And again Gdansk!
- Andrey, have you already seen the promotion to Gdansk for the weekend in the summer? a colleague asked me.
How happy it was to see how the student surpassed the teacher)))) I didn’t know about the action, I called Dasha and was glad that in the summer we were returning to bike rides in Gdansk! We are also flying in a new format! Since Ryanair does not allow you to take backpacks on board, we will fly without them, just take two city bags and go!
Also from the new terminal F, although it is not yet fully completed inside, but there are few people. This was our first flight with a Ryan, although it wasn't quite the Ryan that everyone knows. We flew with a subsidiary of Ryanair Sun. The plane has a beautiful interior, there is a lot of space, but the seats do not recline. But as experience has shown, when you want to sleep, no matter what kind of seats. This airline is quite funny, during the flight the stewards went and soared some kind of lottery)))
If a couple of years ago a long queue was waiting while the grandmother tried to explain to the Polish officer that she had flown to her grandson and knew nothing more, then this time we were the heroes who were waiting in line) Dasha and I approached the border post the most we were the first, and it seemed that now we would quickly go through customs and in a couple of minutes we would leave the airport. But the officer decided to show full responsibility in his profession and began to count the days in the stamps of our passports. Attention, never repeat this trick with our passports! Checking my passport lasted more than five minutes, then he began to count Dashin, but the number of days, firstly, did not match, and secondly, there was one tricky stamp associated with the cancellation of the Wizz air flight several years ago. We received this stamp when we passed the border control, but could not fly away and had to cancel the passage of control. The officer started the count again. And he spoke to us exclusively in Polish. After 15 minutes he gave us passports, but did not open the door to the exit. I watched as we tried to get through the barrier and apparently made the final decision to let us out.
But the bus at the exit from the airport seemed to be just waiting for us, we ran in - it went.
In fact, we were still lucky, but my employee Masha was less lucky that day: she came to Zhuliany to fly to Greece, and the airport was closed.
Gdansk, as always, is green and cozy. This time we lived right in the center. How beautiful, the city was unexpectedly pleasing to the eye. Usually, when you come for the second time, it may not be so catchy, but this is really a work of art, not a city! Beautiful houses, flowers, ice cream and buskers! Not to mention the bike route to Gdynia!
On this trip, we took advantage of the non-traditional safe Booking, but Ostrovok. The hotel looked at us with surprise and tried to find out exactly how we booked a room with them. The hostess called somewhere on the phone and began to discuss it in Polish. Polish is a fairly understandable language, but she spoke quickly. From excerpts of her discussion, phrases were heard: “We booked, they say about two months ago”, “Okay, I’ll settle, but where are the Germans? ”, “Yes, I understand, they don’t have a car and they have a personal number”, “And yet, but where are the Germans??? ”, “Okay, okay, come on, bye! ”. The woman turned to us with a smile and said she would show us to our room. I could not stand it and asked where the Germans would eventually be settled, she waved it off in the style of “Oh, that’s it! ”. Our room booking had the most concise description we've ever booked: it said there would be a double bed and wi-fi. You know, there has never been such an accurate description of the number in my life. But inexpensive and in the center! In general, joyfully, we are back in our beloved city. The first evening we just wandered around the center and enjoyed the playing of street musicians. Every time we dined at the same restaurant, it's called O'Mandu, the line to get in speaks for itself.
But the maximum we stood for up to ten minutes. This restaurant is pirogarnya, that is, they have various types of dumplings and fillings. After mom's dumplings with potatoes, these dumplings will be in a solid second place. Delicious! Then you definitely need to make a big circle through the center and you can sleep in the crib. But on the first evening, we, inexperienced, lay in wait for an unexpected obstacle - a drawbridge! The hotel seems to be close, but so unattainable. It opens every 30 minutes, for 30 minutes. And you just need to know his schedule) But the extra 15 minutes of evening Gdansk have not hurt anyone yet.
