Poland

Off to Poland.... from about the time we would have crossed the border into Poland, and for the next hour, we had long stretches of highway where the bus moved slowly and the ride was very rough. Fortunately, they are rebuilding the freeway (taken through the rear window). Due to the complexity of train connections from Berlin to Krakow, it was easier to take the bus. DeutscheBahn operates a bus to Krakow, but it's an 8 hour trip which I knew would be painful for me, so I took the DeutscheBahn bus to Wroclaw, walked around and stretched some, and then took a Polish bus company's bus to Krakow. Service on both of the buses was excellent. This and the next 8 pictures are taken through the bus window, so they're not particularly good but they were things I wanted to point out.

Reconstruction of the freeway in Poland.

Germany didn't seem to allow highway billboards, but they were fairly common in Poland (though not as obnoxiously so as the U.S.) Here the ubiquitous McDonald's billboard along the freeway.

Though not terribly visible here, the Polish countryside reminded me more of the U.S. than did German countryside. Compared to Germany the towns seemed to be more spread out and the farms looked to be larger.

Wind turbines in Poland -- and very flat terrain.

On the outskirts of Wroclaw, a shopping center complete with ToysRus. Other than the fact that the bus shelter and the shopping cart racks have solar panels (see larger version of picture), this could be anywhere in the U.S.

Toll booth on the freeway, just west of Krakow.

Shopping mall in Bronowice, a suburb of Krakow. Saturn is a German chain that's also in Poland; it seems to be roughly similar to Best Buy in the U.S. Note again the English language used in advertising, and the Subway sandwich shop.

Though we always hear comments about McDonald's as a U.S. store spread across the globe, it seemed there were more Subways across the parts of Germany and Poland that I explored.

One of the two Ukrainian rail cars.

Local train at the Krakow central station.

Train to Wroclaw and then on to Szczecin Glowny (main station), the train was four Polish cars and 2 Ukrainian cars.

PKP (Polish State Railways) ICCC (intercity) to Szczecin via Wroclaw (my destination).

Somewhere in the Polish countryside, a very large grain elevator.

It was an intercity train, not a super express train -- 123 kmh, which is 76 mph.

Flat farmland and spread out village with white houses... from this perspective could be anywhere in the U.S. Midwest.

No idea what these were, look to me like they were some type of furnace.

Opole, Poland railyard. It was mid-day, so many of the trains that would have been morning commute are now just parked.