Our Italian Adventure

In the fall of 2023, Amy & I talk about returning to Europe for another month-long adventure. Our normal course of action is to let me decide where to go based on input by Amy. Once the general location or countries have been decided, I do the planning.

After doing some research, we decided on Poland. My grandfather, Leo Kujava. was of Polish heritage. Just days before WW1 broke out in Europe, young Leo came over to America with his family. Not only would I return to Kujava family roots, but Poland was starting to get glowing reviews from world travelers. Plus, unlike the well-known and popular tourist destinations of Italy, Spain, & France, Poland was not over-saturated with tourists. I started with selecting cities and locations based on my previous knowledge, but chose most locations by reading travel guides and watching YouTube videos. After a few weeks, the locations were picked and I figured out the most logical sequence based on where the locations were at. From my calculations, the trip would proabably be around 30 days in lenth.

Krakow, Gdansk, Wroclaw and the stunning Tatra mountain region were among the sites chosen. I was already getting excited for the trip which wouldn’t commence until May of 2025. The next step was the transportation plans. How would the Miseners travel to Poland, and what mode of transportation would we choose in Poland. Many European countries have elaborate and dependable train service while others are best seen with a car. In 2019, the Miseners traveled to France, Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Croatia. We traveled exclusively by train until after our visit to Budapest. We then hired a private driver to transport us to the Zagreb airport in Croatia. At the airport, we had reserved a rental car and drove first to the Plitvice Lakes National Park, and eventually to Split. The cost of renting a car in Budapest and leaving it in Split was about five times more expensive than the cost of the private driver. The train infrastructure in Croatia was almost non-existent in 2019. Prior to that trip, we had traveled to Spain and Germany to visit with our adult children who were teaching English in Spain and studying abroad in Germany respectively. During both of those trips, I drove to our destinations. To say the least, driving into historic city centers was stressful and littered with mishaps. The last European vacation for the Miseners occurred in 2022, when we visited central & northern Germany, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. All of those travels was accomplished by airplane, trains, and boats. I truly enjoyed that type of reduced stress of travel over having to drive in foreign countries.

First, I looked at flying into Krakow which made the most sense from the planned itinerary. Flying back home from either Warsaw or Krakow also became the expected plan. This resulted in the first complication. The only non-stop flight from Chicago to Krakow or Warsaw was with LOT, which is the Polish National airline. We are loyal American Airlines members because they are the airline we have all of our accumulated miles with. The best option with American Airlines was to fly into Vienna and then fly Lufthansa or LOT into Poland. Or we could start our vacation in Vienna and take the train into Warsaw afterwards. Those train connections weren’t great. As I started to research LOT airlines, it became apparent this airline wasn’t dependable or liked by a majority of reviewers. In fact, it seemed like the worst airline ever if the reviewers were truthful in their reviews. The more time I spent trying to figure out an overall scheme for our transportation needs, the more frustrated I became. There had to be a solution. There was, but it wasn’t what I expected!