by Wojciech Kamionka
Welcome to regular posts about IHS 58 in Poland! Start by visiting this excellent tourist website: http://visitkrakow.com. Following is information on travel to the Symposium site.
By plane
Most air passengers will arrive via Kraków’s John Paul II International Airport (KRK) and, if possible, this is where you want to land. The Kraków Airport is located only 20 minutes train distance from the center of the city, and trains depart every half hour.
You may find direct flights from Chicago O’Hare (ORD) and New York—Newark (EWR) by Polish Airlines LOT (Star Alliance Member). If you fly from other starting points, you may check connections by well-known carriers with a stop in Frankfurt, Munich, Amsterdam, London, Brussels, Zurich, Vienna, etc. All those airports are just a +/- 2 hour flight to Kraków, with a few flights each day. If you fly from Asia or Australia, you may also find connections in Abu Dhabi, Dubai, or Istanbul.
There are also many long-distance travel possibilities with flights to Warsaw Chopin Airport by LOT (with direct flights from New York, Newark, Chicago, Miami, Los Angeles, Toronto, Tokyo, and Seoul) with a 40-minute connecting flight to Kraków, or 3 hours from Warsaw to Kraków by train.
From China to Warsaw, there is a direct flight from Beijing on Air China.
You can also check Katowice Airport located a 2-hour bus ride from Kraków.
Kraków Airport offers many destinations by regular and low fare airlines (like Ryanair, WizzAir, EasyJet), which makes travel to Kraków very easy—and this also makes it easy to plan unforgettable holidays before or after the Symposium.
From the Airport to the city
From the Kraków Airport, you may take a city train to the city center. It leaves every 30 minutes and takes about 20 minutes. The final stop should be Kraków’s Main Station (Kraków Główny). The station is in an excellent location, a mere 5-minute walk from the Old Town and just a 12-minute walk to the Academy, making it a convenient point of arrival. The station is fairly new and, as it is built into a large shopping mall, has nearly everything a traveller might need. Other nearby train stops may be Kraków Grzegórzki (also very close to the Academy and to Kazimierz Jewish City) or Kraków Zabłocie.
You may also take a taxi (Uber, Bolt, local taxi ICAR). Official Airport taxis (black ones) might be expensive. There are also city buses.
Reaching Kraków by train
Kraków Główny, the city’s main station, is served by trains from most Polish destinations as well as from the capital cities of neighboring countries. There are direct trains from Berlin, Vienna, Prague, Budapest, Bratislava, and Vilnius. Many of the longer journeys are overnight, with sleeping cars as an option.
The Polish rail network is run by a number of companies, and you should be aware that tickets are not interchangeable. Assume that a ticket is only valid for the particular journey for which you bought it. Other than that, the whole system is fairly easy to understand. Note that queues are common, so leave plenty of extra time if you’re buying a ticket at a train station. The best way is to buy tickets on the Polish Railways website: https://pkp.pl/en/ (for all train companies).
The network is comfortable and reasonably fast. It’s also cheap, depending on the type of train you choose. The 289 km journey from Warsaw to Kraków can be done in less than 2.5 hours on the faster trains, at a cost of 35€ for a second-class ticket. The slower trains take an hour longer but cost only 14€ one-way.
The fastest trains are operated by PKP InterCity and are marked on timetables as EIP (Express InterCity Premium). In summertime you need to buy these tickets in advance—up to 30 days ahead—as seat reservations are necessary. But you can buy tickets online from outside Poland; first- and second-class tickets are available, and snacks are available on these trains.
By Bus
Flixbus offers numerous connections to Kraków.
By Car
Coming to Kraków by car may be a good option. It’s 5 hours’ drive from Vienna, Bratislava or Prague, and 6 from Berlin or Dresden. The Academy is located in a restricted traffic zone, so you may use the following address as your destination: ul. Zyblikiewicza 1, Kraków.
Parking on streets in the city center is paid parking daily from Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. You may also find guarded parking lots.
Invitations
If you need an invitation for your university or institution, contact the host by e-mail ihs58info@gmail.com. Specify precisely your planned activity (Contributing Artist, Participant etc.) and whether the invitation will be only for you or for your students or both. Write accurately the name of your institution. We will do our best as soon as possible.
