Gdansk

The first impression I got from this trip is that the polish rivalry should be between Gdansk and Krakow, instead of Warsaw and Krakow. Yeah, the capitals of the country and all that but, of the few polish cities I have seen, Gdansk is the only one that an compeat with Krakow in beauty and atmosphere. But I will explain everything.

To go there from Krakow you have several options. Well, two: PolskiBus and PKP train. They are very similar in price -just if yoy are a polish student, because you have 51% discount. The trip in train takes around 8 hours and in bus around 10. Polskibus is very uncomfortable; the train is not a bed but at least to have more space and travelling in train is so much fancier.

We stayed in a hostel named La Guitarra Hostel. Its great, I completely recommend it. Its located near the center and next to the river, so everytime yo go out you can walk by the river and it's beautiful and you will never get lost. For us, it was 20 zl the night but it didn't include breakfast. We were lucky and met some Ukranian boys who left very early the next day and they left their breakfast for us. My friends payed 30 zl and it included te breakfast. The meal was very good: milk, cereal, real coffee, tea, sandwich, etc. The hostel had one shower in each floor and two toilets; always very clean and the shower had even individual space to change your clothes. The lockers were very nice and big. The common area was also great: the kitchen is very big and with everything you need to cook, cute little tables, sofa, TV, audio system, piano ad guitars that you can use whenever you want. The traveller atmosphere was amazing and we could meet a lot of people of all around the world and we even had a beer in some bar with them.

The first day we had morning coffee in a nice coffee shop named Dobra Kawa. Very cute and good coffee but a bit expensive; anyway, this was what we needed to start the day. After that we went to the train station to buy the ticket (1, 8 zl) to Sopot with the SKM company. I really liked the trip because Sopot is 30 min far away from Gdansk and the the train is very old and comfortable and you can look through the window and all the thing is like travelling 40 years ago. The train station in Sopot is very close to the interesting things -all the town is very small- so we went to the long street Montecasino, I think is named- and walk along it. In this street you can see the dancing house and at the end of it a very nice square in front of the beach. I have to say that seeing the Ocean after so many months was incredible but the Baltic sea is not one of my favorites, of course, I live next to the Caribbean sea- it's very grey, very cold, very quite.. like a lake. We walked the adorable dock and took a lot of pictures.

Then we touched the sand, the water and look for little shells and amber pieces. The amber is typical from Gdansk and is also known as The gold of the Baltic. When we got tired of the treasure hunt we decided to eat. As we are good catholic girls, we couldnt eat meat on Good Friday, so we found a very good vegetarian milk bar -yeah, very weird- called Green Way, and it was great because they had cheap and different food, not just pierogis but filled paprika and baked vegetables and so.

Afer it we decided to go to Westerplatte, the place where II World War started. You can take 106 bus on the main train station and the last stop is Westerplatte. This place is very interesting because first, is free and second, is a cute park with the history of Westerplatte and Gdansk, and at the beggining you think is has nothing to do with IIWW but then you realized that has everything to do. And you have a very big monument in the place the first bullet was shot and ruins of some barracks, and you can walk and think about how in that place everything started and why. Kind of helps you put the pieces in the puzzle. Maybe it's something not everyone would like, but it's very interesting and even if you dont like history, the park and th walk is nice, and in summer you can go on a boat, which must be a great ride.

We got back to the hostel, very tired of course, and slept and hang out with people in the hostel. Next day we took our great breakfast and the the Free Walking Tour in the city center and, of course, it was amazing, you just have to do it. We couldn't go to Solidarity Museum or the castle 40 minutes ago... but these are more reasons for coming back. We had lunch in a restaurant called Smok, in front of a milk bar -in case you prefer not to spend money. This place has all my respect because was open in a Holy Saturday. The food was very good, all kind of polish food for a very good price. I ate something with potatoes and salmon and it was delicious and just for 14 zl. It was warm, close to everything and with good service.

To summarize, Gdansk is great. Maybe my favorite city in Poland and I am still deciding if I like it more than Krakow but I have always liked places close to the water, surrounded by water.. I think it makes them happier and prettier. And even more if it has so much history like this one. Magical.