Driving to Poland from England - any tips?

wirelessThreads: 1 Posts: 35 Joined: Aug 9, 09 ♂	May 28, 11, 00:46 #241
Wildrover, Wroclaw and antek: Thanks so much for all your advice, I think i will drive though out the night. im going to do a search for all the petrol stations in europe and see which one are on my route. cheers :O)

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May 28, 11, 01:01 #242

There will be plenty of good fuel stops...

When i rode my Harley from UK to Poland i was a bit worried about finding enough fuel stops , as the silly little fuel tank on a Sportster only holds enough for 120 miles , with a reserve that can get you only 20 miles... I had a five litre fuel tank strapped to the rear seat just in case....

It was not a problem , even at night in Poland , found plenty of places to get fuel...

MEMBER ♂

May 28, 11, 01:22 #243

The last time i drove from England to Poland it was my mates call to pay for the hotel, we pulled off at a small city in Belgium only because we'd both seen the film In Brugge, any way it was a lovely town but at 23:00 at night all the hotels were strangely occupied. I said well fcuk it lets just drive straight through the night were only going to sleep for a few hours anyway, i was knackered as i'd been driving since 9:00 am and didnt get to bed till 03:00 the night before through a farewell party. So we just drove or should i say i drove (he was to scared to drive on the other side of the road) till about 02:00 then i was just falling asleep so we pulled over in Germany somewhere and just crashed as well as you can in a sports coupe, i awoke to the smell of coffee and croissants god knows when but it was good so I zombied over to the station and consumed some of the best croissant and hot chocolate ive ever tasted.

Credit where its due those German stations really know the meaning of good quality chow no matter what the time. As it turned out we had Pizza in Prague central a few hours later and made it back to my place in Poland by 15:00.
Ive done London - Wroclaw in about 10 hours if you really move, its a natural 13'ish hour trip.

rybnikThreads: 29 Posts: 1,234 Joined: Jan 16, 11 ♂	May 28, 11, 02:38 #244
Wroclaw Boy: Ive done London - Wroclaw in about 10 hours if you really move, its a natural 13'ish hour trip I'm sooo jealous of you Europe-boys! Being able to cruise from country to country. I'll be doing that soon.

wirelessThreads: 1 Posts: 35 Joined: Aug 9, 09 ♂	Edited by: Moderator May 28, 11, 18:02 #245
wroclaw boy: 10 hours, dude you must have had your foot down lol how many petrol stops do you normally make? do you take small stops other than for petrol? i still cant get over it 10 hours, thats awesome lol cheers

StuThreads: 27 Posts: 1,109 Joined: Mar 31, 10 ♂	Edited by: Stu May 28, 11, 18:20 #246
THE HITMAN: Ever check your statements ? Paying with Maestro in shops and petrol stations is free of charge. If I take money from an ATM it is 2 euro. So I don't take off 20PLN, but 300 or 400. And I pay as much as possible with the debet card in shops ... as I said, free of charge. I have a Dutch bank account at ING.

THE HITMANThreads: 1 Posts: 416 Joined: Jun 15, 10 ♂	May 28, 11, 20:32 #247
Exchange Rate Transaction Fee (ERTF). Probably depends on who you bank with. Some banks still charge on maestro card transactions. Best to check with your bank before leaving.

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May 29, 11, 14:24 #248

Wroclaw Boy:

Youre both wrong exchanging before you leave or exchanging at the border will both incur excessive FX rates similar to that found at airports

No way - at least in the ones I'm familiar with (Slubice/Frankfurt, Swiecko/Frankfurt, Kostrzyn/Kustrin Kietz and Gubin/Guben) - the rates at the border are about as competitive as it gets. The spread was no more than 5gr - which is perfectly acceptable.

Heck, I changed some money in the old Customs terminal in Swiecko and got 3.97 (the interbank rate was 3.95) on the Euro - can't complain about that!

From what I can tell, it's actually worse in the cities than at the border - probably because at the borders these days, there's a vast amount of competition.

shale shifter	Jun 1, 11, 12:09 #249
Avalon: What date, type of race and have you fixed up accommdation? Hi Avalon we will be in Tarnow on Thursday 16th June, we have been given a recomended hotel which we will be booking today wildrover: Racing....??? cars , bikes , horses...what...? morning Wildrover - Racing bikes in tarnow stadium on saturday 18th june.

wildroverThreads: 180 Posts: 8,188 Joined: Jun 7, 07 ♂	Edited by: wildrover Jun 1, 11, 12:23 #250
Aha speedway racing.... Done a lot of Bike racing myself , but never quite fancied hurtling into bends on a bike with no brakes... Good luck... The name shale shifter should have given me a clue really....