From the very morning we went in search of a confectionery, which kept in our memory the sweetest memories of the past of Gdansk. Over the past almost three years, both our friends and our parents have discovered Gdansk for themselves, but this confectionery has not been opened to anyone. According to eyewitnesses, it either simply did not exist, or it was closed. But today, in the early sunny morning, she is here again and pleases us with morning coffee with chocolate treats. Not far from the confectionery is a large tree with dark red leaves. Appetizing fruits hang on the tree, looking like a huge cherry or a small plum. Moreover, one berry hangs low enough to touch it in a jump with your fingertips, but not to pick it off. But it’s not for nothing that I was engaged in physical education at school for 10 years? No wonder I literally risked my health at the institute when I jumped rope! Now my legs were light, nothing stopped me, I was in free flight, I managed to knock down a berry! The taste of the berry turned out to be very tasty. But the fact that we have never seen these for sale stopped us. In any case, he stopped me, and Dasha thought for an extra second, and the fetus was already missing a significant piece. We do not know what it was, but it was delicious, the main thing is not to swallow just in case. By the way, after that jump during the passing of the rope at the institute, they gave me a test, only they asked me never to approach the rope again.
Then, in high spirits, they passed the lap of honor through the sleepy streets of the morning city. Today we had a walking day, we decided to go through the most beautiful part of the cycling route on foot along the embankment. From the center to the embankment you need 30-40 minutes to go by tram. The embankment, unlike the city, was no longer so sleepy, people were divided into two groups, one, just like we came for a walk or a bike ride, the second settled on the beach, despite the harsh Baltic wind.
There were darkness of people on the beach. Even though it was +19 outside, the vacation was scheduled, the beach was not canceled. For the first time, we saw a new device for the beach - special sticks connected by fabric to be placed around the perimeter protecting ourselves from the wind.
So we walked to Sopot. Now is the time for another great meal, but if you go to the restaurants that are along the coastline, then Gdansk will move from the category of cheap trips to the category of super-expensive. We could not allow this, so we went deeper into the city. It didn't take long to find good food. And when it seemed that more goodies would not fit into us, we went to the neighboring confectionery for tea with a cake, a small cake, or rather, the first one was small, and then it seemed small only compared to the second cake. The first was the Polish “Sernik Rose”, with this name it turned out to be the most delicious in our rating. While we were walking to the confectionery, we witnessed a rather unusual story. There is a woman with a bag in which there are a lot of things, she obviously travels with her. Behind the woman is a beefy guy in the same swimming trunks. The guy is profusely tanned, and obviously the tan is not real, as it is clear that he is smeared with something dark. The guy carries dumbbells in his hands. They approached the hotel, his companion went to negotiate with the hotel, and he stayed with his dumbbells.
It was not possible to agree with the hotel and they moved on. I had only one question in my head. That is, a man works with the port, carries weights, so that at the moment when he needs to carry a heavy bag, he has enough strength just to carry these same weights. But everyone has fun in their own way. While we were heading back towards the embankment, it began to rain and we had to run into the museum. Which turned out to be free on Saturdays. It's just a sign! Let's explore. This is a museum dedicated to the fortress, which is also partially preserved in the open area of the museum. It was quite interesting to wander around. Now we moved on towards Gdynia. When we decided that we had worked up and needed to leave the embankment towards the city, we unexpectedly got into dog agility competitions. These are competitions where dogs overcome an obstacle course for time and accuracy, and judges put balls.
We got excited, the dogs were so cute, we got sick and worried when they did not do everything perfectly. During the show, two fighter jets flew across the sky, followed by a triangle of seven warplanes. Somehow it became a little uncomfortable, either this is normal, or it should not be so. We returned to the city by train. We had to go quite a lot of stations, did we really go through all this on foot? We urgently need to replicate this case in our new favorite restaurant. The line at the entrance was about ten minutes. While we were standing in line, a Russian-speaking tourist approached us and said that she was happy to read our stories. If you knew how Dasha and I are pleased at such moments. As a child, I once dreamed of actors, I thought how it was when someone completely unfamiliar to you could recognize you on the street. And this is the third time such a joyful meeting. It adds millions of percent to our desire to travel and share our joys with the world.
The restaurant, as always, was delicious! And the icing on the cake of the day was a real Merry-go-round carousel. Each figurine had its own peculiarity, and in one run Dasha went through everything. The winner in terms of interestingness was a horse on which you can swing back and forth.
We started the following morning with the Hilton. If our valiant airline does not print boarding passes, then you can fly in for 50 euros. There is a problem with printers at our hotel, and at the Hilton, the hospitable manager happily sent us to the computer room, where we successfully printed everything for ourselves. Ryan’s main thing is that everything is done so that you can’t print all the tickets from Kyiv, but that’s already their personal problems, we are without luggage and with tickets) As soon as we left the hotel, a river tram immediately swam up and we went on a mini-cruise without hesitation . The tram runs 3 or 4 times a day. We did not particularly plan to sail on it, but since everything coincides so, why not. The road to the embankment took about an hour. As an obligatory chip on a trip, I would not put a ferry, but for a change, you can swim. But now we have begun to pass the embankment from the very beginning.
