame that I didn’t have time to play on the games console or the city’s version of Monopoly.

March 25, 2026
Wrocław – Night Bus from Airport to City Centre

I wasn’t intending to write this bus journey up, so I’ll admit that the photos aren’t quite as professional as I’d like. The bus stop is located by turning right after leaving the airport terminal, it’s right at the end although is clearly signed.

Given the poor quality of the imagery in this post, here’s a better quality photo from last year to add to proceedings.

Anyway, I digress. It’s possible to buy tickets on the bus, but there’s also a ticket machine and I prefer to use this when there’s time available to do so. It accepts cards and can be switched to English, with everything being self-explanatory.

One single ticket costs about 80p and it’s rather lovely that the authorities have made the decision not to take advantage of passengers here by surcharging the airport route. Other airports could perhaps make a similar decision….. I wasn’t intending to use an Uber, but I checked to see how much a journey would cost and it would have been around £8 which is probably a lot less hassle for those with luggage.

The bus was really quite busy on this occasion and although I got a seat as other passengers were faffing about buying a ticket on board, there were some left standing for the journey. It’s around a thirty minute journey to the city centre and the route ends up at the city’s railway station.

And the centre of Wrocław at around 02:00 in the morning. I wasn’t particularly trying to take a photo of the McDonald’s signage, just a night-time shot that came out blurrier than I wanted. I decided not to faff about any more, so that means this is another blog post that isn’t entirely optimal.

Anyway, this all meant that I arrived at the Ibis Hotel the earliest that I could have expected and I was once again delighted by the city’s transportation system. And I might take better photos next time.

March 25, 2026
Wizz Air (London Luton to Wrocław)

Safely at Luton Airport nice and early, as usual. The security process was smooth and efficient, taking less than five minutes from when I scanned my boarding card.

I popped into Big Smoke with my Priority Pass card and had the usual delicious chicken tenders and a slightly less delicious alcohol free Stella. The service is always friendly and efficient here, with plenty of power points to ensure I didn’t have to stress about that.

And then into Nolito for a healthy snack with pineapple juice. It’s quite pricey and I’m not sure that the quality here quite justified the price, but as it was free, I decided that I’d cope.

By then, it was getting nearer the time when boarding started, with my flight being the penultimate out of the airport that day. I rather like days such as this with an evening flight, I get a chance to get on top of everything work wise and nothing feels rushed.

The boarding process was smooth, well managed and everything was clear. The staff here were friendly and personable, it was all efficient and organised.

And then the boarding, I was towards the back of the aircraft and boarded via the rear doors.

The aircraft was HA-LGM, which is yet another one that I haven’t been on before. It was newly delivered to the airline in July 2024 and inside everything was clean and in a decent state of repair.

I have little to report about the flight, as once again, it was operated by Wizz Air with professionalism and efficiency. The seating Gods had given me an aisle seat with no-one next to me, the announcements were clear, the crew were friendly and it was all peaceful and organised. We landed on time and the pilots kept us informed of what was going on.

The one negative, which wasn’t the fault of the airline, is that they had expected steps to be brought to the back of the aircraft in Wrocław, but they instead used a jet bridge. That meant it took a bit longer for me to disembark with a wait of nearly fifteen minutes on board. This isn’t a problem, but there’s one bus an hour that departs the airport at night and I didn’t really want to miss it as it was already late enough.

I’ve mentioned this before, but one of the advantages of flying on Wizz Air as a passenger with a British passport is that there aren’t generally many of us (and that is obviously a generalisation). Indeed, despite disembarking almost last, there were only two people ahead of me in the queue at border control. This meant that I was able to get through the border quicker than most holders of EU passports, a rare treat, although I’d still quite like an EU passport once again…

Anyway, the efficiency here meant that I was outside the airport with fifteen minutes to spare before the night bus turned up. Another rather lovely flight and a bargain for just £8.99. And it’s lovely to be back in Poland.

March 25, 2026
Wrocław – National Museum in Wrocław (Costume Scene by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz)

This year, I took considerably more photos than I ever had chance to write about, so to surprise and delight just about no-one other than myself, there will now follow a few end of year things that I feel I should have written about so I don’t forget them.

This painting is by Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz (1885-1939) who is an intriguing character as he seems to have decided that merely being a painter, playwright, novelist, philosopher and photographer was far too sensible, and so set about turning his entire life into a sort of extended, slightly unhinged performance piece. He ran a formalised “Portrait Painting Firm” with price lists that varied depending on which drugs he was on at the time, annotated his works with cryptic notes about nicotine, peyote or existential despair, and wrote plays so strange that even other avant-gardists occasionally backed away slowly. In the end, he committed suicide shortly after Germany invaded his home country of Poland and it was perhaps fortunate that he didn’t see the destruction of so much of his country.

Back to the artwork, which he painted in 1912, it’s just called “Costume Scene in a Landscape” which doesn’t help with any meaning which the artist intended. I can’t work out what I’m actually looking at, which certainly adds some complexity to arrangements. Is the character on the left wearing an interesting hat or is that a halo? And what is the meaning between the two characters?

But, what reassures me is that the artist was known for trying to engender “the strangeness of existence” in the viewer, where it isn’t possible to establish what reality he was looking for. I’ve decided that’s all the meaning I need…..

December 28, 2025
Wrocław – The Gnomes of Wrocław (Trójkuć / Radio 3 Reporter)

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.

October 22, 2025
Wrocław – Women’s Suffrage Memorial

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.

October 22, 2025
Wizz Air (Wrocław to Gatwick Airport)

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.

October 22, 2025
Wrocław – The Gnomes of Wrocław (Adwokatka / Advocate)

Although most of the famous Wrocław gnomes are male, there are also representations of females and this is the Advocate, or Attorney, gnome. It’s located at Bolesława Prusa 1/50 and it’s hear because there is a legal office (or advocate office) inside the building.

October 21, 2025
Wrocław – The Gnomes of Wrocław (Googlak / Googler)

This little gnome is located outside of the Google building in Wrocław and I initially didn’t realise that the word ‘Google’ is spelled out in the rolls by his feet. I rather like this one, a combination of traditional and modern all at once, I suppose that fits what Google were looking for here.

I am slowly working my way around finding the gnomes in the city, although I’ve now forgotten which ones I’ve found which is making things a little more disorganised. Luckily I have this blog to try and restore order.

October 21, 2025