Gdansk -> London
Highlight
- We had a later start than most days, but the same old breakfast.
- It was snowing very heavily, the road was very slippery but extremely pretty.
- No line on the plane, and even managed to buy some Chopin vodka for 79 PLN.
Food
- La Petite Hotel breakfast:
- cherry yoghurt
- muesli with pineapple
- boiled egg and mango
- cheese
- ham
- bread and breadstick
- sausage
- rye bread with cottage cheese, tomato, cucumber and olives
- apple juice
Gdansk -> Sopot -> Gdynia -> Gdansk
Highlight
- Stuck in another traffic jam on the way.
- We couldn’t get to the concentration camp at Strutthof, as we had to cross a river by ferry, which was nowhere to be seen. It was supposed to be running but obviously it was not, so we wasted all that time, and had to drive back to Gdansk, where we were stuck in another traffic jam.
- The New Synagogue was very ugly.
- Oliwa Park and the cathedral were the nicest in Gdasnk, with pretty autumn leaves and landscaping.
- Sopot was much more resort like and residential. There was quite a bit of English around the place and was touristy, but nothing compared to the big cities.
- We started at the beach, which was very nice but cold. That would be my first trip to the beach in a down jacket!
- Walked along the very long pier, great view, saw the lighthouse.
- The Hippodrome was very boring, just a patch of grass with nothingt o see…I was hoping there would be some sort of marking or something.
- Walked along another touristy street from the pier. There were a lot of construction going on, a huge Sofotel complex was due to open soon…so even more tourists to come I suspect.
- Passed the statue of Parasolnik – very weird as Parasolnik is a clown!
- Past the famous crooked house, which was just that…a crooked house.
- Lunch at Bar Elita. It was a very quiet and cheap place, with another charming waiter. Things were a little salty, but nice!
- Couldn’t find: Garrison Church of St Jerzy, Sopot Castle, St Andrew Babola Church, but I’m sure we can live without seeing them.
- Gdynia – we walked up another hill, Kamienna Gora, which had another cross on top. The Polish sure are religious.
- This time we had a view of the town and the ocean. There was an excellent park attached to the hill too.
- Down to the beach and the naval museum, but we didn’t go in. They had the only ship, Dar Pomorza, that was built before WWII that survived.
- Church of the Scared Hear of Jesus – grey and ugly on the outside, but surprisingly different and pleasant on the outside.
- Couldn’t find:
- Church of St Michael the Archangel - after driving for 40 minutes because we were stuck in a traffic jam)
- Domek Abrahana – small museum in nondescript looking house
- Saw a huge traffic jam on the highway back so took the scenic route. It was dark and long, and very scary, but at least there was no traffic jam.
- We then couldn’t find the perogi restaurant (I guess there’s a theme here), we went to Matarnia to go shopping instead. Went to a hardware store, Obi, to get duskpan and bath mat, but couldn’t find a soap dispenser or command hooks.
- Ikea was very small and very disappointing. They didn’t have the bathroom stuff I wanted. The complement drawers didn’t have black and they had no square frames.
- Toured another supermarket with very cheap Lindt chocolate (2.8 PLN) but it was sold out, so we didn’t buy anything.
- Nothing else of interest, so we went to the hunting lodge restaurant.
- It started snowing heavily so everything was covered in white.
- They mis-interpreted our order but was nice and gave us one for free anyway. They didn’t accept credit card though so we had to go to an ATM to get money out. We gave them a large tip anyway.
- Slokky managed to make me mad by being absorbed with the internet.
Food
- La Petite Hotel breakfast:
- cherry yoghurt
- muesli with pineapple
- boiled egg and mango
- cheese
- ham
- bread and breadstick
- sausage
- rye bread with cottage cheese, tomato, cucumber and olives
- apple juice
- Bar Elita lunch:
- flaski (tripe soup) (5.4 PLN)
- placeki (potato pancake with gouliash sauce) (7 PLN)
- golanka (pork knuckle (24 PLN)
- Mysliwski dinner:
- bigos mysliwski (hunters bigos) (8 PLN)
- rosol muysliwski frykase (chicken broth with noodles) (6 PLN)
- picen z dzika (wild boar neck) (20 PLN)
- apple
Gdansk
Highlight
- There was a small selection at breakfast, which was good so I didn’t get too full.
- It snowed in the morning, though only lightly, so the landscape was speckled in white
- We got a tram to Central station, and discovered all the bread shops located underneath, and the roaring trade they were doing.
- Started our city tour of one of many many brick churches, which everyone was going to for mass.
- Went to the “Road to Freedom” exhibition, which was an excellent display of Poland break from communism, which all started in Gdansk of course. The exhibit was made all the more poignant when you realised that it wasn’t that long ago.
