Rising East Online

Flying Fugit

Tessa Mayes

Two years ago I met a Polish MSc. student who took my heart back with him to Poland. Ever since I've been taking 'cheap flights' towards Wroclaw, a university town near the west Polish-German border.

Time was when 'cheap flights' meant under £50 return. Now it can cost over £100. We see each other less but for longer.

Another development has been the eradication of strict border controls since Poland joined the EU over a year ago. Previously, car drivers could expect queues of several hours at border towns; lorries were parked up for days. Now lorries and cars are across in a few minutes - unless you’re pulled over for a search, which happens a lot if you have Ukrainian plates or if you are a Polish driver coming back to the mother country with a second hand car bought in Germany (to encourage local car production there is a big tax on imports).

A year ago I'd be sharing a flight from London to Poznan on a Polish airline called Lot with English businessmen and Polish students (there were no direct flights to Wroclaw back then). These days there are Ryan Air flights direct to Wroclaw, and I'm more likely to be accompanied by English guys on their stag weekend or sports dos (earlier this year, I shared a plane with 20 men on a rugby tour dressed as Elvis). Wroclaw, with all its re-built, old-world cobbled town squares, is fast becoming a town of drunken fun. Not that its large student population seems to mind.

At the same time as the in-flight food choice has narrowed, so the range of night life in Wroclaw has expanded: there's a bar in the market square decorated in Communist memorabilia (it’s never full – I wonder why?), another near the synagogue crammed with rickety, old wooden tables laden with candles – and no distracting music, just conversation. Clubs range from an Arabian nights theme in a cellar, with everyone encouraged to sit on inadequately filled cushions and/or a dirty carpet, to an invite-only night in a suite of vast, nineteenth century rooms, painted in mushroom browns and draped in 12 feet long, red velvet curtains.

Afterwards there is Wroclaw's myriad of rivers and bridges, which make for romantic walks at all hours.

Then it’s back to London. On my return (usually a Tuesday) I'm travelling with mainly Polish students or young workers who live in London (the British beer boys fly out on the Sunday). On my last flight, I asked one if he liked life in London? 'Yes,' he said, 'Unlike some EU countries, at least you allow us to work.'

Postscript: Unable to compete with the likes of Ryan Air, Lot airlines have had their lot and gone bust. I was on the last Lot flight ever to leave London for Poland, arriving back at the airport to find my return flight had been permanently cancelled.

Tessa Mayes is a journalist and author living in Berlin and London. (info@tessamayes.co.uk)

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