€50 apartments a boon for travellers

Fancy apartment accommodation for €50 a night right beside Poznan stadium where Ireland are playing two of their European Championship games?

Irishman Mark James Howley, who has been living in Poland for nine years, still has a few rooms there, even for Ireland’s first game against Croatia on Sunday.

He can also find rooms in Poznan town centre, 20 minutes tram ride away from the stadium, for between €60 and €70 a night.

He said hostels, which are charging €100 a night in 10-bed dormitories are now full and €300-a-night hotel rooms are also no longer available.

Mark, 30, from Strandhill, Co Sligo, a newspaper marketing executive in Poland, has already found apartment accommodation in Poznan for 300 fans who booked through an accommodation business he started with a partner earlier this year.

He was able to fit his early bookings into city-centre apartments for as low as €30 a night, but as the championships approached prices rose.

“Apartment owners who have contacted me are now asking for higher prices, but their rooms are still a bargain compared with what fans have to pay in hostels or hotels if they can get in.

“There are a number of early fans who have already arrived.”

Mark, who lives in Wroclaw, near Poznan, added that he has organised a €50 one-way bus trip for fans who want to travel from Poznan to Gdansk for the game on Thursday week against Spain. Included in the fare for the four-hour journey will be two bottles of beer for each passenger.

He has also lined up buses to Poznan for large crowds of Irish fans flying into Berlin. The Berlin-Poznan fare will be €75.

And he has organised separate beer and vodka tours of Poznan, taking in five pubs for €20 with a free beer or free vodka in each pub included in the fee.

* Fans who still wish to contact him can find him on Facebook as Mark James Howley or email [e-mail]