Thursday, June 10 - Szczecin

So, on to Poland it is.  The train tickets from Berlin to Szczecin were incredibly cheap - we can only think that is because not many people make this trip.  It is about 100 miles, so not too far and we enjoyed seeing the countryside.  

When we got to Szczecin, we were a bit surprized - after the mega malls in the stations in Germany, the Szczecin station seemed a bit spartan.  That and without much Polish language, we were a bit lost.   We stepped off the train onto the quay and couldn't find the actual station. 

Fortunately we had planned to arrive in early afternoon, so we had time to sit with our city map and try to calmly figure out what to do.  I knew that in Poland there are actually 3 train systems, but didn't understand quite what that means.  In France there are also national, international, and regional trains, but you can buy tickets for most of the trains running in France in one area.  In Poland, there are separate little ticket offices, some not even in the actual station. 

I had researched two options: 1) rent a car in Szczecin for just a few days, then take the train to Poznan and rent another car there for the Grab trip or 2) rent a car in Szczecin and return it in Poznan 6 days later.  So we wanted to find the train schedule, determine if that was an option, and possibly purchase tickets.  Rick Steves advises to do this when you arrive in a town so you know what your schedule needs to be.

We did eventually learn the train schedule and found a kiosk where we could buy tickets, but decided to go ahead and find a hotel and check the car rental situation as well.  We started walking in the direction of the tourist office - which would also lead us generally downtown near several hotels.  Before we found the tourist office, we walked by a Novotel - a chain we are familiar with in France and in which the desk staff always speak English. 

We checked in there and found a Europecar rental office in the hotel. The car rental folks had good English as well.  It didn't take long to decide to go ahead and reserve a car for the next 6 days right there in the hotel. 

After we got settled in our room, we went out for a walk - found the tourist office and bought some driving maps.  We were surprized to find KFC restaurants to be quite common.  

We had asked the young man at the car rental office for a restaurant recommendation and he suggested a place in the area which we decided to try.  The restaurant was in the lower level and it was lovely.  The food was great, Fred had fish and I had veal, then we had ice cream for dessert.

After dinner, we walked down to the river.  The city was preparing for its annual river festival and there were boats of all kinds in the harbor.  Szczecin is on the  river, about 60 miles from the Baltic Seaport of Swinoujscie.  There are ferry routes from Swinoujscie to Sweden and Denmark.