Polish zlotys for sale

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frankv

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#319182 31-Mar-2025 12:02

Anyone going to Poland?

I have 130 Polish zlotys (about NZ$60 at current exchange rates) that I forgot to get changed when I left there. NZ banks won't change them :(.

For sale at whatever the exchange rate is, or $60, whichever is the lower.

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#3359067 31-Mar-2025 14:47

Try a foreign exchange shop -- there's normally one or two in most malls.

Most (if not all) our major banks aren't in the FX business anymore so it'd be the same answer whether it was AU/US/etc dollars or some little country on the other side of the planet.

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#3359136 31-Mar-2025 15:51

As above. However they usually will only take notes, not coins.

neb

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#3359492 1-Apr-2025 14:13

frankv:

I have 130 Polish zlotys (about NZ$60 at current exchange rates)

Random anecdote, the zloty used to be worth next to nothing, a friend of mine in the US would keep a stack of them to "tip" waiters who gave exceptionally bad service because the notes looked quite impressive while being nearly worthless.

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#3359494 1-Apr-2025 14:21

neb:

frankv:

I have 130 Polish zlotys (about NZ$60 at current exchange rates)

Random anecdote, the zloty used to be worth next to nothing, a friend of mine in the US would keep a stack of them to "tip" waiters who gave exceptionally bad service because the notes looked quite impressive while being nearly worthless.

That'll be old zloty. They trimmed off half a dozen zeroes in the late nineties. Was probably my only chance to be a billionaire!

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#3359496 1-Apr-2025 14:23

neb:

frankv:

I have 130 Polish zlotys (about NZ$60 at current exchange rates)

Random anecdote, the zloty used to be worth next to nothing, a friend of mine in the US would keep a stack of them to "tip" waiters who gave exceptionally bad service because the notes looked quite impressive while being nearly worthless.

Yup; we were travelling Europe around 1993, the Deutschmark was fairly close to the NZ$ if I recall; we changed 100 Marks at the Polish border, and got a $1,000,000 zloty note (and a handful of smaller change).

Then when my wife needed to "spend a penny" about 20 minutes up the road, they couldn't break the million, and none of the small change was big enough to pay the loo-toll. I think they just let her in for free....

eracode

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#3359554 1-Apr-2025 18:43

cshaun:

As above. However they usually will only take notes, not coins.

Although he didn’t say so, presumably @frankv is selling notes.

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#3359679 2-Apr-2025 08:16

I'd love this currency, @frankv. My fiancé and I are planning to visit Auschwitz in the next 2 years and having these notes on a pinboard would be a great visual cue to keep our saving and planning on track.

PM me when ready if it has not already gone.

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neb

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#3359728 2-Apr-2025 14:54

Question for @frankv, how easy is it to pay by CC in Poland? Wondering if I can get away with a few days there without cash, I'll just be paying for food at the supermarket and not much more and don't want to mess with exchanging zloty and koruna back and forth.

frankv

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#3359782 2-Apr-2025 15:13

CC use is easy in Poland (hence having some cash left over). Some market stalls are cash only.

Beware of getting cash out of ATMs and also EFTPOS payments... many of them have exorbitant fees and/or shitty exchange rates for converting to Zlotys. If they gave a choice I usually chose the "Throw yourself on the mercy of Mastercard" option in which case the machine only got an exorbitant fee.

This is common throughout Europe including UK. I got stuck with paying GBP3.25 in fees to get GBP20 that unfortunately I really needed.

frankv

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#3359794 2-Apr-2025 16:15

PMed Dynamic. He then asked for more info about Poland. I tried to reply by PM but GZ timed out. :(

So here it is again...

If you go the Facebook and look for "Dorothy van der Hulst" she kept a daily blog, with a few contributions from me. I did do a couple myself as well. We were in Poland late October, cold enough for jackets and hats, but no snow. There were touts and beggars and fraudulent charity collectors, but certainly no worse than Paris or London.

