holiday in Lublin

A few weeks ago, I found out that Poland celebrates Labor Day on May 1st, and Constitution Day on May 3rd.  And SGH gives students (and teachers!) the 2nd off as well.

Having a few unexpected days off, I decided to take a short trip to visit Lublin, Poland’s 9th largest city, located about three hours east of Warsaw.  It’s a city that has a goat on its crest – how could I not visit!?

Lublin – City of Goats!

I booked tickets on Polski Bus, and was pleased to find both seat belts and wifi on the bus.  Polski Bus is kind of like Megabus; I ended up paying 42 zł ($13.20) roundtrip.  I was happy with the service and would definitely travel with them again.

Polski Bus at the rest stop.. and yes, that is a large, fake spider on the roof of the building.

And I decided to move away from the traditional hotel experience and opted to stay instead at a guest house.  For 120 zł ($37.72), I got two nights’ accommodation at Guest House Wytchnienie.  They were a bit away from the city center, but the bus system was pretty easy to figure out, and I got a little extra walking in.  My single room at Wytchnienie was comfortable  and cosy, and the shared bath and kitchen were just outside my room.  I’d stay there again if in Lublin, but next time I’d know to bring my own towel and some ear plugs because the walls are quite thin.

Guest House Wytchnienie

I originally planned to visit both Lublin and Kazimierz Dolny on this trip, but with the state holidays, a number of things are closed both yesterday and tomorrow, and so I’m instead focusing only on Lublin this trip, and visiting the Skansen Open-Air Museum and Village, and the Majdanek Concentration Camp.