Oh, I do like to be beside the seaside....

One of the more well kept secrets of Eastern Europe these days is its beaches, in particular those here in Poland.    There are fully fledged beach resorts in Bulgaria and Romania, on the Black Sea coast, that cater to the package trade and I'm told are very good.  Here, there are no package tours to the coast (at least that I'm aware of), and this is a good thing because it leaves the beaches less developed - though no less crowded.  Look at Polish tourist web-sites and they will be full off information about Warsaw, about Krakow, the Mazurian Lakes and the ski resorts in the Tatras.  But the coast is largely ignored, apart from the Big Three of Gdansk (formerly the historic Hanseatic port of Danzig and birthplace of Solidarity), its neighbour Sopot (the nearest thing here to a resort like Blackpool or Brighton, complete with pier) and Gdynia, the third city making up the TriCities complex (they all run into one amorphous mass).  Nice as they are, they are not the complete story of the seaside here.

The coast stretches for a couple of hundred miles, I guess, from the German border in the west to that of Russia (or at least its Kaliningrad enclave) in the east.  Over the years I've visited beaches from Miedzesdroje in the west, close to the German border and the Nazi Peenemunde research centre, right the way along to Hel at the tip of its eponymous peninsula sticking out 30km into the Bay of Gdansk, and they are unfailingly excellent.  Golden sand.  Clean, no dog turds to be seen.  Facilities including cafes and beer bars when the beach is close to a village or town.  Beach vendors selling everything from kielbaski (Polish sausages) to kites via beer and popcorn and much else besides.  Plenty of well maintained trash bins that are used by vistitors and keep the beaches pristine.  Sand dunes and forest backing onto them to provide privacy and shelter.  Good access and car parking.    The only down side is the Baltic Sea which can be bloody freezing (though not more than the English Channel or North Sea back in Blighty).

All along the coast there are small towns and smaller villages catering to the holiday trade.  They are all much of a muchness - plenty of bars, amusement parks both big and small, souvenir shops every few paces banging out the usual seaside tat (postcards, funny hats, cheap jewelery, decorated mugs, ornaments and so on) that you can find anywhere, all at very reasonable prices.  A host of restaurants selling good and filling Polish food and freshly caught local fish (as well as burgers, pizzas and kebabs of course).  Accomodation comes in all shapes and sizes from luxury hotels to campsites by the beach, again all sensibly priced.  We tend to rent cottages somewhere - easier with kids - and we've had some absolute bargains.

So all in all, I love it.

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The past couple of years we've had a place in a small village called Mieroszyno, a couple of kilometres in from the sea.  It's close to a small resort village called Jastrzenbia Gora, which is close to a larger town called Wladyslawowo that is situated at the place where the Hel Peninsula joins mainland Poland.  The cottage is a small wooden affair, two floors, maybe a third of an acre level garden (beautifully maintained), outside the main village itself.  The cottage is surrounded by similar places, most of them brick built, and dozens of empty (and for sale) building plots.  It has all mod cons - three toilets, showers, satellite tv - and is comfortably if cheaply furnished.  It is right next to an extensive forest with paths down to the sea that are a delight to walk or cycle through - the beach is probably three kilometres - and rich in wildlife: last year the folks saw loads of rabbits, this year we saw more rabbits and one night a small fox stalking a hare (the fox stopped to watch us pass in the car and the hare, smart thing, took advantage and escaped into the darkness).  I missed out last year, as I was in Trinidad, but have just enjoyed a couple of weeks there (Ania and the kids, and her mum, were there for a few days before I arrived).

The holiday starts with a bit of a trip.  By car it's perhaps 400km from Warsaw, and takes upwards of 7 hours depending on traffic.  That said, it's still the nearest piece of coast to home, which is why we tend to go to the area more than others.  It's well worth the journey.  The ladies and kids made the drive on the Saturday, while I was finishing up in Abu Dhabi, and I'm told it wasn't too bad a journey - now the kids are older it's less of a trial.  They were loaded with three bikes on the roof (the first time we've done that) and a car full of food and baggage - as usual, in the event, more than we needed.

