17th May – 23rd May 2024
It was only a 30km drive to get to Poland, which was still on the island of Usedom. The only thing that told us that we had arrived was a signpost informing us of the various different speed limits for different vehicles in different areas, in Polish of course. Here was our first exposure to a language of which we knew nothing. Many of the rules of pronounciation that we ar familiar with were thrown out of the window, decorated with little accents, strikethroughs, dots and the odd tail. They have a total of 17 letters and letter combinations that are unknown to English speakers. We were in trouble! Luckily many Polish people speak some, if not excellent, English, and as previously mentioned, having Google Translate is like having a Babel fish. (Google this too if you have never read Dougla Adams’ Hitchhikers Guide To The Galaxy). We did not have plans to go very far today, only to the town just on the other side of the border, Świnoujście. Roughly prounounced ‘Schvin-oo-jzay’. Here we initially tackled two immediate tasks. Doing laundry and getting some cash. Laundry was easy. The internet directed us to a nice modern laundrette which took card payments, provided all its instructions in English and had a nice big car park right next door. Perfect. In the meantime Nick had to take a 10 minute walk to find an ATM, and having ‘hunter-gathered’, returned to his washer-woman with his catch….a fistful of funny money. Poland has retained its currency, the złoty (pronounced ‘zwoh-teh’), since joining the EU in 2004. One złoty is equal to about 20p and I have yet to see any coins smaller than that. Change is often a bit arbitary and prices seem to be always rounded up (never down) to the nearest whole zloty if paying with cash. Who are we to complain? How are we to complain???!
Chores done we found a campsite about 2km from the town centre at the marina. It looked out onto the shipping channel which gave access to the town’s rather unexpectedly busy port. Świnoujście is a major ferry terminal for the many massive ferries that cross between Sweden and Poland and many other freighters that carry cargo across the Baltic, thus providing an important link between Scandinavia and the rest of Europe. It also has purportedly one of Poland’s best beaches, also touted as it’s largest and longest. The town was always regarded as a health resort, but in recent years it has seen an influx of serious money and the building of many large, global brand hotels, appartment blocks and a rather swanky new promenade lined with restaurants, shops and bars. This new strip is built a block inland from the beach offering shelter from the omnipresent cool breeze coming off the Baltic. It may be sunny, but the wind chill can be significant. We didn’t really know what to expect of this place but found it quietly humming with the small crowds of shoulder season. It was clean and what wasn’t brand new was well maintained and cared for. There were dedicated cycle paths and walkways everywhere and, the yardstick by which all places should be measured for civility and respect, there was zero dog sh*t. I even saw a council contractor wiping bird poop off park benches.
We had an outing to the famed beach and it was quite epic. A vast expanse of white sand dotted with people most of whom either had all their clothes on or who had deployed their wind breaks. The glorious sunshine was not enough to counter the relentless cool breeze. We attempted to ‘relax with a book and soak up some rays’ but it just wasn’t quite warm enough. The locals know this and were still all wearing coats. It was only us tourists, mainly Poles and Germans, who were determinedly willing summer to be here. The Baltic coast does deliver a summer. It’s short and sweet – July and August only. Non negotiable. Otherwise, put your clothes back on and find a sheltered spot to sit in. And whatever you do, don’t even think about going swimming……
Our trip to Świnoujście coincided with a Saturday, and that meant that I was able to do another ParkRun. Number 2 on my ‘Not-A-ParkRun-Tour’ tour of Europe. The course was 2 laps through a section of a rather lovely tree-filled formal park, only a hop-and-a-skip (on an electric bike) from camp. Here there was no helpful welcome briefing in English, no marshalls out on the course and no yellow signs with direction arrows marking the route. Instead the course had been permenantly signposted with some rather subtle ParkRun signs, often hidden in the foliage so it was more a case of ‘follow the leader’ to find the way. I found myself running alongside a chap who was a bit older than me, and luckily knew the way. It soon became apparent that we were matching each other stride for stride and so we struck up a conversation of sorts. He was Polish and spoke some German, but no English, so I murdered some very rusty school level German to try and chat with him. Running with my new pal, Irek, delivered me my ParkRun PB of 31m26s, and at the end he told me (via Google translate) that he was ‘happy that we had found each other in the crowd’ (of 39 runners). I understood his sentiment.
Back at camp there was the ongoing amusement of the constant procession of ferries and ships going by with the added entertainment of watching the tugs and pilot boats doing their work. The ferries were enormous from our conservative distance across the channel but it got quite exciting when one was moored up on the dockside right alongside the campsite. No idea why it was here but it had arrived and off-loaded so I guess it was waiting for a delayed embarkation slot. It was quite a spectacle. No safety barriers errected here, no, just a thin tape to indicate where you couldn’t approach. I’ve been on large ferries and seen cruise ships what I thought was ‘up close’ but being so close to such a massive vessel on the dockside was quite remarkable. Mildly amusing was the fact that just prior we had been watching some fellow campers manouvre themselves into ‘the best’ positions with water views along that section of dockside whilst simultaneously annoying each other in mini battles for territory. The ferry eclipsed it all, and then filled the air with the hum of its generators, even after the engines were turned off. What’s the Polish for Schadenfreude……?
