If you take Poland’s imaginary motorway to Berlin, you’ll discover that – contrary to the encouraging and optimistic road signs, you get thrown off at Nowy Tomysl, where the motorway comes to an abrupt end.
However, you can always capitalise on this opportunity to visit Swiebodzin, a town of incomporable time-warp charm. It’s best enjoyed with a night at the Hotel Luboski.
Budget conscious travellers can find a room here, without washbasin, from as little as 40 zloty. But I thought it well worth paying the extra for a luxe room. Here you get a cassette-player and a foggy television, with which you can watch old Phil Silvers and Shelly Winters films with Polish commentary. Ray Bradbury-style time travel comes free.
In the old days of course, Polish enemies of the revolution bought satellite dishes and tuned into Western TV, something that still characterises the Polish landscape. Wisely the Hotel Luboski is having none of it.
Don’t like Shelly Winters? You can step straight out of the Hotel Lubovski and stroll around downtown Swiebodzin’s busy department stores and popular eateries.
This is the real Poland and it’s where Poles go for a holiday. This coach has brought Polish tourists all the way from England.
About that motorway again. It is still unfinished, as is much of the signage for the on-ramps. When I got on before Poznan, there was nothing to tell me that it was a toll road or the nature of the charges. I had just 30 zloty, since I imagined I was going all the way to the German border.
As it happens, there’s a flat rate of 11 zloty between what they call ‘tolling plazas’. Needless to say, my 30 zloty didn’t go very far and I was just about to say ‘stop the motorway I want to get off’ when they did just that.
