Once, if you wanted a really good meal in Poland, you had to hope for an invitation to someone's house. Now, however, with the moves towards a market economy, the country's fast-growing number of restaurants - most of which specialized in ungarnished slabs of meat during the communist era - are looking up. In the cities at least, there's now a distinctly Western spread of places to eat and a cosmopolitan range of cuisines. What is undeniable still is that eating out is a bargain, with splendid meals available for under ?10/US$14 a head.

Drinking habits are changing, too. Poles for years drank mainly at home, while visitors stuck to the hotels, with such other bars as existed being alcoholic-frequented dives. In recent years, though, something of a cafe-bar culture has been emerging in the cities, and though the old drinking dens survive, you'll find plenty of choice for a relaxing, unthreatening night out.