This spring, when we
visited my father's birthplace, Szczuczyn, we chose Bialystok as a "home base"
for two reasons: it is a relatively large and convenient train hub, and it was a
major Jewish center before World War II. There are many trains to Bialystok from
Warsaw and from other Polish cities; from Bialystok, several trains run daily
north to Grajewo, which is only about nine miles from Szczuczyn. (Automobile and
bus are the only practical means of transportation between Grajewo and
Szczuczyn.) My father had spoken of Bialystok, and we had read Tomasz
Wisniewski's "Jewish Bialystok and Surroundings in
Eastern Poland," which describes the city and the remnants of its Jewish
heritage.
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Map: Bialystok to Szczuczyn |
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In Bialystok, we
stayed at the Hotel Cristal, which is about a mile from the train station. We
reserved in advance via the Internet, and it seemed incongruous that the hotel
is now part of the Best Western chain. Hotel Cristal is excellent, its staff is
competent and friendly, and its restaurant is exceptional, probably the best in
Bialystok.
Since there is no
train to Szczuczyn, we knew we would have to improvise, either from Grajewo or
even from Bialystok. So after checking into the hotel, we began planning our
next-day trip to Szczuczyn. Our first choice was to rent a car since the roads
to Grajewo and then to Szczuczyn are quite nice and easy to navigate. However,
the first rental car agency that the hotel contacted required a "local contact"
in Bialystok to "vouch" for us. Somehow I doubt if many foreign visitors who
stay in hotels meet this criterion. The second rental agency had a different
requirement: in addition to the $30 daily rental, a $200 deposit in cash was
necessary. We concluded that the actual cost would therefore be at least $230,
and gave up. (There are no Hertz, Avis, or other large chain car rental agencies
is Bialystok, despite the city's quarter million population.)
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Olga Lichten at
the Train Station
on the way to Szczuczyn |
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Our next choice was
a bus from Bialystok directly to Szczuczyn. The Bialystok bus station adjoins
the railroad tracks on the south; several schedules were posted, but they were
inconsistent. We finally determined that buses to Szczuczyn run only in the
afternoon, which would not allow sufficient time to see the town and, most
importantly, may have been too late for a return bus. Neither the information
nor ticket agents knew if buses ran to Szczuczyn from Grajewo, which we could
easily reach by train.
So we went back
across the tracks to the train station, which is currently being rebuilt,
leaving only a small office open just north of the tracks. We had previously
accessed and printed Bialystok-Grajewo train schedules via the Internet and had
determined that there were convenient morning trains to Grajewo, and afternoon
and evening return trains to Bialystok. Neither the information nor ticket
agents spoke English (or German or French or Russian, which exhausted our
repertoire of languages); furthermore, as we learned later, despite Visa and
MasterCard logos, no credit cards are accepted. We bought round-trip tickets to
Grajewo, with a same-day return.
After about an
hour's trip, we arrived at the Grajewo "train station," which appeared to be
boarded up. We had assumed that the bus station would be near the train station,
but it was nowhere in sight. After walking into the main part of Grajewo, we
circled around and eventually found the bus station about ¼ mile south of the
train station, just east of the tracks. We bought one-way tickets to Szczuczyn
on the next bus from the ticket agent who spoke none of the languages we knew;
however, we had prepared notes in our best-try-at Polish (e.g., "When is the
next bus to Szczuczyn"), which made it reasonably easy. In about half an hour,
a bus arrived, we gave the driver the ticket and handed him another note
("Please let us off in central Szczuczyn"), and, after about half-an-hour drive,
we arrived in Szczuczyn. Jose's maps and pictures on Internet then guided us
very well through the town.
We went back to the
Szczuczyn bus station, took the next bus that had a "Grajewo" sign, this time
buying tickets from the driver, and went back to Grajewo. We walked down the
tracks back to the train station, where we could find no schedule or ticket
office. But within five minutes a southbound train stopped, we boarded, and we
arrived an hour later back in Bialystok.
So our visits to
Szczuczyn and Bialystok went quite smoothly, despite the many unknowns and
choices to be made. We found it extremely useful to have had train schedules in
advance; the Deutsche Bahn maintains schedules for all of Europe, and its
English search can be accessed at
http://reiseauskunft.bahn.de/bin/query.exe/en . We found further helpful information
for using these schedules at
http://www.ricksteves.com/rail/trainschedules.htm#tips. Also,
we chose to buy tickets for some Polish trains while still in Germany, from
Deutsche Bahn offices, likely avoiding some language and credit card
difficulties.
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