IF it's 10am, then this must be Warsaw. It isn't every day you get the chance to visit one of Europe's ancient capitals, and my curiosity was naturally fired by the prospect - made even more enticing was the thought of doing it all in one day.

Poland's LOT airline was offering the opportunity to travel out from Manchester Airport early one morning - and it would still be morning when the flight landed, in a city that used to be behind the Iron Curtain.

And after the best part of a working day spent in eastern Europe there was a return flight to Manchester that same evening.

The "working day" side of it was quite deliberate, for the idea of the flight package is to appeal to business travellers as well as tourists.

The business message from both the locals and British ex-pats is that Poland remains a land of still untapped opportunity for Yorkshire-based companies, more than a decade on from the end of Communist rule.

But no one is expecting many holidaymakers to make the trip across Europe just for a spot of shopping and lunch in Warsaw - the idea is that the times to and from Manchester will help northern tourists make the most of, say, a three-day break.

My impressions of Warsaw were, unsurprisingly, somewhat fleeting given the time scale. Much of the city appeared typically European, though some of the officials at the airport were straight from Checkpoint Charlie, while the actual security men resembled street beggars with mini sub-machine guns.

But you can't get away from Warsaw's relatively recent past. During the Second World War it was invaded, brutally occupied, then laid waste, leaving a curious legacy - or lack of one - in its centre.

A vast proportion of Warsaw was razed to the ground by the Nazis, then rebuilt in the Communist period.

But much of the Communist cityscape has itself vanished, replaced in an on-going frenzy of redevelopment which has seen the centre populated with new office buildings, hotels, American fast food joints and even a Marks & Spencer store.

Sitting in the middle, like a vast sore thumb yet strangely fascinating, is the massive Stalinist Palace of Culture and Science, which no one seems to quite know what to do with.

But one piece of post-war building in Warsaw remains intact - the loving and exact reproduction of the city's historic centre, using old architects' plans to recreate what the Nazis destroyed.

Once in the spacious squares of the old town, which in good weather are populated by horse-drawn vehicles and outdoor cafes, one could easily imagine that nothing had changed there in more than 200 years. That's partly because the reconstruction is a more exact replica of the historic city than that which existed before the war's ravages.

But locals are keen to point out that Warsaw, whether the old town or the bustling modern centre, is not Poland. They say visitors should be sure to check out the country's old capital Krakow, Gdansk on the Black Sea coast, the great forests and the Masurian Lakes, and the rural areas where ploughs are still drawn by horses.

The business message from the banks of the Vistula is that while the first burst of economic activity after the thaw in the Cold War may have come to an end, a second period of expansion is now taking place.

Martyn O'Reilly, of the British-Polish Chamber of Commerce, said: "The opportunities here as a developing market are absolutely enormous. The potential for foreign investors has been tremendous, and will be very good in the future."

He stressed he was particularly thinking of small to medium-sized businesses.

Stephen Ford, also from the chamber of commerce, praised the new flight times for business purposes, saying his firm was able to send people over from their Bradford head office and get them home the same day, having fulfilled a useful function in-between.

He added: "As far as the tourist side is concerned, amongst the ex-pat community we don't tell too many people about Poland because too many will want to come - believe me, it's that kind of country."

Bosses at LOT are planning to make Warsaw Airport a "hub" between the west and central and eastern Europe, and are confident their Manchester flights will appeal to all travellers from northern England. For those based east of the Pennines there is still the journey to the south of Manchester to consider, though it has been eased greatly by the opening of the M60.

Fact file

LOT's flight to Warsaw leaves Manchester at 6.40am most days and arrives back there between 9pm and 9.30pm. Tickets for business class cost £857 return, while economy class ones, issued one day before departure, cost £154. For more information call LOT on 0845 601 0949 (English language).

Updated: 12:16 Saturday, April 27, 2002