To the Polish seaside, 2024

Last minute booking proves a cost-effective travel strategy (unless in high season) if you want to grasp a decent, yet cheaply-priced accommodation. We did it the previous Friday and thus found a three-night stay for mere PLN 400 for the two of us (the dog free of charge).

For the sake of convenience, we chose Sztutowo by Zatoka Gdańska bay, which is one of the nearest seaside spots from Warsaw - mere 325 kilometres from Ursynów, door to door.

Sztutowo is a nefarious example of public transport deprivation, with a journey to Gdańsk Główny train station by two buses lasting at best 4 hours and 33 minutes, longer than a door-to-door journey by car. Driving-wise the S7 section between Czosnów and Płońsk under reconstruction is awfully unfriendly even for a seasoned driver. I somewhat feared my quarter-a-year old car (a review next week) would get a first damage from one of fellow insane drivers (had one near miss), but fortunately it returned home in one piece.

Given the timing of our foray a week before the onset of school holidays and non-resort character of Sztutowo, we stayed far from the groan and enjoyed charms of nearly empty beaches.

In the nearby Krynica Morska to which we travelled by bikes on Monday, precincts and beaches were already full of people on a working week day still before the high season. While Krynica Morska is not a recommendable destination to find a place, the R10 cycling path running to it is utterly breathtaking.

Sztutowo is known for being a location of a nazi concentration camp between 1939 and 1945. On the somewhat rainy Sunday I cycled to the local museum to have an encounter with the traces of one of lousiest atrocities in the history of the mankind. Realising what happened there is not equivalent to being confronted with the testimony thereof.

Albeit the very journey there and the accommodation were cheap, eating out involved forking out loads of money for the horrific restaurant receipts (paragony grozy) a lunch for two (a sizeable portion of fish, French fries, a set of rawness, beverage) was the expense between PLN 120 (pricey, yet still reasonable) and PLN 160 (too pricey for non-resort location and pre-high season). With most tables occupied, I presume with eating out not particularly affordable for an average Pole, the local market remains in a balance, especially since holidaymakers tend to be less thrifty.

Check out also the coverages of previous trips to the seaside in May 2022 and June 2021.

To the seaside in 2022

Holidaying came earlier than usual this year, with my late-spring / early-summer trip being brought forward by my mother’s complicated surgery (hip transplant) scheduled for 24 May. Mum is pulling through, though she will be on the mend by around the end of August. Given the short notice in which she had been notified about the admission to the hospital, I had to plan everything less than two weeks in advance. After last year’s foray to the seaside with the bikes, I decided to repeat it this year, however wanted to visit more than a dozen place within a few days of stay.

To the right, a sunset snapped on Sunday, 15 May, a few minutes past 9:00 p.m., from the nearly empty beach in Rewal (eight hours of drive from Warsaw). Polish sea shore faces north-west in most places hence is ideal for watching the sun going down into the sea. The only drawback was the temperature – wind chill below +10C.

The church in Trzęsacz a few centuries ago was built 2 kilometres from the beach. Over hundreds of years, the Baltic Sea has taken away much of the land and ruins of the church crumbled down the cliff. Currently the remnants are protected from the forces of the nature. Note the trees are not in leaf yet. Cold April and first half of May delayed vegetation.

This horrific building on the western edge of Pobierowo is a Gołębiewski Hotel, still under construction. I can safely bet it would offer accommo- dation to more than 1,000 guests. An ugly blot on the landscape that will add up to droves of people invading seaside resorts in July and August. Worth noting such edifices are not a rarity in southern Europe.

The desolated Niechorze brought to my mind the streets of Slovenian Portoroz. Just like most towns and villages I visited, it was nearly empty. Tourists begin to turn up in early June, to flood the area during school holidays and then to disappear at the beginning of September.

I made several stopovers along the way, to stroll around, or just to sit on a bench and read a book. My vehicle was protected by a decent bicycle lock, purchased for 120 zlotys in Decathlon, well ahead I had to boycott the retailer. The lock is solid enough to give me comfort of protection against theft.

Although the season was low, the narrow-gauge railcar kept running between Trzęsacz and Pogorzelica, here caught in a station in Niechorze. Note the lighthouse in the distance.

The R10/R13 cycling trail between Niechorze and Pogorzelica runs through a picturesque forest parallel to the railway. This part of it is a proper cycling path, accessible by any bike and offering conditions to move quite fast (and in a lovely scenery).

Between Pogorzelica and Mrzeżyno in the middle of a forest one can come across the Baltic Pipe gas pipeline. The first question which popped to my mind when I saw such wide corridor in a chopped down forest was about the diameter of the pipe(s). Hope it is launched soon.

The cycling trail in some places offers rest / leisure spots for cyclists – here on of them in the middle of a forest close to Pogorzelica. I have run across few cyclists on my way, but blame the low season and windy weather for that.

Kołobrzeg which I visited on my way from Rewal (first lodgings) to Ustka (second one) was anything, but enchanting to me. I see no rationale for popularity of the city. The only nice place I found there was a park separating the beach and the city – a gorgeous area for strollers and cyclists.

To the right, the beach on the eastern edge of Ustka, lit by the late-afternoon sun. Here not as few tourist as in western parts of the seaside, also fewer visitors from Germany (and cars on German plates) can be spotted.

