Gdansk/Gdynia/Sopot - The tri-city!

Let me just preface this post by saying the North of Poland is cold. Earlier today on the pier in Sopot the temperature was apparently 7 degrees C, and that's without the considerable windchill. And that was the warmest place I've been today.

I arrived in Gdansk about 4PM yesterday, and proceeded to spend an hour and a half looking for my hostel, which was THREE MINUTES from the train station! In my defence, both the address and directions I was given appeared to be a load of old tot - being told to look for a "tall, red-bricked building" in a ity full of tall, red-bricked buildings is less than helpful. Anyway, after I finally wandered back to the station and endured several minutes of broken english on the telephone, I eventually got surprise directions in German, and it took me but 3 minutes to find the place. If I didn't speak German, I'd still be looking now.

As it happened, German turned out to be the theme for the night. Finding my hostel even more devoid of company than the previous one, I wandered merrily into town on my own, eventually deciding upon an american bar in which to take my nourishment, as it was the only place with any atmosphere (I later remembered that Polish people start their evenings a lot later than the english, and this was only 7PM). There I partook in some typical fare, and got myself adopted by a group of Germans from the other hostel in town ("the one where the people are", apparently!) They were out to celebrate a birthday, so after a while we moved on to Yesterdays, a kind of chilled-out, alternative place recommended to me by Magda. Merriment continued, and a good night was had by all!

Today I rose early and partook in breakfast before strolling out to take a look at Gdansk in the daylight. Accomplishing this in just over an hour (don't get me wrong, there's plenty of nice stuff, it's just all in quite a small area), i decided to spend the rest of the day exploring Gdansk's sister towns, Gdynia and Sopot, in what the Poles call the "Tri-City". They're all within a few minutes of each other on the train, and perfectly doable in one day (as can be seen from the fact I'm writing this at half 5 in the evening!)

Now, I'd not heard much about Gdynia before I went there, and to be honest it soon became obvious why. The main street was a walk away from the train station, and quite a lengthy avenue in itself, but once i'd found my way to the end of it the only thing I'd experinced was the feeling of being ripped off for a cup of coffee (by Polish standards, at least).

So with heavy heart, and distinctly tiring of Northern Poland, I headed off to the 3rd "city", Sopot. It has to be said, I was more than pleasantly surprised! A lovely little picturesque seaside town with plenty to see for its size, I enjoyed a good few hours there, not to mention a far superior cup of coffee. I returned about an hour ago to Gdansk, and aside from going out for a bite to eat later and sorting my bag out for tomorrow, I'm not going to be doing much more here. Early start to a busy day tomorrow! Stay tuned...