Summary: We went by train from Berlin-Posnan-Wroclaw-Katowice-Zakopane. From Katowice we hired a car (lhd obviously, manual!) to Auschwitz and the Wieliczka salt mine near Krakow. From Zakopane we caught a bus to Slovakia then by train to Bratislava.

Posnan & Wroclaw have great medieval squares and clocks and cathedrals. Posnan also has the Museum of Posnan Cryptography School (or something like that). If you have an interest in WW2 cryptography (e.g. Bletchley Park) then this is a great place to visit. A very thorough explanation of Enigma, and how Poland had broken it before WW2, gave it all to the French and British, and barely mentioned at Bletchley Park.

I'm told Krakow has the best historical city in Poland, but we didn't go there. Kindof wish we had.

Katowice is nothing much. We only went there because it was close to Auschwitz. It didn't exceed our expectations.

Most places we stayed 2-3 nights. We stayed almost a week at Zakopane. We chose it just because it was close to Slovakia. Zakopane is a lovely ski/hiking resort town in the Tatra mountains in the far south of Poland. It has a couple of cable cars which give great views. Also hot pools, and a million souvenir shops. There's some WW2 history there too, including the Holocaust. It was very crowded on a fine Saturday morning.

There's great food (bread, cheese, sausages, etc) variety in Poland. Use your phone to Google Translate the labels... some stuff is very not-obvious. Prices is are lower than in countries to the west. We found that studio apartments were as cheap as hotel rooms, often including a (tiny, Polish-language) washing machine, which was a bonus. Shops and restaurants close for Saint days. Wroclaw trams are free if you're over 65! Other places had generous discounts for OAPs. :)

Polish trains (unlike German trains) are a great way to get around. But think about having to lug your luggage into the wagon and down again, and limited baggage stowage space. Don't buy a Eurailpass... it's not economic. There's also mandatory seat booking fees on top. You do need to book ahead on the high speed trains... 300kph!

If driving, do not select "Avoid motorways". Polish villages (at least around Katowice) are only a couple of miles apart, and have narrow streets. Off-motorway can take 3 times as long as on-motorway. Google Maps is fine for navigating, but do download the map via airport or railway station Wifi.

People are nice, but not much English is spoken. Google Translate is useful. German is quite common.

Auschwitz is an emotional, appalling, disgusting, unforgettable place. It's big. It's hard to get into. (Ob Monty Python: "Tell them we're Jewish!"). You can and should book ahead online. If you don't, there's self-help booking terminals at the entrance. These lie and say there's no vacancies. Around the corner, out of sight, is a booking office with live people who will sell you tickets. You can only go on a guided tour of Auschwitz. This is a bustle-bustle thing, where either you are waiting for the group ahead of you or the group behind you is waiting for you, or both. There's also lots of stairs, and a bit of walking. You can then catch a free bus to Birkenau, which is a few km away. Birkenau is huge, but no stairs, and no guided tour, which I actually preferred.

Any other questions? Do ask. I've enjoyed reliving this adventure. I didn't enjoy typing it all again quite so much. (Got smart and copied it all to the clipboard, so posting it the THIRD time wasn't so bad)

neb

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#3359798 2-Apr-2025 16:23

Thanks for posting that, it's useful to me as well since I've rearranged my plans to spend a few days in southern Poland rather than trying to find places I haven't been to yet in Moravia.

For @Dynamic, if you've never used European rail before then definitely always pay the extra fee for assigned seating on longer routes, particularly on weekends. Made that mistake once on the Budapest -> Munich route on a Sunday and had to stand all the way to Vienna, packed in like sardines since they don't really stop selling tickets no matter how many are already sold.

