Coburg, Germany
From Prague, I took the night train to Krakow, Poland. My ticket was for a 4-person sleeper. A train conductor checked it and told me to take a different compartment. I looked questioningly at him.
‘You are alone,’ he said. The guy was Czech; he struggled to find English words to explain what he meant and these words did not come. Instead of talking, the conductor led me inside the car and showed where I should sleep.
‘This is not your place, but stay here. Lock the door well,’ he showed me how to do that. Then I got it. He was concerned that I was a woman traveling solo. There were other passengers in my compartment and he moved me to a vacant one where I would be safer and more comfortable. Grateful for such thoughtfulness, I emptied all remaining Czech korunas from my wallet (about $6) into the conductor’s hand.
I made the bed on a lower bunk and locked the door. The car rocked from side to side; the train wheels clanked on rail joints and the gear squealed on curves. The cacophony of these sounds combined with the train motion did not let me to relax and to drift off to sleep. The train stopped at stations where the bright light of lamps on the platform flooded the compartment despite the pulled down blind. My bunk was hard and uneven. When the train accelerated I slid to the edge and almost fell to the floor. I got up, grabbed my sheets and spread them on the opposite bunk. At least there the inertia force pressed me against the wall and I was not in danger of falling off the bunk. I also flipped my pillow to the other bunk end close to the door where the light from outside would bother me less. Usually, I slept well on trains lulled by the soft clickety-clack of their wheels and gentle rocking. That night, I dozed on and off for a few hours and got up well before the conductor knocked on my door to tell me that the train was approaching Krakow. He brought me a cup of coffee which I did not order. I asked why.
‘You gave me a tip, I made coffee for you,’ he said.
At the railway station, I left my backpack in the luggage storage and went to look around. It was my first time in Poland and I had no idea how many zlotych I needed to withdraw from an ATM. A quick look at the menus of station cafes was enough to estimate the purchasing power of the Polish currency. Then I went into a nearby hotel and asked for a city map – the trick that I learned during my travels.
The fortress up on the hill was an obvious attraction. I walked to it through the sleepy city. It was only 7 am, a few pedestrians were around. Everything in the fortress was closed at this early hour. A morning mass was going on in the Royal Cathedral. This Cathedral was the place for all important ceremonies in Poland – royal weddings, coronations, and funerals. I was not allowed to enter during the mass. After another lap around the fortress, I did not want to wait longer and left without seeing the Cathedral’s famous sarcophaguses. I did notice the enormous bones chained to the wall near the entrance. The legend says they belong to the fearsome dragon Smok Wawelski; however, they are more likely to be mammoth or other animal’s bones.
My plan was to stay in Krakow for the night. That quickly changed after I saw the entire old town in one hour and did not know what else to do. Being glad that I did not booked a hotel room, I returned to the railway station and bought a ticket to Gdansk for the 11.51 am train. The weather was not inviting either. The day was chilly and damp. I ate hot pizza and hid in a tourist agency that consisted of one small room with a few chairs. It was warm inside and nobody paid attention to me. I sat there until it was time to take the train. Gdansk is on the Baltic Sea. I always loved cities that are ports. Things would be better and more interesting in Gdansk.
Having left Krakow abruptly, I did not prepare myself for Gdansk as I would normally do.
I knew that Gdansk (formerly known as Danzig) was a major port. It thrived as a trade center due to its location at the river mouth and on the Baltic Sea. The Teutonic Knights controlled the city whose population was predominantly German. When the Teutonic Order was defeated in the middle of the 15th century Danzig became an autonomous city. Officially it belonged to Poland, but in reality, the city was self-governing. Danzig was a member of the Hanseatic League and it continued to grow and prosper from trade.
Prussia seized Danzig at the end of the 18th century. The city remained part of German Empire until it collapsed after World War I. Danzig again became an independent city on the territory of Poland but under the auspices of the League of Nations. Danzig had its own constitution, government, and currency. Germans were still the majority in the city which served as the grounds for Nazi Germany to demand Danzig back. Poland refused to return Danzig. Hitler used that as the pretext to attack Poland on the 1st of September, 1939 and that started World War II. Germany annexed Danzig once again. Danzig suffered from heavy bombing and looting during the war. Most of its historic buildings were destroyed. When Germans fled the city and Danzig became Polish Gdansk, the Soviet Union heavily invested in its reconstruction as a seaport and built three large shipyards pursuing its own interests in this area. These shipyards were the birthplace of the Solidarity movement that led to overthrowing of the Communist rule in Poland.
That is the historical background. However, I did not have a chance to study the area geographically.
The 5-hour ride from Krakow did not feel long. The train was quite comfortable. When I left the railway station I decided to walk to the industrial port thinking that the old town is located somewhere too. That was a big mistake. The historic district was in the opposite direction. It took me 1.5 hours to figure out that. My shoulders hurt from carrying the backpack. I thought I would never find it. It was dark when I finally got to the pedestrian area of the old town. I looked around for hotels and did not see any. Restaurants and shops that sold amber and silver were everywhere, but no hotels.