I followed by train on the Wednesday.  It's a journey I've made a few times now, and it's ok.  I pay a bit extra for a first class seat (not that there is huge difference between first and second: with first there is a little more space as fewer people use it) and this year I struck it lucky: I had an eight seat compartment to myself for the entire 7 hour ride.  Armed with books, magazines, iPod, food and drink I was content thank you very much.  Which was just as well - the journey this year was tortuous.  It's always a bit slow, especially the first hour or so out from Warsaw, but this year it was Ilawa, probably half way, before we got out of second gear.  All along the line there was a succession of engineering works as bridges are being constructed to replace a huge number of unmanned level crossings, or existing bridges strengthened.  I assume it's all to improve the transport infrastructure before the country co-hosts the European football championship next year.  Normally it takes just under 7 hours to reach Gdynia: this year it was nearer seven and a half.  Ania (and of course Kuba and Ally) met me in Gdynia, an hour or so's drive from the cottage.  I could have travelled on to Wladyslawowo, but had just over an hour's connection time so it made more sense to meet in Gdynia.  It was great to see everybody, after nearly 5 weeks apart.

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I am not a fan of crowded beaches.  I find it very hard to relax on them.  There is no privacy to speak of, so conversations are easily overhead (as are arguments, temper tantrums, flatulence and everything else).   Kids of course like to play, and in doing so wander off and can easily get lost or worse, so I'm always on edge trying make sure they're safe.  I can't stand it!

But this year it was the norm.....every stretch of beach was packed solid, on both sides of Jastrzenbia. more so than I can remember in previous years.  I know it's the same everywhere, and the same for everyone, but it makes it no easier for me to enjoy.  But I made the best of it, played with the kids, tried to block out my ears and invoke the selective deafness any kids use automatically when they're told to do something they don't want, and did my best to relax.  But there were times when I was still too stressed to enjoy things and I was less than pleasant to everyone - for which I apologise!  The fact there is whole raft of crap going on at work at the moment didn't help, and try as I might I couldn't get rid of all that baggage, even temporarily. 

So despite the sunshine and beautiful surroundings, I didn't enjoy the break as much as I normally do.

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The weather was typically northern European - that is to say, unreliable.

In July it can be cold and wet or hot and sunny, and there is no way of predicting it.  Last year when Ania and everyone was there, it was sunny and 30C the entire two weeks - in fact hotter than I was having in Trinidad.  This year we had a mixture: days without a cloud in the sky with temperatures well into the high 20s where we hit the beach, and others where it was barely 20C, wet and windy.  And still others with a mix of both.

Personally, I blame myself.....I seem to be some kind of a Rain God or something.  It always seems to rain when I'm on holiday.  One year, back in the early 90s, there was a three month drought in England, not a cloud in the sky from mid May to mid August, water shortages and rationing, people hospitalised with sun-stroke, heat exhaustion and sun-burn.  I picked up my mid year bonus, bought my family bikes, loaded them and the tent (a five berth frame tent, with all the cooking gear) onto the car and we headed off to Cornwall.  The inevitable happened.  We arrived, pitched camp, had a good few days - then the drought broke.  We were deluged: 6 weeks' worth of rain fell in 48 hours.  The campsite was flooded out and so were we.  End of holiday.

It happened like that (although perhaps not quite so dramatically) every year, to the point where the kids refused to come on holiday with me as soon as they were old enough and responsible enough to stay at home instead.  Can't say I blame them.....

Even now, similar things happen.  A couple of years back, we went to Almeria, perhaps the driest part of Spain.  It has its own microclimate, courtesy of the mountains behind the coast that seals it off from the rest of mainland Spain and holds the prevailing Mediterannean winds on shore - it's fabulous there.  There are maybe a dozen wet days a year, and late September when we went is usually beautiful - high temperatures, sunshine 15 hours a day and no crowds (end of season....).  Yep: it rained.  Not every day, but several of them.  Just for an hour or two.  But enough to prompt complaints from the locals and the neighbours in the time-share complex we were staying at.  I kept quiet.

It rained, a bit, when we went to the Algarve.  And Crete.  And Tenerife.  All places that, on our travel dates, most years, are hot and dry and sunny.  About the only exception was when we went to Hurghada in Egypt - it never rains there full stop, and didn't when we visited for two weeks - although on a couple of days local people were stunned to see clouds in the sky.  Again, I said nothing.

It's depressing really.

