Stara Karczma Pensjonat Gdansk

... town along the bike/walking trail that runs next to the beach.<br><br> As we walk along, we pass some magnificent old houses. Sopot was once and might still be a lovely seaside resort for Poles with money. Some of the other old houses have turned into museums and bed and breakfast places. We pass a "lody" place. We know that this means ice cream so get a soft serve cone. Hubby has a cappuccino as he ...

... same chocolate. Oh heaven. This morning we headed directly to this café to check it out and to share with my hubby what a wonderful delicious thing this is. <br><br> While the Polish drink is not quite as decadent as that which I had in Croatia, it comes with so many more choices! You could get chocolate with coffee, with raspberries, with whiskey, Contreau, orange ...

... to see if we want to buy. We leave.<br><br> A restaurant, a café, someplace where it is necessary to be served. I ask for a menu from a waiter so they will know we are there. We sit close to the door. The waiter comes and serves the table next to us then walks past us back into the restaurant. Next the waiter comes and serves the table across from us and then gets ...

... old prison and torture cells but while the sign outside shows lots of things to see inside, there was no entrance gate or ticket seller.<br><br> As we are walking into the old town on the pedestrian area, a young tourist guide approaches us. She gives tours in an electric car for ½ hour, an hour, or 1 ½ hour which includes going up to an overlook of the city. As I always go UP, it ...

... you look closely enough before playing Frogger! Miraculously the 106 rolled on up and about ten minutes later I was deep inside an industrial area straight out of the Krushchev era. <br><br>The end of the line for the trusty ole Von Hundret and Six is Westerplatte where I traded hundreds of old fogies from the cruise ships for hundreds of second graders on their school outings. I don't know which is worse...Helen waxing exuberantly about grocery store ...

... clear that it was game over for The General. The AA man turned up, shook his head and towed the The General back to Manchester while the three of us piled into Team Mannshaft's VW van - who by some sort of Dumball Miracle had happened to be about 20 minutes behind us and had a van with room for 6 people! All's well that ends well and we made it to Harwich with all our stuff, but without The General and minus ...

... who headed the Solidarity movement and was later president of Poland. I remember seeing the riots on TV. It was the start of the fall of Russian control, including the fall of the Berlin Wall - very historical place. We headed back to the ship and sailed for Denmark. The Polish people are very proud and very distrustful of Russia. They are trying very hard to become and remain a free country. Joining the EU has helped them a lot ...

... room with en-suite (???) (still under the 20 pound mark however). Settled down for the night and caught up on the sleep we missed on the bus journey from hell. Friday - 25/07/08 Got up earlyish and wandered the old town, this time climbing the Old Town Hall Tower which had cracking panoramic views of the whole city. Visited the cathedral which was not as impressive as the exterior would suggest ...

... It has a beautiful old town, which is being renovated and restored beautifully and is full of tourists, especially German ones. We did not spend too much time here, but we will be back to visit for longer and learn more about the history of the town. The old part of town was full of tourist groups with tour guides, usually older ones, telling stories and tales of what used to happen in this fantastic port town centuries ago.

Woke up and had the 'traditional' breakfast consisting of stale bread, with butter, jam, boiled egg and coffee. Interesting, give me a full English any day. Headed into town along the waterfront and then onto St Marys Basilica, the largest brick build church in the world. Inside it is whitewash and fairly generic, huge all the same. There is a small doorway with a man next to it. Pay him the equivalent of 50 pence or so and he lets you enter his spiral staircase. This is not one ...