Gdansk; Wednesday, 23 July, 2008

With my stomach bulging from another massive breakfast I headed out into town. I had plans for the afternoon, but that gave me a couple of hours to clear up another couple of museums in the city centre.

After visiting the Artus Court and the Archaeological museum there was just time for a quick spot of lunch before my afternoon trip on the Tram Ferry across the Gulf of Gdansk.

Helping to form the gulf is a small thin spit of land that juts some 20Km out into the Baltic. At the very end is the town that gives the Peninsular it’s name… Hel.

At this point it would be an occasion to line up a string of jokes about going to Hell etc (which I have quite happily done on the Blog). But Hel is quite capable of living up to it’s name.

The shape of the land makes it easy to defend and consequently it was the last part of Poland to hold out against the advancing Nazi’s, not falling until October 3rd 1939, over a month after the war had started just on the other side of the Gulf at Westerplatte. Conversely at the end of the war, with confusion in the ranks, and pinned down by Soviet forces, Hel was not liberated until May 9th 1945, two days after the complete surrender of Nazi Germany.

Today, Hel is a peaceful and tranquil place (if you ignore the thousands of people lying on the beaches bronzing themselves, and the seafront arcades). A family resort it has a number of attractions including a fishing boat museum with a tower you can climb for views over the gulf and a aquarium housing a number of the, now sadly becoming rare, Baltic grey seals.

After having exhausted most of the sites of the town I wandered back to the train station. As all tickets are sold as singles (returns are effectively double the singe price) it is easy to make the tip to Hel into a circular one, coming out on the ferry, but back by the train.

The train runs the length of the peninsular, never very far from the coast so you always have good views. On leaving the peninsular it heads in land so that it can make a more leisurely 180 degree turn before heading back down the coast towards Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk.

By the time I arrived back in Gdansk it was gone 8 so I headed down to the riverside for some dinner. After a pleasant meal I walked back through the city centre, with the light going and the floodlights on I was able to take several decent pictures of the city before heading back to the hotel and a good nights sleep.