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We camped a bit this year too.  Only a small tent, allegedly for three people but they would have to be midgets or children.   We pitched it in the garden, next to the house, and Kuba and I slept there a couple of times.  Ania and I also used it a few nights, for some peace and quiet from the kids.  It was good, but the weather turned early in the second week and we stopped.  But we'll do it again, no doubt, other years.

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Our excursions were good too. 

One day we drove into Sopot and had a stroll along the pier, then lunch at a really nice restaurant in the square at the foot of the pier, across from the Sheraton Hotel.  The weather was good and we sat at tables outside.  The food was excellent and there is a nice vibe to the area - it's improved tremendously since I first visited it in 2001, the area where the pier starts is now pedestrianised with street entertaimment, a great selection of bars and shops.  Cool place.  We also took a boat ride: from the end of the pier a ship done up like a pirate galley, complete with masts and rigging, fake cannons and the crew dressed up with eye patches and so on (but with a modern diesel engine), takes you out straight into Gdansk Bay for 20 minutes - which means you're about a third of the way across to Hel - then turns round and goes back to the pier.  It was great fun and the kids loved it.

Another time we drove along to Hel, perhaps 40 km from where we were staying, at the far end of the Peninsula.  It was a horrible wet and windy day, but we had a couple of hours wandering around the port area and even onto the beach.  Ally had a good sleep in the pushchair, despite the squally showers, and we bought some stuff in the shops along the waterfront.  As with most resorts, including where we were staying, there are a load of discounted clothes stores selling brand names at knock-down prices, and there are good bargains to be had.  Over the two weeks I picked up three pairs of shorts, about half a dozen good quality tee-shirts, a hoodie and a new baseball cap.  So despite the weather it was a good trip.

The final excursion was another boat ride from Hel, this time on a proper ferry across the bay to Gdynia.  It was a good day, warm and sunny (but not too hot) with a calm sea so the ride was enjoyable.  We were able to spend it on the upper deck, and the kids loved it.  The ride takes just under an hour, so there is time for beer and food in the bar if you want it.  In Gdynia we strolled along the harbour, past a beautiful fully rigged Tall Ship, used as a training vessel by the Polish Naval Cadets, and a World War 2 destroyer that is moored and kept as a museum.  Kuba was most impressed by both vessels, but perhaps less so by the history lesson his grandmother gave him!  We had a super lunch at a new restaurant/bar on the harbour, part of a new complex built over the last 5 years that has a 40 floor mixed residential/office block that is very impressive to look at.  When I worked in Gdynia 8 or 9 years ago, the area was very run down, and from memory where the tower now stands was an old tin and concrete fish warehouse.  Times have definitely changed for the better in the TriCities as well as the rest of Poland.

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So at the end of the holiday we headed home.  There was no room in the car so I had to get a train again, and it was epic.  We took a different route, very slow (as usual) from Wladyslawowo to Gdynia on a single track line, hauled by a huge diesel freight locomotive, then a change of hardware at Gdynia and onto the electrified mainline.  It's always slow through the TriCities, then speeds up after crossing the Wisla at Tczew.  Warsaw usually takes about 6 1/2 hours.  But this train, after Tczew, wound its way through central Poland to Bydgoszcz and Torun, both to the west of Warsaw, then back across to the capital.  It took 9 hours.  In the company of a hyperactive 6 year old called Oskar, who spent most of the trip jumping around and yelling (often landing on my toes) and swinging a rubber ball on a length of elastic around like a lunatic, while his grandmother tried in vain to quieten him down.  Not the best trip I've ever had.....

But if my journey was bad, Ania's was worse.  Approaching Gdansk on the dual carrriageway by-pass mamcia's bike worked loose from the roofrack and slid off onto the road behind, at maybe 100kph.  Chaos!  By a miracle no-one was hurt and there were no further collisions, even an articulated truck which came close to jack-knifing managed to stop.  Incredibly neither our car nor the bike was seriously damaged as the traffic managed to avoid running over it - some scratches but nothing more.  Extraordinary.  Another driver helped a very shaken Ania to re-load everything, after calming down understandably hysterical kids in both cars, so apart from my family not getting home until nearly 1:00 a.m. after a near 12 hour drive, everything worked out ok.....but I feel guilty still about being stuck on the train somewhere between Tczew and Bydgoszcz while all the carnage was going on!