As it turned out at the Ustka train station, wczasy wagonowe are not necessarily the relic of the past. Those carriages sitting at the sidings seemed inhabited by people, who came there by the silver Volkswagen SUV with the trailer. As I peeked into the carriages, accommodation conditions in the carriages dating back probably to 1960s wer dismal.

Probably few know Ustka once had a shipyard. These days premises are rundown and skeleton of ship outside the shipyard building is turning into rust. If those facilities were to be torn down and the land cleared up, attractive tourist area would emerge.

Ustka has made a tremendous use of the EU funds to restore its buildings to bring back the climate of a fishmen’s town. The sad side effect is that too much soil has been concreted over. This mistake will need to be reversed in some time.

Sand dunes in Słowiński Park Narodowy are the only ones in Poland. I popped over there on the warmest day of my stay (Thursday, 19 May) when temperature topped +26C. Waddling up and down through the moving deep sand in full sunshine was not the biggest pleasure, yet the sight of unusual landscapes make up for inconveniences.

Of course, one cannot walk anywhere, but has to stick to fenced-off trails. Yet, as you can see, the dunes do not resemble a typical deserts – several coniferous plants have grown on the sand and prevent it from moving too fast.

The last snap comes with an Intercity train about to depart from Ustka station. The town has three IC connections per pay, offering direct journeys to Poznań, Wrocław, Katowice, Kraków and Przemyśl. To my surprise, there is no direct connection to Warsaw, which is a bit of a letdown.

To the seaside

The summer solstice is close by and I am back from the first holiday trip since September 2020 and my first longer stay at the Polish seaside since 2004. I concede not to be a big fan of the resorts at the Baltic coast. Droves of people, groan, stalls with souvenirs and ice-cold water in the sea in the high season put me off the place. But still in the low season (more than tolerable density of tourists over the working week) and with bikes as the main vehicle for moving about, the trip there turned out to be a perfect idea.

The weather also proved perfect, with continuous sunshine and day-time highs between +18C and +23C, conditions for cycling were more than conducive.

Before placing a reservation, we had to check whether two bikes with disassembled front wheels fit within the boot of my car (rear seats folded down) and leave some space for suitcases and rucksacks. My Megane turned out to be sufficiently spacious to fit all the stuff we needed. I am nevertheless not sure, whether the door-to-door journey by car (six hours with two stopovers – one to take a break from sitting behind the wheel, the other for a lunch) was shorter than going by train to Gdynia and then on to Władysławowo by another one, yet given all hassle with bikes and luggage and inconvenience of being unable to reach all places by bike, it has proven an optimal solution. The journey duration will shorten by nearly an hour in 2022, once the missing section of S7 motorway between Płońsk and Mława is opened.

The major nuisance along the way to the seaside was the aircon refrigerant which has run out and turned off the aircon compressor, prompting me to drive with open windows. This was not a breakdown, but my neglect, since the liquid had not been filled up since 2017 and I should have asked to have it changed in April, when the car had been serviced. I also report reasonable fuel consumption of 6.46 litres per 100 kilometres.

We booked an apartment for rent in Władysławowo via AirBnB, in reasonable vicinity of the beach. The spot is most northerly one in Poland, meaning in June days are the longest and sunsets are observed half an hour later than in Warsaw. On top, one has the chance of watching the sun going down into the sea on the horizon. The snap to the right was taken at 9:23 p.m. (provided camera clock had been set correctly).

Our longest trip (exactly 100 kilometres in which I beat my life record) was along the Hel peninsula and around. Here, a view from a pier in Jastarnia towards a promenade. Quite a few folks in the low season.

Same day, another promenade, in Hel. For decades a military zone, now open to everyone. Main types of tourists coming over in the first half of June are elderly people and couples with small children.

The peninsula can boast of a 35-kilometre-long cycling path running through it and marked R10. The path is at some sections more than picturesque, here, surrounded by greenery somewhere between Chałupy and Kuźnica.

To take some rest after a long ride, we drove to Sopot. Shame to admit, I had to catch up on my lifelong absence in the middle part of Trójmiasto. The visit paid was short – one can see the promenade, the pier, the grand hotel and so is the list of attractions basically over. We wondered how people can spend a fortnight there without getting bored.

From Sopot we drove to Gdańsk to stray around the old town area. In 2015 and 2016 I dropped in on the city several times in business, yet had little time to enjoy it. The Długi Targ street lit by early-summer sun looked out much better than in gloom of late November.

Another destination of a cycling trip was Dębki, less than 30 kilometres west of Władysławo-wo. The seaside village has lost far less of its virginity than other places at the Baltic coast. In the high season it definitely is not as peaceful, yet I rate it high.

For the end, a bonus shot from a spontaneous trip by car to Cypel Rewski, a quite undiscovered, yet magical place somewhere half way between Trójmiasto and Władysławowo. Worth popping by in June when days are the longest, sunny and scores of tourist do not spoil the atmosphere. As we came around the venue was invaded by a crew shooting an advertisement of Bank Millennium. Watch out for it in the coming weeks!

Given the number of attractions around, less than a weeks seems an optimum duration if you are not fond of lying about on a beach of wandering between eateries. Hope the coming weeks help catch up for weeks of staying at home to keep the epidemic at bay.