Krakow Travel Forum

Hello, I need help to trace rail schedule/fare in Poland.
For instance, when I check info for Warzawa to Krakow, it is easy to locate the schedule. But in the price page, I don't know what the currency should be, ie for this journey, the price is 77 and with some % for price reduction. How should I interprete the information? Thanks.
http://www.intercity.com.pl/?page=connection_details&tsr_id=1204&tsc_id=1539&tscs_id_from=6017&tscs_id_to=6018#prices

basically, you will not get any reduction at all. Reductions are for Polish public school students, and for retired Pols. For every reduction you need some kind of Polish ID that sais on the back what is your reduction.
You may however save the price or improve your comfort if you choose between I and II class train ticket. We however always travel with I class if available (some local trains have only II class). First class is not very inexpensive for us even though $ is falling down.
The difference for you will be that II class is often crowded and on a busy "touristy" day you may not find a seat at all and will have to stand all the time. I class is almost always empty and is also more clean and allowes you to spread out more.
So my advice is: shut for the highest price on that schedule. Also there is no need to reserve seat when you are outside of the country. We usually buy tickets for longer journeus that 8 hours - about 2 days in advance (on the train station) and for the short journays (between 8 and 4 hours ..day trains) on evening before. If the train ride is on the local train and it is shorter than 4 hours, we just proceed to the station allowing ourselves an extra time to buy the tickets there.
During day hours (9am-3pm) on large stations you will probably be able to find somebody who speeks english if not then ask young passangers, most of them will speek english and will be eager to help you.
If you get stuck...no ticket and train is leaving in 10 min then hop on the train, find the train conductor (they wear uniform). He will give you a slip of paper and ask you to go and seat somewhere. Find where you want to seat (I or II class) and when he goes through the train and checks everybody's tickets he will come to you. Based on where you are sitting, and what is your destination station name, he will sell you the ticket (make sure you will get a ticket). He will charge you few zlotych more (surcharge for his work) but it is really not much. We do it often just to save ourselves time or if we came across long lines to the ticket counter.
But really, no need to prebook your tickets from overseas. As pols are saying "there is always a standing place on all the trains, heheh"
We never, ever had a problems with the tickets being sold out.

The currency is the Polish zloty. There are lots of on-line sites that do currency conversion calculations so you can get an idea of what to pay.

Thank you both.

I know the rate but it seems that the price 77 is a bit lower than what I heard. (??) And there are other price range (the % that I don't understand).

The % are not for you!!!! They are for Polish students, police officers, miners, soldiers, teachers (Basically Polish goverment employees)....etc. You have to have a "POLISH transportation ID" that states on the back what % discount a person have.
Tourists in Poland don't have any % discount.
You have to pay 100% !!!!!
...which in case of Krakow-Zakopane train on www.intercity.com was 111+10 zloty for I CLASS and 77 zlotych for II CLASS.
Now, keep in mind that this in an intercity train. If you take local train your trip will be little slower but much cheaper.
In 2005 we went from Krakow to Zakopane on local train, paying very little, on the way back however we took INTERCITY - I class as it was the last day of vacation and all the trains were extremally crowded.
We were alone in I class :-)
You can always change from II to I class while already on the train, just let the conductor know....just pay the diference.....in this case 44 zlotych.