1st August, 2016
Gdansk was interesting. It was also heaving. It was a Sunday afternoon and maybe it was because the Baltic cruise ships had come to town but you could not move in the Old Town - more packed than Venice and far worse than Brugge. Gdansk has almost totally been rebuilt and it was interesting to see how. It was difficult to imagine how it had been left after the war when it was Danzig and there were no vestiges of post-war communism in the tourist area. The Grain warehouse, on an island in the middle of the river remains the last area to be rebuilt and one gears a bit for what it might become - luxury flats?. Everywhere else the rebuilding is sympathetic but one fears for this area as there is already a mini London Eye, hopefully temporary but wasn't the London one also temporary? As far as views are concerned we visited the largest brick built church in somewhere and climber the 400 steps to the top. We visited the Gate 2 entrance to the shipyard and had a fine lunch in the European Solidarnosc building, sat on a terrace overlooking a waste land and watching a stream of shipyard workers walking to a bus stop after they had knocked off for the day at half three. A late lunch - and a somewhat incongruous setting. I wonder what they thought of us sat there lunching whilst they walked by? Wasn't this what communism was supposed to be about?
As to our survey of trending things in the hotel industry we have noticed the ever smaller hand basin in the bathroom trend. Gdansk seemed a leader in this and it wasn't as though there wasn't enough space in the bathroom for something larger. They were certainly smaller than the ones you normally find tucked away in downstairs toilets and it made it a lot more difficult for us to wash our clothes.
The Poles had clearly taken note of our comment about Motorway construction as that was exactly what we ran into on leaving Gdansk. More China memories. we also reckon that traffic lanes are a smidgen less wide in Poland as we had some difficulties in squeezing through and we could just see the day drawing out in front of us. Luckily the storks provided some interest - specially constructed telephone posts gave them the perfect base for their constructions.
And draw out it did. 'We' realised that 'we' had made an error with 'our' route planning on Google Maps as the route wanted to take us through the stand alone Russian enclave of Kaliningrad -must be a duty/tax haven for those that can't afford London. Also apparently has amber mines which might be another reason the Russians want to hang on to it. We only had single entry visas for Russia and those were for specific dates too so we could not go through Kaliningrad, We had to go round it. We had it in our minds now that the day would drag on into the early evening at least. And the route was pretty boring though we did stop at rather a lively lake that reminded us of something similar in FYR Macedonia and we lunched there.
The route was still pretty boring and we had reckoned without the time shift between Poland and Lithuania which meant that we arrived at Trakai at quarter to eight in the evening which, luckily, was the most perfect time of the day for taking photos. A superb vista after a day of next to nothing, if you count nearly 600km of mostly off-motorway roads as nothing. Expensive restaurant required. found and delivered. All finished well.
Gdansk was interesting. It was also heaving. It was a Sunday afternoon and maybe it was because the Baltic cruise ships had come to town but you could not move in the Old Town - more packed than Venice and far worse than Brugge. Gdansk has almost totally been rebuilt and it was interesting to see how. It was difficult to imagine how it had been left after the war when it was Danzig and there were no vestiges of post-war communism in the tourist area. The Grain warehouse, on an island in the middle of the river remains the last area to be rebuilt and one gears a bit for what it might become - luxury flats?. Everywhere else the rebuilding is sympathetic but one fears for this area as there is already a mini London Eye, hopefully temporary but wasn't the London one also temporary? As far as views are concerned we visited the largest brick built church in somewhere and climber the 400 steps to the top. We visited the Gate 2 entrance to the shipyard and had a fine lunch in the European Solidarnosc building, sat on a terrace overlooking a waste land and watching a stream of shipyard workers walking to a bus stop after they had knocked off for the day at half three. A late lunch - and a somewhat incongruous setting. I wonder what they thought of us sat there lunching whilst they walked by? Wasn't this what communism was supposed to be about?
We also visited the beach at Sopot next door and the magnificent Victoriana Grand Hotel which had clearly survived all sorts of things.
As to our survey of trending things in the hotel industry we have noticed the ever smaller hand basin in the bathroom trend. Gdansk seemed a leader in this and it wasn't as though there wasn't enough space in the bathroom for something larger. They were certainly smaller than the ones you normally find tucked away in downstairs toilets and it made it a lot more difficult for us to wash our clothes.
The Poles had clearly taken note of our comment about Motorway construction as that was exactly what we ran into on leaving Gdansk. More China memories. we also reckon that traffic lanes are a smidgen less wide in Poland as we had some difficulties in squeezing through and we could just see the day drawing out in front of us. Luckily the storks provided some interest - specially constructed telephone posts gave them the perfect base for their constructions.
And draw out it did. 'We' realised that 'we' had made an error with 'our' route planning on Google Maps as the route wanted to take us through the stand alone Russian enclave of Kaliningrad -must be a duty/tax haven for those that can't afford London. Also apparently has amber mines which might be another reason the Russians want to hang on to it. We only had single entry visas for Russia and those were for specific dates too so we could not go through Kaliningrad, We had to go round it. We had it in our minds now that the day would drag on into the early evening at least. And the route was pretty boring though we did stop at rather a lively lake that reminded us of something similar in FYR Macedonia and we lunched there.
The route was still pretty boring and we had reckoned without the time shift between Poland and Lithuania which meant that we arrived at Trakai at quarter to eight in the evening which, luckily, was the most perfect time of the day for taking photos. A superb vista after a day of next to nothing, if you count nearly 600km of mostly off-motorway roads as nothing. Expensive restaurant required. found and delivered. All finished well.
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