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Published: October 12th 2007
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Gdansk
The old town The night train from Berlin was fun! We shared a sleeper with a couple of Canadians who were in Poznan, Poland for a family wedding and decided to go to Berlin for the day! Why not? Its only 4 hrs or so on the train. The funny thing was they went to shop, but didn't buy anything.
We arrived in Gdansk very early and had to try to find ourselves somewhere to stay. We walked to the one hostel I had a brochure for only to be told it was closed. Great. The man didn't speak much English (actually, pretty much none) but he pointed us down a street so we decided to give it a go. It started looking a bit dodgy after about 10 minutes so I voted for turning around. We walked back, saw a bakery and decided to have some time out. Evan bought me a plain bread roll and got a sausage roll for himself. Only it wasn't a sausage roll. It was pastry filled with sauerkraut - gross!!
By this time I was again ready to start pulling things out of my backpack and leaving them before I started walking again (my shoulders
Gdansk
The Neptune Fountain can't take it - and its not even that heavy!). So out came the bible of many travellers - the Lonely Planet. We found a hostel that sounded OK, and was close, and started walking. Luckily it had beds available and we checked in. Then we hit the streets.
That's when I saw it. The amber that Gdansk is famous for. But after all the stories about how Gdansk is THE place for amber, I still couldn't believe it. It was EVERYWHERE!! Shops lining the river, shops lining the main street and then, of course, the Amber Street. The only shops on Amber Street (which of course has a totally different name in reality) sell amber or food and drink. Before we left Gdansk I managed to buy two rings and three pairs of earrings. Just small things, but all less than AU$50 - pretty good I thought. Some of the big items are HUGE and have price tags to match.
But there is much more to Gdansk than amber. For the history buffs - the area of Westerplatte was the site where WWII started. The Germans invaded Poland, and although the Poles held out for quite a
Gdansk
The Town Hall few days, they eventually surrendered and we all know the rest of the story.
Gdansk is also a beautiful town, full of cobbled streets and old buildings, many of which have been rebuilt since WWII when many of them were destroyed. We spent hours wandering around and heading up and down the streets. But we also did like the locals and drank beer down at the river. Not at 10:30 in the morning though like we saw some locals doing! However, when beer is cheaper than water and coffee...it really makes you think.
One night we splurged and went out for dinner in one of the many restaurants in the main street. Not a good idea. Cheap as when you compare it to back home prices, but I did not make a good selection. A pizza - how wrong could you go I thought. In trying to make sure I had some vegetables, I ordered a pizza with paprika (capsicum - yum!). Well, it turned out the capsicum had been preserved first - it was covered in vinegar. Ever had vinegar on your pizza? Not nice. But more surprising - Evan liked it! So he was stoked, he
Gdansk
The Old Mill house got to eat his meal and then most of mine.
Not all was good for Evan in Gdansk though. He got led away by security because the man thought he was shoplifting! We didn't understand what was going on and didn't want to go with him. Then the man pointed to the big lump under Evan's arm inside his jacket. Evan relaxed, sort of started to laugh and started to unzip his jacket. I don't know if the guy was worried, but it was just Ev's camera! Lucky escape from the law.
After 2 nights in Gdansk we took a train down to Wroclaw on our way to the Czech Republic. Wroclaw was only ever meant to be a quick stop over to find our way to Czech but we ended up staying two nights. It was a beautiful city, and doesn't get the hordes of tourists that go to the main tourist destinations of Poland, so it made for a nice change from our recent destinations. Also, it was nice to have a rest, and we enjoyed having our own room for a change after all those dorm rooms.
Wroclaw is another gorgeous city full of
Maritime Museum Gdansk
The old Soldek ship (now retired) - Evan at work! old cobbled streets and buildings (including the prerequisite large number of churches). The good thing about it was that Wroclaw mostly survived WWII intact, so the buildings are more original than you will find elsewhere. The Town Hall is beautiful, and the square surrounding it is second in size only to Krakow. We were lucky that our first day there was the end of a Busker festival, so we had lots of entertainment. It is also a very pretty city because there is so much water. In fact, Wroclaw has the fourth largest number of bridges (after Venice, Amsterdam and St Petersburg).
The city also has lots of little interesting things like the odd dwarf/goblin statues that you find lurking in strange places; the interesting Hotel Monopol where Marlene Deitrich stayed, and where a special balcony was made so that Hitler could give a speech from it; and my favourite - a Haribo lolly stall (sort of like the candy bar at the cinema back home).
We also got a lot of history in Wroclaw. There was an exhibition in the main square showing pictures and captions taken from publications of underground press which operated during the period
of military rule in Poland - in the 1980s. There were scenes of the Berlin wall going down, people being bashed, demonstrations, etc. Some of the images were incredibly shocking. It was a very interesting time in history and not all that long ago.
We had great weather to start with in Wroclaw. Best we had seen since Africa. It was warm enough for shorts and thongs. Unfortunately, the weather started to turn. So not only was it cold, but it got wet too. Evan went from tripping all over the cobbled streets (in Berlin and Gdansk) to slipping over them in Wroclaw because his thongs are almost worn out. Need some new pluggers from Oz! Unfortunately, the wet weather brought on the traffic accidents and we ended up witnessing one. Luckily both cars didn't hit any people because it was right in the middle of a 4 way intersection and they were only 10m or so away from us and others.
Our last night in Wroclaw we watched TV. Now that was entertaining! The tv programs were in English but rather than having subtitles, or being dubbed, there was a man speaking over the top of the
Eating icecreamlike the locals!
Gdansk (PS. Not that enjoyable) English - a nice monotone translation of the show. Very strange.
So it was time to make a move down to Czech Republic - first stop Adrspach-Teplice Rocks National Park.
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