- Met a very nice Polish guy when we were walking on the street, who talked to us about his life in Gdansk and helped us to find our way. He worked for some company with dealings with America so his English was quite good, and he displayed his pride in his town.
- We certainly attracted a bit of attention as we were the ONLY Chinese in town.
- Docks area to see the memorial to the fallen protesters and “the gates” where the dock workers separated themselves from the rest of the authorities.
- Down Long Lane, the old town, which had been completely rebuilt, and was very much like Munich.
- Lots of amber and jewellery stores, who display their wares on little tables out on the street.
- By chance, met an Aussie from Brisbane. They were part of an expat community who were out and about preaching Jesus to us and even gave us a copy of Awake!
- Lunch was a great find. It was a little pub situated below ground. It was full of people and the food was cheap and tasty. I just didn’t get the pictures of male naked bums that was hanging everywhere?
- Walked around the Marina, saw some unrepaired ruins of WWII, which were really the only remnants you can see from the war.
- Viewed “the crane”, but didn’t pay to go in, and the boats.
- Got tickets to go to a concert (Chopin of course!) at the concert hall.
- Climbed up the hill to a cemetery (with a cross of course) with great views over the city, which we actually managed to cover most of in one day.
- People eat very early here. We were there at 5pm and some people were already finished. The venue today was a perogi specialist, and I have to say, their perogi was very very good indeed. I was really tempted to try the perogi dessert but I was too full.
- The concert was in a small hall, but it was classy, and lots of kids go too. The pianist was excellent for a small hall in Gdansk. He even gave us two encores. He played a mixture of Schubert and Chopin.
Food
- La Petite Hotel breakfast:
- raspberry yoghurt
- muesli with pineapple
- boiled egg and mango
- cheese
- ham
- bread and breadstick
- sausage
- curried egg
- apple juice
- paragon fiskanlny (fried donut with apple filling and icing sugar) (1.80 PLN)
- <>lunch:
- zurek (sour soup) (4.5 PLN)
- bigos (stew) (10 PLN)
- forest fruist chocolate (.9 PLN)
- <>dinner:
- mushroom soup in rye bread (12 PLN)
- pierogi with cabbage and mushroom (17 PLN)
- pierogi with game (22 PLN)
London -> Gdansk -> Malbork -> Gdansk
Highlight
- Managed another very smooth run to the airport, again timed exactly right.
- Lots of people again, but we moved quickly.
- Gdansk doesn’t have a lot of signs and definitely no English, so it was a bit of a struggle. A small percentage of people seem to speak English, so it was not TOO bad.
- We finally found our car, amid the snow, a little red Renault.
- Managed to check in early. The hotel was basic, but comfy and quite cute.
- Drove to the shopping mall to get some supplies. Their huge Carrefour certainly doesn’t pale compared to others.
- Ate our goodies in the car, on the way to Malbork Castle – but got stuck in a traffic jam, and of course Slokky stalled the car, but he didn’t actually get lost!
- The weather got colder and darker, with light rain as we drove along.
- Malbork Castle is the biggest brick castle in the world, with a river and moat around, as expected. However, it was pulverized after the war and almost completely rebuilt.
- The castle was very cool and scary, with many dark passages. And since it was dead season, there weren’t many people visiting, so at times we had the whole place to ourselves and the guards. You can definitely get lost.
- The reason for our rush was that everything closed at 3pm, so we drove to Fashion House, another one of those fashion outlets, complete with a fake lighthouse, because we needed to stock up on winter clothing!!
- Well, there was no designer brands here, just high street, but we were surprised by how steep the prices still were, after hearing that everything is cheap in Poland. Well, don’t believe it, and the people are very stylish as well!
- We spent ages looking for a winter coat, but luckily the place is quite small and the assistants are very helpful. We ended our trip with gore-tex gloves and a down jacket.
- We chose a small, hard to find restaurant with Polish only menu, with a great waiter, of which only one spoke English and great food. We also almost had the restaurant to ourselves too!
- Back to hotel for that very fast free wi-fi, since we still didn’t have Internet at home (thanks BT!), then sleep.
Food
- Muller rice yoghurt apple, vanilla custard and strawberry
- orange juice (5.79 PLN)
- Cebularz (onion bread) (2.10 PLN)
- chleb bread (195 PLN)
- Leczo (sausage stew) (13 PLN /kg)
- toffee chocolate bar (3.65 PLN for 4)
- dinner at Restauracy jka U Babuni:
- red wine (8 PLN)
- barszec ezlpiero (beetroot soup with dumplings) (8 PLN)
- Piecrony schab po (pork with apricot sauce) (29 PLN)
- Pierogi ruskie (18 PLN)
