HEADING NORTH

After “escaping” the area around Sagan, we drove northwards towards Toruń, a medieval city in Northern Poland. Despite the ravages of the 20^thcentury, Toruń’s medieval Old Town came through it pretty well unscathed and is now a UNESCO World Heritage Site. We camped on the opposite side of the River Vistula to the main town and it was an easy walk across the long bridge into the town. The weather was very hot as most of Europe seems to be going through a heat wave. We even managed an early morning run across the almost kilometre long bridge, and around the city and old town before most people were awake. The city is also famous for its gingerbread of which several bags of the tasty delicacies found their way back to Max. (Didn’t last long though)

A couple of the bridges over the River Vistula at Toruń

Mike made a new friend

The old centre

They love statues in Poland

Toruń old town

The Leaning Tower of Toruń

After a few days in Toruń we were on the move again for a short drive (around 130 kilometres) for our first sighting of The Baltic Sea in the TriCity area of Gdynia, Gdańsk and Sopot, which was to be our base. We found a camp site and were “shoe-horned” in. (They do like packing as many in as possible on these busy sites). The whole area is beautiful and once again, once Max was parked up, he was not driven again as we either walked or as in this case cycled on the fantastic network of cycle tracks that connect these three cities and this coastal region. Perhaps we should say here that UK, and especially London, could learn a fantastic amount about way that cycling is made a pleasure here. In the main cycle tracks are kept very separate from other vehicles and often from pedestrian walkways. If a cycle track is shared by pedestrians and bikes then they are clearly marked cycles on one side and pedestrians on the other. Where footpaths cross them then they have mini zebra crossings and at junctions then it is not unusual to have a mini roundabout. Cyclists give way at crossings to pedestrians and vice versa. It is a real pleasure to cycle. 

It was so hot that it was good to swim quite late into the evening

At night it went down to 20 and in the day a high of nearly 40 was recorded

Paddling in the Baltic in the evening

We loved this huge bike and small caravan

A "bent" house

Reflections in Sopot

Modern Town centre

Jan cooling of in a street "shower"

Street entertainment in the town centre

Beautiful Baltic Beaches that were busy

Packed in

Sopot was a busy place with a modern town centre and lots of restaurants and beach bars all along the coast. The 15 kilometre cycle into Gdansk through the pine trees bordering the coast took us on a visit to see the European Solidarity Museum at the Gdansk Shipyard. This we found to be a really interesting museum and very well set out and explained with personal headsets. To us this is a must see and one of the best museums that we have been to. Although we both feel we both know the facts of Poland’s road to independence, reading about some of the personal stories of the struggle for freedom was sobering to say the least. 

The Solidarity Memorial

The Original boards fixed to the Gdansk Shipyard gates with the dock workers demands

In the Solidarity Museum

The original membership card for Lech Walesa numbered 0001 for Solidarity

What remains of the once huge Gdansk Shipyards

No 2 gate where the strike began

In Sopot we managed another of our Park Run tours, out second in Poland. Even though it was ridiculously hot at 9am, we both managed to get close to our personal bests on a great course along the coast and through a park named Ronald Reagan Park.

UK contingent of Jan and I plus a group from Stafford at the Park Run

It was good of President Reagan and Pope John-Paul to be at the Park Run

After a few days here it was time to extract Max from the maze of other motorhomes, tents, and caravans including one little caravan towed by a huge 3 wheeled motorbike, and head of again on the road. Our next stop was in an area of Poland called Masuria which is heavily forested with hundreds of lakes. It was in this area that in 1941, Hitler decided to build his Eastern Front Military Headquarters for the assault of Russia. Hitler moved here in 1941 and actually spent most of the next 3 years living here. It was a huge complex that was added to and reinforced during the time it was in use. Many of the bunkers and reinforced structures were for high ranking personnel such as Martin Borman and Herman Goering as well as offices and meeting rooms. It was in one of these meeting rooms that an attempt of Hitler’s life in July 1944 took place. Hitler left for the final time in November 1944 and the whole area was blown up by the Germans two days before the arrival of The Red Army. What can be seen today is the remains of these massive reinforced structures, some more complete or in a  better condition than others, including Hitler’s huge bunker. It was a fascinating place and for anyone interested in European History of that era, a place to visit.

A Memorial to General Stauffenburg, the perpetrator of the plot to assassinate Hitler at this exact spot

Remains of Bunkers

Reinforced concrete blown apart

The amount of explosives used must have made a large bang

Hitlers Bunker has all but collapsed

Inside and under Hitlers Bunker

Jan looking through Hitlers Personal Bunker

This was Goering's Home

Another view of Goerings home

Reinforced Concrete

Beside the lake for the night

Our site for that night was beside a beautiful lake with storks nesting on a pole nearby. We have seen plenty of white storks all over this area but it cannot be long before they all migrate south and east for the winter. The weather through all of this area had been really hot with the occasional rain and once when driving torrential rain that flooded the roads for a while. After a leisurely drive through the Mazurian lakes and forests we had one more stop beside another lake for swimming and then heading towards the border

It was good to go swimming

Storks

The town of Gniew

Poland was quite different to what we had expected. It is a very beautiful country and although we had only driven up the western side (we come back through Poland in a few weeks and will see the Eastern side with many of the places that British Tourists tend to head for then) we thought Silesia would be more industrial than it was. Most of the area we travelled in was very rural with much  arable farming. It is the harvest season and many of the cornfields were being cut. The roads were really good and traffic out of the towns was light. The towns were beautiful and many that had been damaged badly during the wars of the 20^thcentury then suffered under Communist influence and rule either had been or were in the process of being rebuilt. 

Harvest time

Why not take a look or better still subscribe to our You Tube channel where we hope to put up more videos of "Our Grand Tour" when we can. It can be found here

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1xs3cOA5Lmffdn-cKixoSA?view_as=subscriber




The next instalment of the blog will see “Our Grand Tour” continue into The Baltic States, thanks for reading and let us know any comments you have on the blog or on our videos that we are producing

Mike and Jan