Accommodation

We do not prebook hotels, we recommend to use your favourite booking app/site. Many hotels are located at the centre of the city, within 20-30 minutes walk, there are also some much closer to the conference venue.

Per-night price (with breakfast) should be in the range from 40 EUR to 120 EUR.

Eating

Lunches are not provided at the conference. There are several dining options close to the conference venue. Some suggestions will be provided before the conference.

Practicalities

Currency

Polish currency is called złoty, abbreviated PLN. 1 PLN is approximately 0.23 EUR or 0.26 USD. There are multiple currency exchanges offices near the Market Square and at the airport; you can (and probably should) haggle.

ATMs are widely available, some of them, including the ones at the airport, might charge you a small additional fee that is clearly shown in the very beginning.

Credit cards (Visa and Mastercard) are widely accepted, even in small shops. There is no need to carry cash (except for maybe tipping in restaurants).

Electricity

230 V, 50 Hz with Europlug or French (Type E), virtually all sockets are also Schuko compatible.

Tap water

Tap water is in general safe to drink.

Tipping

There are no strict rules concerning tipping, but 10% is considered appropriate in a restaurant. There is no need to tip in a café/bar.

Safety

The streets of Wrocław are very safe. You should, however, exercise standard caution, as you would do in any large city especially around the very crowded area near the Market Square. In the case of an emergency, dial the all-purpose emergency number 112.

Language

Most young–to–middle aged people speak English in some extent. Every larger or centrally located restaurant or shop should have someone speaking decent English. Restaurants in the city centre should also have someone with reasonable German.

Getting around

If you are staying in the city center then everything is within a walking distance. 

Public transport

Public transportation is reasonably well developed. Trams are the easiest to use, buses are more common, but using them might be a bit more difficult, especially outside city centre (the stops might be in strange places, you might need to actually hail the bus/stop, …).

You can buy the ticket on board using an electronic debit/credit card (only!), you can use cards stored on your phone etc.; in such case you do not get an actual ticket, it is stored in a central database. Such a ticket is validated automatically (you cannot decide to validate it later). During a ticket inspection, you must bring your card close to the inspector’s device. You can get a receipt for the ticket, but this does not qualify as a ticket for ticket inspection purposes.

You can also buy a traditional paper ticket at a vending machine or at some kiosks, you need to validate it after boarding the tram/bus. 

A single-trip ticket is 4,60 PLN. Public transport is free for seniors (after 65 years of age).
There is also an elaborate system of time-tickets. Time tickets allow you to switch trams/buses as long as the ticket remains valid. The time ticket vary from 15-minutes ticket (3,20 PLN) and ending with weekly tickets (38 PLN); please consult the official site if you are interested.
Note that while this can be a bit cheaper, exceeding the time even by a minute can result in a fine, even if this is not your fault.
Time tickets for 24h or more are also valid for local trains within city limits; this applies to seniors, i.e. local trains are free within city limits for people of age 65 or more (the system is elaborate…). 

A popular way to search for connections is by using the Jak dojade site, which also has an app. Google maps seem to also work correctly.

City bikes

Wroclaw has a large and well organized system of city bikes, called Wrocławski Rower Miejski, or WRM for short; it is operated by Nextbike. In city centre this is much faster than public transport and comparable to cars. First 20 minutes are free. To use it, you should in theory register in the WRM system (with initial payment of 10 PLN) and use its WRM app, but it seems that any Nextbike-operated account with generic Nextbike app work as well. Cycling is in general safe, but drivers are a bit more aggressive than in, say, Germany; we suggest avoiding major roads with dense traffic.

Taxis

We recommend booking your taxi online (through your favorite app) or through your hotel, in order to avoid any misunderstandings. In most cases you can pay by card in taxi, but do mention this when booking the taxi.
Apart from usual international taxi brokers, there are also some mid-level taxi companies, say ryba taxi.

Contact

fct2025@cs.uni.wroc.pl