Hotel Gramburg Gdansk

... for once, I was allowed to take photos. Took a lot of photos.

Things close up in a hurry so that was the last museum we were able to visit. Next was the shopping part of the tour. Mary’s street, or St. Mary’s street, wasn’t sure which, is behind St. Mary’s church and has a ton of amber shops. I found a cute little necklace with a cat pendant where the ...

... made of stone bricks and pine wood. So there is a church in Hel after all...

Soaked to the bone I find myself a place at the window of a small bar facing the church in Hel, for a feared breakfast of Polish Froth and dark black Nescafe coffee, maybe a quick sketch of this church in such a weird proverbial setting.

I`ll still have to backtrack the 35 km. long peninsula through heavy rain and storm wind in my face!!!

... entrances to the city long ago and marks the beginning of a restored area of buildings and shops. It would have been a very nice place to walk around, shop, look at buildings and get a bite to eat except that it is all outdoors and it was pouring rain. Our guide had a very irritating voice and style of speaking. As soon as we got off the bus we, along with half the bus, ditched her and just walked around
on our own. We found a ...

... Yeah! Makes a huge difference the next day. Of course I am back in the European Union and have been since Estonia. That means much more relaxed borders and throughout Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania I haven't had seen any border guards. The buses just drive through the borders and full speed. In fact I think I was in the toilet on the bus when I went from Latvia to Lithuania. What an entrance! So crossing into Poland was another blink and you'll miss it moment. In fact I'm sure we crossed ...

... We used the internet and then went back to the apartment to kill some time, and also to do some more laundry. The apartment is pretty chilly and I didn't see any way of adjusting the heat. For dinner, we tried getting into Restaurant Goldwasser but were told that it was "occupied" (somewhat rudely, I might add), despite several seemingly open tables. We were offered seats on the terrace but being a cold ...

... eating', not to mention, 'restraint' (a traditional polish dish, 'szmalec', consists of a thick layer of pure pig lard, seasoned with herbs, spread on a slice of bread). The fact that restaurants cost about a third of what they do in Australia, doesn't hurt either. The state of our stomachs was not off to a good start on our arrival in Poland. Following a brief stint of starvation on the train, because we didn't have any Polish money to buy any food (and possibly would have ...

... does a river even go past Oxford, and is it the Thames? My only knowledge of English geography comes from some vague fictional context to do with Victorian England and possibly Oscar Wilde. Secondly, Charis and I are going to England in what amounts to the dead of winter, and wearing the dress I now possess would result in both hypothermia and severe embarrasment, as the inevitable sleet worked its magic on the see-through-in-the-best-of-times fabric. And finally, but perhaps ...

Saturday 19 August Got woke up at 1130 by receptionist asking me to leave as check out time was 11. I felt so bad I asked to stay another night and slept till 6. Still felt bad so saw Madzik at work and went for Indian Chinese then walked round town, absolutely rammed, no crowd control lots of jostling to see an outdoor concert so I went to Absinthe to recover. Left about 11 ...

... with the tourist area until now. I found the train fine and got on the 10:17 to Torun. Again an old style 8 seated separate compartment style train. I read most of the way but kept looking out the window. It was the same as yesterday run down in places and then beautiful wooded areas. I had read somewhere that Poland is lacking in trees. Whether they have made a massive effort in the last 3 years since the book was written or I won't see any more ...

... finally wrote down the train schedule and gave it to me. When I looked at the schedule, it said that the train would leave at 328 pm, so would have to start walking back to the station at 230 pm. Since I arrived at 10 am , I had about 5 hours. Getting out of the train station and find my way into town was another tricky task since there were no signs pointing to downtown. Well, by wasting another 20 minutes asking directions, I finally found my ...