I have spent several weeks trying to figure out how to buy a ticket to polish trains with compulsory seat reservation. It turned out even intercity.pl cannot sell most of the connections online:
Seat61 does not have any better recommendation either. In the end I ended up adjusting my schedule to fit into one of the few polish trains without compulsory ticket reservation and was able to buy the whole trip from bahn.com website - this has the advantage of being able to get compensated for delays and/or missed connections.
Are you taking train to Krakow? Share your experience!
Thanks for bringing this up! I definitely want to encourage as much train travel as possible, especially if the other option is flying.
I was unable to book a trip using NS, the Dutch rail company. However, using Deutsche Bahn it was possible to get tickets. A bit of good news is that the tickets were pretty cheap.
It’s not a short trip from Amsterdam, so on the way there I am travelling on Saturday afternoon, then spending the night in Berlin, then going from Berlin to Krakow on the Sunday. There were trips without the stopover, but they involved changing trains in the middle of the night and arriving at like 08:00 or so. I need my beauty rest, especially right before a RIPE meeting!
On the way back I am able to get from Krakow to Amsterdam during the Saturday. Assuming it all goes well.
While rail travel is slow, difficult, and expensive in general these days, my hope is that it will get better over time.
To close the public transport loop - if you’re arriving in Krakow by train, you can get to the RIPE Meeting venue by tram. We’ve provided public transport info on the RIPE 88 website.
I still wonder though whether the stationary/onboard ticket vending machines accept cards and/or also which mobile app can be used to purchase tickets.
Is there by any chance anyone with such local knowledge?
The public transport vending machines at the airport accept cards, but you can also use the Jakdojade app to plan transport - I haven’t tried buying tickets on it, but it should be possible. There are more details on the RIPE 88 website page
I was able to book tickets from Munich to Krakow and back(DB Navigator). It will be an interesting journey.
Both directions more than 10h, but change times with 5 and 6 minutes.
Thank you, Ulka. Installed the Jakdojade app, paired with Google Pay and now it seems I am ready to go to buy a ticket. The activation process seems to be a bit complicated (you need to type in the vehicle number) but I guess it would be easier than it looks like.
24 hours before departure, I got notified that the first leg of my journey - the train from Amsterdam to Berlin - will not run. This of course collapsed the whole house of cards of all the reservations.
After waiting on DB customer line for more than 30 minutes (estimated waiting time was less then one minute, according to them), I was told that the train indeed does not run and I am free to choose any other connection - but if I want a reservation, I have to buy a new one and then claim the unused one back. But at least it was a useful call, the assistant was able to find a reservation for a train that was otherwise not reservable online, yet had a compulsory seat reservation.
Now let’s just hope that this was the worst thing and now it would only get better. Fingers crossed!
Bit of a late answer, but I took a train from Austria, booked through the ÖBB, and that part worked fine aside from the seat reservation (and associated fee) being mandatory.
Ended up having to run from tram to train station, but I somehow made it and enjoying my first RIPE meeting so far <3
