Getting to Warsaw, Poland

Probably our most adventurous train ride and part of the vacation. This was our first of two overnight train rides. To be frank and honest it was not the most of luxurious of train rides. Even though we were in first class and not sharing the space with four other people I can't say that it is what I would have called first class accommodations. That of course was the least of the little hiccups in our train ride up there.

The train ride up there was a bit rocky in addition to our less than stellar accommodations. There were many jerky stops along the way. Our longest stop had to have been for passport control that occurred at about three in the morning. They actually stopped the train while they went through the cars doing passport control. Again that was just a slight disappointment in the whole traveling overnight by train process.

Our biggest hiccup probably was the train connection from Krakow to Warsaw. We all were aware of the fact that we had to switch trains in order to continue our venture up to Warsaw along with the fact that we had only seven minutes. Unfortunately for us there were no signs that would indicate which platform we needed to be on so we at six in the morning missed our connection. Figuring that we would be okay by catching the seven o'clock train up to Warsaw.

So our saving grace wasn't completely our saving grace since there wasn't any open seats left on the train and it was a completely first class train. In the end we ended up sitting on our suitcases in between carriages since no one working on the train seemed to be up to helping us out which again shows the different in cultures. We finally made it to Warsaw though at about ten. We headed straight to the hotel. We were all ready after that rather stressful trip to just merely hit a bed and sleep until dinner. Much to our dismay though the hotel wasn't ready for us, so our rooms weren't ready. We however weren't ready to go out and explore the town. We made it as far as lunch and that was as far as we got before we made it back to the hotel and camped out in the lobby until the receptionist finally took some pity on us and allowed us to have one of our two rooms. The rest of the day was spent relaxing in the hotel room and then making our way out to dinner.

More to come from our adventures in Warsaw...