A good base for visits to the South East of Poland (Rzeszow)

Member Name: dangaroo

Product:	Rzeszow
Date:	24/07/09 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: A great place to base yourself for visits in the South East of Poland

Disadvantages: Not the easiest to pronounce nor the most beautiful but nice and well located

Rzeszow is quite low on most people's travel itineraries when they come to Poland, lacking the sights of bigger cities like Lublin, Wroclaw, Torun, Krakow, Poznan and Gdansk and also lacking the importance of the capital city Warsaw, it's a pleasant little town that remains untouched by tourism but is in a brilliant location for sightseeing either the sparse mountainous region of Bieszczady or nearby gems such as Przemysl, Sandomierz and even the typical communist industrial town Stalowa Wola.

Despite having a population of 171,000, it's surprisingly small - I've walked from one end to the other more than once, during the height of my travels by hitchhiking and it doesn't take longer than an hour. The streets are clean, locals are friendly and the town centre is quite nice with a pleasant market square, university, theatre and city hall all being prominent buildings. The most notable building of all though is the Palace of the Lubomirski family which proudly sits above a fortified wall overlooking the centre.

Rzeszow is a great place to base yourself, particularly with direct flights from London Stansted, it's no more than an hour or so away from the lakes and mountains of Bieszczady and could also be used as a start for a journey over to Ukraine. It's well connected to the rest of the country by train, although the route to Lublin that straddles the Ukrainian border, isn't one of the quickest routes!

Nightlife is not comparable to other bigger cities, most touring bands tend to skip it and clubbing isn't great there but saying that people from the Sub-Carpathians certainly still know how to throw a party. The technical university is famed for producing numerous decent engineers, particularly those in the aviation sector.

Although there's not too much in the way of cheap accomodation for a budget traveller, a reasonable option is the Hotel Maraton with private room starting at around 18 euros, it won't break the bank.

Summary: Cheap flights, visit the nearby mountains!