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neb

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#3360004 3-Apr-2025 09:30

In case this is of use to anyone, for that area it looks like the best option is to use Wroclaw as a base, with easy train connections to Kracow, Poznan, and Walbrzych which seem to be the best places to visit in the vicinity. All but Kracow are around an hour from Wroclaw by train.

frankv

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#3360231 3-Apr-2025 15:40

On European trains... you pay a fare for the train ride, and then another, sometimes quite steep, "seat reservation fee". Often the seat reservation is mandatory, but even if it's not I agree with @neb that you do want to reserve a seat. The trains were mostly full, and we were there off-peak. Eurailpass does not cover the seat booking fee.

German trains are terrible, in our experience and also in the experience of locals we talked to. We had 4 out of 4 bad experiences with German trains... 4 hour journeys turned into 12 hours. Trains in other countries, including Poland, were great. Our trip from Munich to Paris is a classic example. We had 2 legs... Munich to Augsberg, where we would change to a train to Paris. About 4 hours on the trains, and a generous 2-3 hours at the changeover.

Our trip started off with an hour and a half sitting at the platform in Munich station, followed by an announcement (only in German) to get off and get on another train. Of course, on this 2nd train we had no reserved seats. This train was also delayed, so at Augsberg we missed our connection. As we were getting off, there was an announcement (that didn't affect us, but shows how bad things are) that this train, which was supposed to go all the way to Hamburg, would now be stopping at Cologne. Tough shit for the people who had bought tickets to Hamburg and wanted to get home that night, I guess.

Anyway, we got off and tried to reserve seats on the next train to Paris. We were assured by the railways people at the station that we could do that on the train, which seemed bloody odd to me. Anyway, we got on the train, of course every seat was already reserved, and we, along with lots of others, got to sit in the aisles or doorways all the way to Paris, where we arrived in the evening, having spent the whole day on what should have been a 4 hour trip.

In theory, If your train is delayed by more than 2 hours, you can get 100% refund for your tickets and seat reservations, but that only applies if you buy your tickets from DeutchesBundesbahn, not through another country's railway. And of course with Eurailpass you don't actually buy your tickets. The process for applying for a refund seems to be deliberately completely opaque.... afaict after trawling around their website, I would need to postal mail my original tickets to their head office.

neb

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#3360232 3-Apr-2025 15:47

Ouch! My main experience is with Austrian trains where the basic fares are eyewatering and then the seat allocation charge is a few Euros. I've never had problems with trains running late or delayed. Mind you the few times I've caught trains out of Munich they were bang on time as well.

Trains in Slovakia OTOH...

Bansky Studenec station in Slovakia, taken from the train. It reminded me of an episode from Durell's "The Best of Antrobus: Tales of Diplomatic Misadventure".

KiwiSurfer

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#3360321 3-Apr-2025 20:46

frankv:

In theory, If your train is delayed by more than 2 hours, you can get 100% refund for your tickets and seat reservations, but that only applies if you buy your tickets from DeutchesBundesbahn, not through another country's railway. And of course with Eurailpass you don't actually buy your tickets. The process for applying for a refund seems to be deliberately completely opaque.... afaict after trawling around their website, I would need to postal mail my original tickets to their head office.

For what its worth I was on a delayed DB train some years ago and they handed out compensation forms. I noticed the form did allow you to fill in an international account number (IBAN I think). Back in NZ I enquired with Kiwibank how to enter my IBAN and followed their instructions. Sent the form off to DB in Germany fully expecting them to take no notice of it. Lo and behold a few weeks later I got the refund in my bank account! I recall that all of a sudden I got some foreign money into my account and couldn't work out why. Took me a couple of days before I thought to check the amount against my DB ticket and yup it was a match! A nice surprise.

I can't recall where I bought my tickets from but I think DB only needed proof of the ticket number or something along those lines -- the form I was given was also stamped by the onboard staff as additional verification. Perhaps the process has been tightened up since.

DB service is quite disappointing though. I took two long distance trains in Germany -- both delayed by no less than 90mins. Not even trains here in NZ are that bad. And yet almost anywhere else I went in Western Europe the service was generally very good. Only Eastern European services was worse than DB but given the dilapidated state of their infrastructure that wasn't too surprising.

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