‘I must be doing something wrong. Where do all these people stay?’ I watched carefree tourists who enjoyed their dinner in the open air. The evening was warm and pleasant. I wanted to join the happy crowd and couldn’t until I had a place to sleep. Upon a closer look at the buildings, I noticed a sign that said Restaurant and Rooms Holland House. Did Rooms mean a hotel? I pushed my way between the tables to the restaurant door. Waiters carried meals outside and dirty plates inside. They looked at me and said nothing. I climbed upstairs. A receptionist sat there at the desk. It was a hotel hidden behind a restaurant on the first floor. Holland House had a room for me. I mentally converted the quoted price into dollars and found it too high, although I liked the hotel and its location.
Feeling like I learned how to identify hotels in Gdansk, I went to search for a cheaper place. After a 15-minute walk, I realized that I was too tired for that and returned to Holland House. During my short absence, the night receptionist took over his day colleague. He quoted me a lower price. This time I did not trust my foggy after the sleepless night brain to do the math and used the calculator on my phone. The room was $75 per night with breakfast, perfectly okay with me. I paid for two nights.
My room looked like a royal chamber. Wood parquet floor, dark antique furniture, stucco cornice, heavy curtains with tassels, and the most modern bathroom – I was glad that I took it! Buffet breakfast at the hotel totally blew me away. There were all kinds of food there including smoked halibut and marinated chanterelles.
My next destination was Kaliningrad, Russia. I bought a ticket for the 6 a.m. bus for the following day at the train station. The agent did not ask for my passport as if anyone could go to Russia. That was the easy part. From Kaliningrad, I intended to go to St. Petersburg and wanted to take a ferry over the Baltic Sea. This leg presented a problem. The online information about Baltic Sea ferries was insufficient and controversial. Some sites showed three ferries with passenger cabins. Others claimed there was only one cargo ferry. The schedules were approximate and subject to change without notice. I found a phone number of an agency in Kaliningrad that sold ferry tickets and called it. A man who answered the phone was surprised to hear that a woman wanted to take that ferry.
‘It is not advisable for you to travel like that. These ferries are for guys who accompany their vehicles on the way to St. Petersburg,’ he said. He confirmed that was only one operating ferry at that time and little chance for me to get a cabin on it. I decided to leave this matter until I got to Russia and to devote the entire day to sightseeing.
Gdansk is a lovely compact city. However, most of the old town buildings are not old. They were reconstructed after World War II and made to look like they stood there for centuries. These buildings have narrow facades with 1 to 3 windows and they extend deep into the land plot. They were built that way because the owners paid tax levied on the house frontage. Only the wealthy citizens could afford to keep a house with a wide facade. Similar taxation laws were in effect in many European countries in the Middle Ages. The facades were usually richly decorated with gables, coats of arms, and plaques with pictures. It is always a pleasure to walk along a medieval street and to study the intricate details of their decor.
When Polish kings visited Gdansk they followed a route specifically designated for them to parade. The Royal Way begins at the Upland Gate, the 16th-century entrance to Gdansk, continues through the Golden Gate to Long Street and Long Market, and ends at the Green Gate.
I roamed around the Old Town until my legs started to hurt, had dinner and returned to the hotel. Delighted by how the day went, I packed my backpack before going to bed to be ready for my 6 a.m. bus. There were afternoon buses to Russia too, but I was worried about the next leg and wanted to be in Kaliningrad as early as possible. Some travelers reported online that they were kept at the border for hours.
I did not set the alarm clock, just told myself to wake up at 5 a.m. I did not need more than 30 minutes for my morning toilette. The walk from the hotel to the bus station was about 30 minutes. The excellent hotel breakfast had to be sacrificed in order to have more time in Kaliningrad to make the right travel decision.
When I opened my eyes the next morning the cellphone showed 5.30 a.m. My muscles felt rested after a good night sleep; I was in a relaxed mood. Half of my brain rejected the reality; the other half was telling me to get up. I lazed in bed two minutes reckoning if the situation was hopeless or if I had a chance to catch that bus. The latter won. I jumped out of bed, pulled on my clothes, splashed some water into my face, and crammed the few remaining items into the backpack. I spent 10 minutes on all that. I knew exactly how much time it took because my eyes were fixed on the clock. Glad that I already paid for the room, I dropped off the key at the reception and ran.
Despite the early hour, the streets were busy. The citizens of Gdansk unhurriedly made their way to work. I pushed through the morning crowd mumbling apologies. In one place, I took a shortcut forgetting that there was no crossing over the rail tracks there, went back to use the overpass, and lost more precious time. When I reached the station the bus driver was finishing his cigarette.
‘Do you have a ticket? Get on.’
The bus to Kaliningrad left right after that.
