Blogs from Gdansk, Pomerania, Poland, Europe - page 8

It’s always a bit of a shock when the alarm goes off at 6.00 when one is on holiday. Having said that, I bounded out of bed this morning and threw open the curtains of my room. For the first time ever, I was behind the Iron Curtain and I wanted to see what it looked like. So far, it looked like every other port I have ever been to - with one significant difference. The docks were lined with people who had come out at that ungodly hour of the morning to see the ship. Not only were we coming in, but a German boat called the Aida was coming in as well. I would say that those people got their zlotys worth this morning. What is a zloty, I hear you asking? It is ... read more

Gdansk will be among the venues when Poland and Ukraine host football’s 2012 European Championship. A charming city it may be, but there is much work to do before it is ready for an influx of foreign visitors on such a huge scale. The first thing you notice on arrival in Gdansk, which along with its smaller neighbours Gdynia and Sopot makes up the Tri-City area on Poland’s Baltic coast, is the lack of infrastructure. There is no rail service to take passengers from the small airport to the city centre and the only road is a single lane, potholed strip which twice a day fails to cope with the rush hour traffic. I visited with three friends, including two brothers whose grandparents fled to England when the Poles re-took what was then the German city ... read more

Dus. Het weekend. Vrijdag, zaterdag en zondag ben ik samen met Jule met een bus vol erasmussers naar Gdańsk gegaan, een havenstad aan de Baltische zee in het Noorden van Polen. Eindelijk heb ik voor het eerst Frans volk ontmoet, die komen niet voor aan mijn universiteit. En dan was er een Nederlander, Osama, van Marokkaanse origine maar oh zo heerlijk op en top Hollands, hoe hij Jus d'Orange bij zijn Wodka deed en van dat. De hoofdmoot bestond uit Italianen, precies zo luidruchtig en macho als het hoort. We vertrokken vrijdagochtend om 8u aan het Palace of Culture and Science in Warschau en tegen half 4 kwamen we aan in Sopot, het Knokke van Polen. Moet je weten dat men over Gdańsk spreekt als de driestad Sopot - Gdańsk - Gdynia. Gdynia is niet veel ... read more

We've been back in the UK for 6 months now and it would be an understatement to say it has been an eventful time. We both obtained temporary jobs and then were hit with a bombshell when Miranda was diagnosed with breast cancer. The original plan was tentatively to keep blogging with our future travels, but obviously with above news we aren't going to be making too many forays for the foreseeable. We will get there, but obviously not in the near future! As a result we've decided to post some of the last 20 years of travels, in a form of "retroblog". As another blogger whom we've read over the months when we were away stated... "regret what you do, not what you don't"......... so if you are out there reading and thinking you just ... read more

When you check into your hostel and meet your fellow travellers, there are the usual conversation starters such as - name, country of origin, where have you been, how long been travelling for, etc etc etc. For something different, some random dude (from Melbourne of all places) told me that if I smelled something funny it was likely to be the new shampoo he was using as he had contracted some fungus infection. Whoaaa man, too much information; I was totally speechless. Anyway, onto the blog. Left lovely Krakow and headed to Warsaw for a day. A lot of Poles I've met do not rate their capital at all and told me to bypass it. I figured it couldn't be that bad. Now I have visited it, I have to agree with their observation. Only highlight ... read more