It has been over two years since the last visit to Poland and it is nice to be back. My own view is that, as a country, the people are friendly, there are generally plenty of great places to eat offering good quality food at good value prices plus, if you want it, in the bigger cities there are all the shopping opportunities you need as well. You may not be able to escape the sometimes crumbling ex-communist housing blocks but I think this adds to rather than takes from the atmosphere, especially when combined with some of the beautifully restored or completely rebuilt historic buildings.

Szczecin (pronounced more like Stetsin) was chosen as a place to fly into because it was cheap and we had never been. The flight over seemed to be full of Polish people returning home rather than being full of tourists wanting to visit Szczecin. Combining this flight with our return journey from Gdansk we have paid just £75.00 return for both of us. A real bargain!

There is not a huge amount to see in Szczecin, but certainly enough to keep busy for a day of city wandering when interspersed with a few coffee, beer or food stops. With two full days you could take your time and also add in a few museum visits if you wish or take a trip to the nearby coast. Compared to many Polish cities the restored 'old town' area is very small consisting of maybe four or five streets and two sides of a square. There are however many other impressive buildings around the city that are worth seeing and the city has devised a number of walking routes that you can follow highlighting the best bits.

Having initially arrived later than planned into our city centre hotel (Ibis Centrum for £27.00 a night) on the Friday evening due to a late flight, we headed for a nearby Indian restaurant offering a discount because we had flown with Wizzair. The food was plentiful, tasty and the bill came to less than £20.00 and, had we known, just one portion of poppadoms would have sufficed as we ended with with twelve to share between us!

Our walk around the city took in a couple of the old city gates, the very modern GK shopping centre, the Pomeranian Dukes Castle (now a theatre and museum), the small restored old town and the impressive St James Basilica/Cathedral to name but a few places. We managed to visit Starbucks and McDonald's for breakfast but had a far more Polish lunch and dinner in one of the typically rustic restaurants in the old town - we almost went elsewhere for dinner but liked our lunch stop so much we returned in the evening for a great meal of pierogi (stuffed Polish dumplings) for me and pork tenderloin for Heather followed by an ice cream and hot cherry dessert. This was washed down with their Chilean house wine and a couple of cocktails and we had change out of £30.00.

So after one full day we got a fairly good feel for the city which, were we here in summer, would be much brightened up with outdoor dining and plenty of flowers that were just starting to peak through as it is only the start of spring.