In addition to the opportunity for a title like this and additional funny sentences, going to Hel was a lot of fun. Hel is a town at the end of the Hel Peninsula, which juts out into the Baltic Sea on Poland’s northern coast.

This was a spur-of-the-moment, unplanned day trip. We caught a mid-morning train for the 2-hour ride to the town of Hel, arriving a little after noon. The cost was incredibly cheap (about $10 round-trip for each of us). The train goes nearly all the way to the tip of the peninsula; sometimes you can see the Baltic from one side of the train, and sometimes from the other. It was a cool ride.

We wandered Hel a little, then headed for the beach. We found a place to put on our swimsuits, did a bit of swimming, sunbathing, and people watching. I enjoyed watching the family next to us create a large, moated sand tower that the youngest child (not pictured, age about 3) eventually climbed and destroyed. I wonder if that is how the Japanese got the idea of Godzilla.

The beaches on the Baltic we’ve visited have been beautiful and not too crowded, although we do usually go on week days. We’ve been lucky with the weather. Once we had our fill of water and sun, we roamed the streets looking for a restaurant with outdoor shaded seating in which to eat, drink, and relax. The place we chose had adequate food and an excellent, local wheat beer.

We did some more wandering, then caught an evening train home, again enjoying the sights out the train window. In the summer, the sun doesn’t set until after 10pm this far north.