We were faced with the task of finding the bike rental place where we rented last time, since the price was pleasantly pleasing then. There was one unsigned star on the map, but it turned out to be our last hotel. Now it was only necessary to repeat the same wanderings in search of rent, as last time. But since Dasha and I are the same as before, the likelihood that we will go to the same courtyards in the hope of finding bike rentals is almost the same. And what do you think? My theory turned out to be correct. We really, without further ado, stumbled upon the same rental again (called Rover Partner, PLN 40 per day - $10.5 per person).
We're back! I said happily.
A woman we knew well said she was very glad that we had returned. Although our separation lasted almost three years)
The hostess took us to her art gallery, today the exhibition had an anniversary date. On this occasion, Dasha and I were each given a piece of delicious cake, a honey drink and told the story of the author of the paintings. A great start to the trip, we chose more practical bikes and hit the road! To our regret, at the same time, there was a whole marathon of cyclists-athletes on the way. But as a plus, the bypass road of the marathon route passes through the park. When we drove a few kilometers to the end of the sports bike route, we were met by a walking marathon route) But even there for about five minutes, we went to a common bike path. Now you can rush along the sea, through the parks with a breeze!
Still, walking and cycling along the embankment are two fundamentally different pleasures. In Sopot, real competitions of bodybuilders of both sexes awaited us. They gladly showed their pumped up arms, backs and priests. It looked rather strange. But now everything has fallen into place, it is clear why yesterday on the neighboring streets we saw a guy with weights in his hands. Why are they so abundantly and unevenly smeared with an artificial tan of a carrot shade, the question is still the same. It's great that there is so much entertainment here. And even the dog competition continued. It makes no sense to sing about what a wonderful bike route once again, you just need to accept the fact that it is possibly the best in the galaxy.
For a change, this time we decided to grab another town - Vitamino. The name speaks for itself, the city should be cool. We drove long and painfully up the mountain, but there was nothing special there. As a result, we went down with the breeze. This is probably the shortest story about the city among our adventures. But in Gdynia, as always, mentally, ice cream, corrugations, ducks and the sea. What else is needed for happiness? I think that if we lived in Gdansk, then every weekend we would ride this bike route until we get bored. The main thing is not to repeat the mistakes of the past and not to try to cut back through the dense forest. The way back without stops will take less than an hour and a half. And of course, dinner in the already native O'mandu. This is the last evening of our short trip, we need to finally go around all the corners of the city, but first go to the hotel for a jacket. . .
True, it didn’t work out to reach the hotel, because five multi-colored adult humanoid creatures moved very smoothly, merging into a common mass near a large dumpster, they were watched by two men with bright white faces in orange helmets, people were frozen, the creatures moved as if in slow motion , but for white men it seemed to stop. Very disturbing music played with elements of a loud human scream. But the cry was not alive, but synthetic. The mass began to smoothly “leak” into the trash can, because a healthy man with a large whip was moving towards them quite quickly, the sounds scattered the horror over our already frozen bodies. But the desire to go to the hotel was already far from a priority. It was a street performance of the Minsk theater, which lasted an hour and a half in total. To say that it impressed me is an understatement.
I think I'm still impressed. The performance was called "Trash poem" and was part of the theater festival, which, as it turned out, was taking place around the city these days. It's a funny fact that yesterday we saw a piece of another performance, moreover, as boring as we know how to do in Kyiv during the French spring. When we read the newspaper of the festival, we found out that France had just performed yesterday) In general, this is not ours, but when we found out that a theater from Minsk was performing in front of us today, we were even more surprised than the impressions of the performance itself.
Holograms on the house
In general, Gdansk, thank you very much for being so cozy and being so close to us. We are sure that this was not our last meeting and, perhaps, we will start flying here as part of a pleasant tradition in the future) It was a great weekend!
Trip Information
Date of travel: 06/12/2019 – 06/15/2019
Duration: 2 full days
Flights: Ryanair
Caves: Ostrovok
Excursions: All by yourself
Trip difficulty: 1/10 (very easy)