By morning it was gone and the Marine Shipping website advised that it had sailed at 0130. I’m not sure how it left without disturbing us. It was time for us to go too and we continued eastwards along the coast, or the ‘Polish Riviera’ as I have dubbed it. Our next stop was in another beachside resort town called Meilno. Our route there was mostly on a main road that is in the process of being upgraded from a single carriageway that passes through the towns and villages to a snazzy, new dual carriageway. This meant that the journey was 50% fast and smooth and 50% slow and lumpy, with roadworks. There is a lot of freight on this road and in the summer it must also be the route for all the holiday makers coming to the beach resorts. It will be a relief to everyone when it is finished. The final 20km or so of our journey was on a very pot-holed minor road and it felt like Davide was going to be shaken to bits. We did arrive in one piece, selected a campsite with a view and settled in. Meilno is home to another glorious expanse of sandy beach that stretches for miles. As a non-port town it was developed in the post war, communist era as a resort town where ordinary folk could come and have a holiday with state provided accomodation and entertainment. The legacy of that origin lives on as the town has continued to cater to middle-of-the road Polish families and there are countless small holdiay appartments, hotels and cabins. The ‘strip’ was inhabited by a parade of identikit, budget restaurants serving affordable menus of exactly the same food: Kebabs, pizzas, sausage and chips, chicken and chips and fish and chips -substitue mashed potato on request. The tourist tat shops all sold exactly the same plastic chaff and there was a scattering of fairground type rides and some large marquees set up containing arcade games and penny-pushers, or should I say ‘zloty-pushers’? There were a few people around, but again, despite the fact it was a hot, sunny Sunday, it felt quite empty. This is another town waiting for the onslaught of Summer proper. Meilno sits on a narrow isthmus between the coast and a large lake, and this was our view. It would have been the perfect place to break out the paddleboards if it hadn’t been blowing a consistant 20 kph for the entirety of our stay here. Another day.
There was a lovely walking path along the beach front, including a long section of boardwalk, and the ubiquitous bike paths and walking tracks along the lake shore too. This made for a nice loop to walk, and so we did. The beach itself was dotted with a few folk but there was no-one in the water. We tested the temperature.
It was a refreshing 10 deg C. Baltic by name, Baltic by nature. Polish people have a reputation for being quite stoic. This is one of the reasons why, I think. They are made to swim in the sea when they come here on their summer holidays. A highlight of our time here was calling into a roadside seller of smoked fish. The smell lured us in we passed as the smoker was open and cooling and we couldn’t resist buying a few pieces for our dinner. It was delicious.
Next on the journey was the Pomeranian town of Łeba, pronounced ‘Webah’. This is another coastal resort, similar to the others, but it has an ace up its sleeve. It is next door to one of the jewels in Poland’s crown, The Slowinski National Park. This covers an area of nearly 200 sqkm with forest, a large lake and about 32km of Baltic coast. It’s main feature is a large area of sand dunes that are shifting continually east by about 10m/year. It is one of the few places in the world where dunes meet living forest. There is apparently much wildlife to see here, although our only sighting was a slightly mangey fox that had obviously been habituated to humans by being fed.
Less ‘nature-y’ is this area’s history as a site for long-range rocket testing in the war. Along with the V1/V2 rocket program in Peenemünde, there was a lot of impressive ordnance flung off into the Baltic from this bit of coast, its infamy being explained in a slightly tired, open air museum half way along the path to the dunes.
Our stopping place here was the rather euphamistically titled ‘Soul Camp’. It was a (nearly) lakeside, grassy site with several (empty) A-frame type cabins, a (cold) pool, a (closed) bar/foodtruck, an (unmanned) office, an interesting (lock-free) unisex shower hut and space for about eight campers with only one other van here when we arrived. There was a number to call on the reception door, but no-one answered so I sent a text and we settled in. We never did see any staff here. I eventually got a text back to say leave the cash payment in a lock-box when we left, and so, after two peaceful days, we did. The few other Germans that were here did the same thing. Seems a very relaxing way to run a business.
The national park entrance was an easy 5km cycle from camp, and then another 5km through the forest to the dunes along a very elderly and very uneven concrete road (apparently constructed using POW labour). It was very beautiful, although a bit of a bone-rattler as our bikes don’t have any suspension. There are no vehicles allowed in the park except for electric golf cart style buses which made it very peaceful….except for the hoards of children. This was our first exposure to the phenomenon of ‘Polish School Trip Season’. From here and now, whenever there has been something or somewhere of note to visit, there are coach loads of backpack-wearing children, of all ages, being marched around in loose crocodile formations. The young ones are all a-chatter and excited, the teenagers are trying simultaneously to look cool and surly, and naturally group themselves into emos, jocks, geeks and jokers. Kids are the same the world over. We shall henceforth be spending our time trying to avoid them. Also, no German Shepherds were allowed in the park, although a nearby sign indicated that frogs were permitted.
We cruised into the park, past the school groups, who were being forced to walk at least one way, and having stopped to peruse the rocket museum and survived a visit to a porta-loo, we headed to the dunes, where we saw the fox, tied up the bikes, took off our shoes and hit the sandy hill.
They really were quite amazing. The higher we climbed the breezier it got and by the time we reached the highest point with the best view it was quite blowy and not an ideal place for our planned picnic. I guess we had failed to consciously acknowledge the basic concept of the mechanism of ‘shifting sand dunes’ happening as a consequence of a stiff wind. We descended, dodging school children, some unable to resist the urge to roll downhill, and found a moderately sheltered spot in which to eat our sandwiches with a reduced risk of grit b’twixt our molars or embedded in our corneas.
Łeba was bigger and a bit fancier than the other coast towns that we had visited, but again felt quite subdued and waiting for the craziness of summer. I can imagine that in peak season ‘Soul Camp’ isn’t quite so tranquil, and doesn’t have the same ‘let yourself in and make yourself at home’ vibe. After two nights here we headed off. Next stop Gdańsk.
it looks incredibly beautiful, I do love a good beach!