AvalonThreads: 3 Posts: 814 Joined: Sep 11, 07 ♂	Jun 1, 11, 12:56 #251
You might want to PM me your e-mail address before you book your hotel.

shale shifterThreads: - Posts: 2 Joined: Jun 1, 11 ♂	Jun 1, 11, 13:09 #252
Avalon: You might want to PM me your e-mail address before you book your hotel. Hi, i have only just joined the forum and it wont let me pm you

AvalonThreads: 3 Posts: 814 Joined: Sep 11, 07 ♂	Jun 1, 11, 13:40 #253
shale shifter: Hi, i have only just joined the forum and it wont let me pm you I have sent you a PM instead.

shale shifterThreads: - Posts: 2 Joined: Jun 1, 11 ♂	Jun 10, 11, 01:02 #254
Well as Avalon knows we are unfortunatley no longer coming to tarnow but know instead have to travel to Krosno, so does anybody have any advice of the best route to take? also does anybody know anything about krosno is there anything to do there?

wildroverThreads: 180 Posts: 8,188 Joined: Jun 7, 07 ♂	Jun 10, 11, 01:30 #255
shale shifter: is there anything to do there? On fridays the locals go out and watch the traffic lights change..... http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krosno

Mogabi	Jul 4, 11, 11:32 #256
How much will it cost to drive from Dover to Krakow in petrol? I've got 1.6 Renault megane. And are there any charges for motorway?

derrr	Jul 4, 11, 11:46 #257
Mogabi: How much will it cost to drive from Dover to Krakow in petrol? I've got 1.6 Renault megane. and you don't know its petrol consumption? weird.

Wroclaw BoyThreads: 57 Posts: 5,478 Joined: Jul 3, 09 MEMBER ♂	Edited by: Wroclaw Boy Jul 4, 11, 11:47 #258
Mogabi: And are there any charges for motorway? Only two tolls in Katowice and Krakow but theyre only just over £1, if you take a wrong turn in France and get caught on the toll roads it can get expensive. Mogabi: I've got 1.6 Renault megane. So about 35 mpg? i would estimate around £140, it used to cost me about £300 in a 4.3 V8 @ 24 mpg.

mj.kupski	Jul 26, 11, 20:23 #259
london to gdansk .poland .bmw 320d 18h 1000miils 1 and a half tank of desiel no forget poland is country with headlights on all the time

fidodoyle

Nov 15, 11, 21:58 #260

hi folks! i've been reading this forum and its great, my wife is polish and her parents live in bierun near auchwitz, we have looked at flying over for xmas but the prices are around £1000 as we have 3 kiddies now, i'm seriously thinking of driving it from portsmouth, i'm used to driving long hours, i,ve got a 02 range rover td6 to take, it will do around 600 miles to a tank cruising, ive got snow tyres for it, sat nav says 16 hours?? i'm looking at getting the otherside of the water early evening as the kids will hopefully sleep through most of the drive? has anybody got any tips? ie routes? stops? safety? i'm thinking the weekend of the 16th dec? the long range weather isnt predicting any white stuff yet? or should i bite the bullet and fly????

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Nov 15, 11, 22:11 #261

Hey...if you have a Range rover , and you know how to drive it on snow , you will have no problem at all to drive over here...

There are plenty of safe places to stop and rest , some great places to eat , and if your wife is Polish you won,t have any trouble with the language...

Poland is not a dangerous place , but in some of the small villages you may be seen as a rich and vunerable visitor with maybe something worth stealing , just use the usual precautions when parking your car...

Just one point... Auswitch is the name the Germans gave to the extermination camp built near the town of Oswiem , the Poles don,t call it Auswitch...

I have driven from UK to Poland many times , not a problem....much more fun than flying , you see so much more and get to meet people...

fidodoyle

Nov 15, 11, 22:53 #262

many thanks for that, i've just been looking at flights again £1300 now!!! jeez, you have just put my mind at rest, i've been driving land rovers for the electric board over here, just i'll have the luxury of not as many rattles, do you reckon during the night at weekends best?? and from what i have read head for the a4?? i'm looking forward to it now just hope the kids bear it up, her brother has cleared out the garage to put the car away while were there,
for filling up is it best to use debit card or cash?? thanks again

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Nov 15, 11, 23:10 #263

Yeah , i gave up my Landrovers in favour of a Rangie....did a trip from UK to Belarus and Russia , via Latvia and Lithuania , and all in an old diesal Series 3 Landy...hard work...!

I myself prefer driving at night , less traffic , and more scope for driving slowly to suss out where to make your turns etc without a load of peeps tooting at you to get a move on....

On several of my trips in the old days , we used credit cards , mostly it was ok , but we did have some dodgy garage clone our card and spend a bit of our dosh for us...Its not a problem i have nowadays , i threw away all my credit cards before moving to Poland... Carry some cash with you anyway , credit cards can get lost or refused at the most inconveniant moments...

I have never done the trip with kids , so can,t advise you there , but maybe they will enjoy it , when they get bored i guess they will just fall asleep...

You might want to have a look at one of the threads on Polish driving , looks very scary at first , but you soon get used to it...its a bit different from driving in the UK , but not as bad as some will try to tell you...

I wish you a safe trip... have a good time in Polska...

g60editionThreads: 12 Posts: 292 Joined: Jan 18, 09 ♂	Nov 15, 11, 23:24 #264
wildrover: sat nav says 16 hours So did mine say a similar the 1st time I drove from Portsmouth to Skawica (not to far from Oswiem ) Id take that with a pinc of salt esp as you have kids with you.Its not a bad journey just gets boring after the 1st 10 hrs

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Nov 17, 11, 22:59 #265

Hi Folks ....its been a while.

Done the drive from Manchester England to Gorlice in south east Poland many times, 1400 miles .
Done it by myself and with the wife and lad. Driving a bmw & land rover and traier,
but the best is a motorhome
If you feel tired pull over and go to sleep..... for as long as you like.
If the place looks interesting stay longer.
If your hungry stop and fry a egg.

What I'm realy saying is "whats the rush ?" Take your time and enjoy the trip.

And don't go faster than your Guardian Angel can fly................. :0)

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