TRAINS BACK TO SANITY

The waterfront in Gdansk

The two days in Torun were plenty for me. Hopes that this small, normally pleasant, town would be a place to relax were of course dashed by the presence of the so called football supporters. I tried an evening wander around the town but that was not a good move as it coincided with the end of whatever game they'd been watching on mega LCD screens, sending me straight back to the hostel. The Irish contingent who returned in the early hours seemed bent on having a fight amongst themselves before they could settle down into an alcohol induced coma. 
When I returned here in Plzen yesterday evening I thought I'd take a look at the news, and not a pretty sight. Poznan was one of my stops on the way to Wroclaw and there on the internet I saw the nasty scenes taking place in the historic centre. Hundreds of Croation fans were attacking a small group of police while they were trying to arrest one of the fans. It struck me as funny to see a lone green clad Irish supporter escaping from the turmoil and holding his arms up in surrender, implying that all that aggression was not of his making. 

The Irish off to Poznan from Torun station

Wroclaw was showing all the signs of being in the grip of this insanity so it was just as well that I managed to cancel the second night there. And so it was that yesterday morning I was on my way back to the comparative peace of the Czech Republic. 

Wroclaw station has been having a revamp. When I was there a year ago it was almost impossible to find the temporary booking hall at the back of the station.

The orange reflective clad students, wearing Union Jack badges are there to help the passengers.

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So thats the end of a rather ill timed trip which makes me think I should take more notice of what is going on in the world of football. There were 5 trains in all from Wroclaw to Plzen. It went amazingly smoothly with waits of no longer than 15 minutes between trains. Home in 8 hours. 

Heading to the Czech border

How about Warsaw tonight? No? Dont blame you.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-18409776

Cheers D

ON THE BEACH

Its my last day here in Gdansk. Feeling rather lazy, I decided to limit my activity to a stroll along the beach which lies about 20 minutes from the hostel. I have been to a Baltic beach before, when in Riga, and this one here is no different. Lots of good quality golden sand at the edge of a flat landscape. Even the coast here reminded me of what I remember of the Jurmala area, near Riga, with houses and cafes set in the woods behind the beach. I suspect the smooth cycling track passing behind the low wooded sand dunes goes for miles, from Kaliningrad to who knows where. Easy biking.

Gdansk shipyard cranes in the distance

Anyway, the stroll turned into a three hour hike as far as Sopot and back through a large park that begins just up the road from the hostel. I may have explained before that the Tricity comprises of Gdansk, Sopot and Gydnia, which is a port, and Sopot, a popular holiday destination with people from Warsaw. 

Looking towards Sopot

Nothing spectacular but a relaxing place where you can escape the crowds so I recorded this while I was wondering which way to go next.

Mumbling By The Sea

To finish this blog, here's a couple of pictures along the way. D

GDANSK REVISITED

It is true that this is a return visit but it was about 20 years ago when I last saw the place. How much it has changed is difficult to say, except that tourism has taken a leap forward since those days when I only went there in order to get a seat on a bus going to Vilnius. The most popular place for buses east was Warsaw, and at that time seats were hard to get, so it had to be Gdansk.

Nowadays, transport companies are so numerous that its hard to make a choice. There is one big difference which I cant help noticing because I remember that last time it was very hot. 

Much of Gdansk was badly damaged at the end of WW2 so it was reconstructed in a different way from the original Germanic city, which was called Danzig between the two wars. To remove the memory of it ever being a German city, the architectural style took a distinct step to the south of Europe. Even so, with this falsification, Gdansk appears as though it has always looked as it does now.  Some of the carved doors add some style too.

As usual, I have found out about a bright lad who originates from here, well not really found because he's been dead for hundreds of years. But it is apparent that the German founder of the ridiculous temperature scale, where 32 degrees is freezing, came from Gdansk. Didn't know he was also a restaurateur, with WiFi! Learn something new every day.

Not a bad day today down in the big city. Its cold and threatened to rain all the time. Maybe tomorrow will suit me better, than today, that at least  made Neptune happy to be standing on his fountain.

