Katowice; Thursday, 23 May, 2013

With a very early flight I’d decided to stop overnight at the Ibis near Heathrow so that I didn’t have to get up quite so early. So at a little after 5:30, bleary eyed I stumbled from bed into the shower and 25 minutes later, only slightly more awake out of the hotel and down to the bus stop for the next bus into Heathrow.

After having to let two full buses go I eventually squeezed onto one of the last night buses of the morning and headed into the airport, packed between a couple of other bleary eyed travellers and the 6:30 shift at the airport.

Having checked in the previous day it was a quick bag drop, security and then breakfast, during which nearly an hour before it’s departure time, and with only a sip of coffee drunk, that my flight flashed up as boarding.

I wandered down to the gate and waited for 20 minutes before they actually started the process of boarding us onto the bus out to the plane.

An uneventful flight later we touched down in Warsaw where I collected my bag, wandered up to departures and checked it straight back in again through to Katowice. I had a couple of hours to kill at the airport so I had a wander down to the café furthest from my next flights gate for an early lunch so that I could kill some more time wandering back to the gate afterwards.

The flight was called and the 20 or so passengers collected at the gate. We were put onto a transfer bus, normally used to holding 80 or 90 people, and bussed out to the small propeller plane parked out of sight of the airport building.

A second uneventful flight of the day and we were down in Katowice. A very smooth journey through the airport meant that I was outside the terminal building with my bag less than 10 minutes after the plane had come to a stand, and more importantly, in time to catch the shuttle mini-bus into Katowice.

The bus dropped me off near the hotel. After checking in I wandered out into town to have a look around.

I had a bit of a wander, but it soon became clear that Katowice isn’t what you might describe as a pretty city, or with that much to see. After about an hour wandering I headed back to the hotel to grab dinner and then an early night to make up for the very early start.