beach

Take a Walk With Me

elizabethcaulfieldfelt Baltic Sea, beach, Gdansk, Gdynia, Poland, Sopot, travel , , , ,

It’s a beautiful day for a walk to the sea. Join us!

Above: This is what we see when we step out from our apartment. We’ll be taking a left between those two apartments in the first picture.

Above: We go down the hill on this pedestrian path through some trees, then we cross this park, until we arrive at quiet Ulica Weherowska (Weherowska Street).

Above: This is the SKM (pronounced es-kah-em), our local train station. When we go into Gdansk, we grab the train here. It costs about $2 and on weekdays comes about every 10 minutes. Potok-Kamieny (Stonybrook) is our neighborhood in Sopot. Today, we are not taking a train; we are going to the sea. So, instead of climbing the stairs up to the platform, we’ll go under the tracks through the tunnel.

On the other side of the tracks, we run into a four-lane road. It seems to have two names: Aleja Zwyclestwa and Aleja Niepodleglosci. The Polish word for surprise is “niespodzianka” (pronounced nee-spo-jahn-ka). It is a fun word to say, with a fun meaning. In my head, I call this the “niespodzianka” street, since one of its name is close to that word. The green “balls” in the otherwise brown trees are mistletoe. You see mistletoe everywhere here.

Now that we’ve crossed the busy areas, it’s down to the sea. The tri-cities have done a great job of keeping development to a minimum along the coast. In most areas, there are trees and pedestrian/bike paths between development and the sea.

We’ve made it to the Baltic Sea! It’s a lovely day. Let’s sit on the sand for a bit and soak up the sun.

Instead of returning the way we came, let’s walk along the pedestrian path toward its starting point. It’s a pretty walk and popular with cyclists. The large picture is where the path begins/ends.

It’s a steep climb up, then the land levels out. Here we are at busy “Niespodzianka” street again.

During our walk we left Sopot and entered Gdynia. In the large picture, you can see the sign welcoming us back to Sopot. We’ll cross the road at the light. You can see a Lidl grocery story. That is our 2nd choice for grocery shopping. The next picture is us coming out from under the train-track-tunnel. Biedronka, our 1st choice for groceries, because of its cheap prices and friendly employees, is the house-like building on the corner.

Across from the Biedronka is my favorite piekarnia (bakery). The women here are friendly and seem to enjoy our attempts at speaking Polish. I eat their rolls for sandwiches for lunch nearly every day. What will you buy today?

Getting home means climbing the hill. It’s really steep and keeps me in shape. In the final picture, you can see our apartment. That last bit is one of the steepest parts, though it’s hard to tell in the photo.

Phew! We’ve made it up the hill. Here we are back, at our apartment.

And now we’re home!

Thanks for joining us on our walk.

Winter in Sopot

elizabethcaulfieldfelt Baltic Sea, beach, Gdansk, Poland, travel

Hello from Sopot, Poland. We left Stevens Point a week ago, and I’m finally making a post!

Sopot is the smallest of the Tri-Cities or Troj-Miasto of Gdansk, Sopot, Gdynia. Sopot is historically a spa town and is now a major Polish tourist destination–in the warm months. We are the exception!

It has been a busy week of visiting friends, exploring, and getting organized. However, yesterday we had some free time and walked down to the sea, about a 15-minute walk from where we are staying. Northern Poland is experiencing a colder, snowier winter than it has seen in the past 20 or so years.

On the way to the Baltic, we passed some children sledding. Hopefully nobody slid all the way to the road.

It’s all downhill to the beach.

It’s important to remember where you enter the beach. Once you are out on the sand/snow/water, the forest looks all the same. The best route for us is entrance/wejscie 5.

With all the snow, it was hard to tell where the beach ended and the frozen Baltic began. I think we stood on frozen waves, but we saw no reason to risk walking out too far.

The cold isn’t as severe as what we get in Wisconsin. When people tell us it will be below 0 tomorrow, they are referring to Celsius. Not to show off or anything, but weather in the 20s Fahrenheit won’t keep us home.

Still, I’m eager for the snow to melt and the sun to come out. Stay warm, friends.

A Day in Hel!

elizabethcaulfieldfelt Baltic Sea, beach, being happy, Gdansk, Hel, Nature, Poland

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.