TOO LONG DAYS

The last two days have been a bit of a mystery. Yesterday, it rained quite a lot so not much to do. It passed slowly, which is unusual on these trips and an early night was had in readiness for today's long train trip up to Gdansk-what is were I are now! The first leg to Warsaw went perfectly, but Warsaw has never brought me much luck.

The subterranean labyrinth of Warsaw Central brought back a memory of scuttling around its corridors looking for the police station, with my bike, my luggage and another guy's large rucksack. It all came about because when we tried to open the door of the train we'd been  travelling on, it was well and trully stuck. We began to ferry two bikes and the luggage to the other end of the carriage along the narrow corridor. You can guess what happened, it pulled away with the Polish guy and his bike still on board and myself on the platform with a bike and two lots of luggage. To cut it short, about 30 minutes later, he rushed into the small station, police station and was gleefully reunited with his bag. Never have I seen such an expression of relief on anyone's face.

Stalin Wedding Cake

Do I need to tell you that there's a lot of footballs about to be kicked around in Poland soon. Hopefully, I'll be well out of the way but couldn't help noticing an extremely large city block plastered with football. I thought someone could have done us all a favour and covered up one of Stalin's wedding cakes which still dominates the centre of town. 


Just like all these capital cities, shopping has become a national pastime. The glass dome over one of the shopping centres was having a clean by some climbers who looked like they'd be perfectly at home on an Alpine glacier.

Inside the centre Nike had invested in a huge LED screen with one of those devices that mimics human movements which naturally was to tie in with the football mania that grips most of Europe at the moment.

 So why was I wandering around the Warsaw centre when I should have been on a train to Gdansk? The Warsaw Central curse struck again when I bought the ticket in Krakow, I was given the wrong train for the second part from Warsaw to Gdansk, and after a rather testing time I managed to change the ticket and get a train which meant I had to wait over two hours. It was more complicated than that and to cap it all, it arrived in Gdansk well over an hour late. But I'm here now in a very quiet hostel.

Gdansk Glowny Station

POLAND IN JUNE 2012

A rural train in Poland

The internet has, to say the least, revolutionized travelling. There are many sites for booking accommodation but I usually stick to Hostelbookers. Maybe, if you are of a certain age, you might have memories of people ploughing through newspaper ads or colouful holiday brochures trying to find the dream holiday. That is a thing of the past for most of us, nothing is further away than the click of a mouse. 

I often trawl the sites for cheap air tickets using eDreams mostly but in this case the railway timetable sites are useful. Almost all of them from Indian Railways to the Polish network http://rozklad-pkp.pl are easily translated and pretty straight forward to negotiate. The train fares are considerably lower than anywhere in Western Europe. For example, the 600km ride from Krakow to Gdansk is about EUR 32. 

So that's it. Have a full list of trains and times organized for this trip into Poland, and hostels booked. It is advisable to book because these hostels are becoming increasingly popular and finding a place on the spur of the moment can be difficult. The prices below seem to be a little higher than last year but all the same its not such an expensive way to explore a country. The prices below are per night.

Atlantis Hostel.  ul. Dietla 58,...............Krakow ....EUR 8.51....2 nights

Kogut czy Kura Hostel. Piastowska 135, Gdansk .....EUR 9.20....3 nights

Hostel Orange. Prosta 19 Street,...........Torun ......EUR 9.20....3 nights

Dizzy Daisy Hostel. Plac Grunwaldzki 65,Wroclaw,...EUR 13.80...2 nights

Tram passing the Altlantis Hostel in Krakow

The great thing about trains is that my return date is not fixed as it would be with an air ticket so this trip might be a little longer than planned. In Gdansk, the hostel is out on the road, near the Baltic Sea, and not so far from that Russian enclave, Kaliningrad. 

So that's it for now and I'll start blogging the trip after 2nd June using the WiFi provided free in almost every hostel, anywhere in the world.

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