Władysławowo..cool weather and amazing beaches!

The train ride from Kolo to Wladyslawowo was an endurance test for sure. The train from Kolo was a good 20 minutes late and it was a rush in exchange in Kutno to find a seat on the train. An hour into the train ride, we were informed that the train would be breaking apart in Bydgoszcz and we were in the wrong train. We needed to switch compartments and found ourselves shuffling between compartments packed like sardines with all of the other confused travellers. After a few short tense moments with Chad worrying about the smokers in the compartment, we found our way to a few seats that would carry us the rest of the way to Gdynia, where we would again have to change trains for another hour and a half trip, making the total journey a cool 9 hours (for 320 km)! The first night we found the rented apartment and stopped in at the local sklep (store) and stocked up for the night and morning with the necessary supplies (beer, vodka, eggs bread and yogurt!!). That night, Mike came up for a visit, but Justyna was exhausted from a long day with Lily. We managed to keep Mike hostage for most of the night, retiring all of the liquor we had stocked up on and necessitating another trip to Mike’s house to tap into their reserves to ensure we had enough lubrication for the conversation of the evening. It was a great night catching up with Mike and an even better night full of English for Mike, as being a non Polish speaking Canadian on vacation for 6 weeks in Poland with a Polish family, it can get a bit tough to carry on always trying to understand and not having the opportunity to actually speak your mind.

Mike Jakeman and Lily!

The next day, we were off to the beach between Hel and Wladyslawowo. We wished we could have gone to Hel but, we didn’t ..we made it half way! The beach is rather amazing on this strip of the Baltic sea. On the Ocean side of the port, there are large waves, and amazing sand. Across the short peninsula, which is lined by a 200 meter deep forest lies the bay of Hel, which is a shallow water port that is famous for wind and kite surfing. We spent the entire day lying on the beach, in cool 20-25 degree temperatures, enjoying the amazing sand and friendly company! We had a great lunch at a place right across from the beach we were hanging out at…we got a Hamburger (with apparently the polish trimmings of cabbage, peas, radishes and sauce) pretty funny. We were told later that this was not a traditional hamburger. That night, we went on a walk with Mike through the town down to the Ocean and the port. It was an amazingly beautiful night, as the sky was completely cloudless and clear. There was supposed to be a comet shower, but there were only a few comets that we saw. It was still amazing to see the meteors crashing down to the Earth. We each saw a few shooting across the heavens, and many wishes were made for the future. The beach at night was thankfully more desolate than it was during the day. Polish beaches are something from a comic magazine, in that they are so absurd to our traditional North American sense of how things function. Each family comes to the beach equipped with their ‘snow fences’ (actually wind and sand fences) and the set up a barrier around their turf in the sand composed of sticks planted in the ground wrapped in cloth about 3-4 feet tall, that surround or nearly surround their area. It is very well accustomed that no one enters the fortress of another family without invitation! It’s pretty cool because everyone has their space like a little home on the beach. The main beaches in Wladyslawowo are so packed that it is hard to move. But, as you travel out on the peninsula there are far fewer people and the beach is almost desolate. You are spaced hundreds of meters from the next encampment fortress of the next family that it almost makes you feel like you are the only ones on the beach.

Chad, Mike and Marcin!

The second day we simply walked around the town and met up with Mike and his brother in-law for a small tour of the town of Wladyslawowo. We spent the day simply talking and walking around the town. We made a stop for Kebabs, a little street shopping and to the Zywiec tent (Zywiec is a Polish beer) The town is filled to the maximum of tourists, almost all, probably 97.5% of them all Polish. Traffic jams clogging the one lane roads, and people filling the streets at nearly all hours of the day. We learned that the town, typically with 10,000 residents swells to around 100,000 to 120,000 people in the summer. That night, we had a home made fish fry, and had a quiet night in. We kept ourselves occupied in our barren (ie no TV) apartment wtih a few card games before heading to bed.

Day three was pretty relaxed, we said our goodbyes to Mike, Justyna and Lily and went to get our train tickets and buy some salmon sausage. Mike introduced us to this little delicacy the day before. It is literally sausage filled with smoked salmon. It is a real treat! In the evening we headed into town to get a delicious meal of fish and potatoes on the coast. The fish here is amazing, all caught fresh and everything you can imagine is available for cheap. We had Halibut and Salmon with potatoes and salad and it was only 46 zlotes, a little less than 20 dollars. After our meal, we walked around again to take in the sights of Wladyslawowo. This town is Poland’s version of a small vacation town, with all of the carnival trimmings. There are shops set up on all the streets, people driving around in go-carts everywhere, theme parks, carnival rides and so much more! Poland is well known for amber and this area is the capital production area of amber. The Amber is either mined, or can be found washing up on the beach after a storm. It is made of sap from trees millions of years old and is a polish jem. Ewa managed to find a nice piece of amber for a necklace and now has a Polish amulet J. That night, it was more of the same as the night before, some relaxing, a few card games, packing and getting ready for the next day, back to Warsaw!

Ewa and Fish dinner in Wladyslawowo

Władysławowo..cool weather and amazing beaches!

Wladyslawowo, Poland