Quick visit to Sopot, Poland

Sopot was a delight. Every time I leave a new place I say I wish I could have spent more time there. And while it is generally true, I mean it more about some places than others. In retrospect I truly wish we had planned for at least 2 nights to visit and enjoy Sopot more completely. It was a really pleasant resort / vacation town with a great energy level. Comfortable balance of maintaining its 19th century charm and offering contemporary restaurants and shops to browse. Now, we were there on a Monday in late May. Your mileage may vary if you head there on a Saturday in July or August. But based on what we saw, if you're yearning for some vintage vacation vibes, Sopot is definitely worth spending some time in to slow down and enjoy a few days of what vacation used to be like.

We arrived by train from Gdynia, which takes maybe 10 minutes.

From the train station it is an easy and quick walk to Bohaterow Monte Cassino, the pedestrian street that leads you gently down hill toward the Skwer Kuracyjny. We made life a bit more complicated for ourselves somehow landing on a side street rather than the main feeder to Monte Cassino. But that was fine. Just a bit more exploring off path. Eventually we made it and snapped a few shots as we got situated.

We continued to what is supposed to be one of the main attractions, the pier. They charge an 'entrance' fee to go on the pier. That didn't seem particularly necessary or worth the nominal charge. I wanted to see more of the town. So we snapped the obligatory photos from the area outside of the entrance and kept it moving.

The square before the pier was lovely and brilliant this day (May 26). Probably seemed even more so to us after a number of cloudy / rainy days.

We spotted a scooter point and seized the opportunity, naturally. We are scooter people now.

And it was the scooters that allowed us to cover much more ground in Sopot than we could have done on foot. That light blue skinny loop running along the water south of the pier is what we scooted. Plus that little bit north, too.

We mostly stuck to the path running parallel to the water. It lies behind the dune line, so your view of the water in intermittent as you pass little cut outs that might be every few hundred meters or so. But we were drawn in a couple of times, like the little area below. It's just inland from Bar Przystan and according to Google Maps the area looks to be a bunch of little holiday apartments and 2-star hotels / inns. Super charming and an amazing location.

And here is an example of one of the little cut outs that open up to the beach. Felt like every one of them had its own local bar / fish restaurant, like Bar 33, which from what I saw, looked like a stellar spot to enjoy a few beers at sunset. Next time.

While the beach on the north side of the pier directly in front of neighboring 5-star resorts of the Sheraton and Sofitel is supposedly The Scene, count me in the camp of preferring to hang down here on the south side of town. Some Cape Cod / Rehoboth Beach vibes.

We would have been happy to scoot up and down the paths all afternoon. Two things, though, kept the experience from being all that it could have been. First, they have some gps-triggered speed governor on them. Pathway max speed is like 15km per hour or something. Feels a bit slower than it needs to be. But safety first, etc. Second is that you can't pause the Bolt ride unless you're near an approved parking spot. And there didn't seem to be any near those cool beachside bars we were passing. We tried stopping at least three times. No luck. So that was kind of a bummer. Guess we could have just left the scooter leaning against a fence with the meter running and taken the chance that no one would rip it off. But that seemed just a little too stupid to risk. So ultimately we went all the way back to where we picked them up to drop them back off. At which point we indulged in another classic Sopot tradition: casual strolling with a soft-serve ice cream in your mitts.

This next place depicted here is Browar Miejsky. Another joint that would 100% be on my hit list if I were able to return and spend 2-3 nights in Sopot.

Pleased with our couple-hour visit in Sopot it was time to grab the next heading back toward Gdansk.

Quick visit to Gdynia, Poland, to see what's what

I had heard that Gdynia was 'cool' from a couple of my Polish colleagues. And it certainly sounded and seemed cool from additional research and info I absorbed. A modern city. With a great beachfront. Home to a number of annual festivals and concerts. Poland's primary port of business and a 21st century tech hub. Plus the historical aspect that I either never learned or had learned and forgotten. (Look up "Gdansk free city" after WWI and how it triggered Poland's investment in developing Gdynia and you'll see what I am referring to.) Sitting just about 25 minutes by train from Gdansk it was too close to not scout it out.

Step one was getting the local train, which felt like a nicer version of the L in Chicago. Or, at least what that felt like some 15 years ago when I last took it. Nothing special, but gets the job done comfortably. For 10zł (less than $3) per person, it was fair value for sure.

We hopped off the train, got our bearings, found some Bolt scooters, and made our way to the waterfront. The dark blue line below shows what we did between getting off the train at Gdynia Głowny and then getting back on at Gdynia Hill of St. Maximillian. In between we scoped out some of central Gdynia's main east-west street, its main north-south street, the waterfront and little park area.

Again, it was impossible for me to snap photos safely while we scooted about. But the downtown areas we passed through all had a pleasant feel. I got the sense that it would indeed but a nice comfortable place to slow travel through for a week or so, enjoy its cafes, etc. Once we got to the water I had to snap a few shots. Very much Chicago vibes, minus the skyline. Could have been a composite of the lakefront trail and beach areas of Foster, Montrose, and maybe the stretch between Oak Street and Ohio.

Cool place. Glad we stopped. Would happily spend a couple / few days there if we are able to swing back through Poland again in the future. But we had Sopot in our sights next and needed to get moving.

Vibe shots from a walkabout on a Monday morning in May (Gdansk, Poland)

The bigger plan for the second day in Gdansk was to make our way up to Gdynia and Sopot, but that was going to be an afternoon thing when the weather cleared up a bit. That left me some time in the morning to spin around the area surrounding our Airbnb and also do a quick loop through part of the center. Our apartment was at the Kowalska 6 pin you see in the screenshot above. The whole loop depicted took about 45 minutes to cover 1.4km according to Google Maps. Not a ton of narrative here. Mostly vibe shots. But all of this was around 10am on a Monday and it was pretty calm.

This next place, Loveat, looked good. About 2 minutes from our apartment. But when we travel our morning schedules don't really align unless it's a transit day, so we don't often eat breakfast out. Google tells me there are a handful of Loveat locations in Gdansk, and all have pretty solid reviews.

We were also quite close to this neighborhood mall. Judy checked it out solo when I went off to visit Malbork Castle (post upcoming). She was not impressed. But it looks nice and I imagine it's convenient for the locals.

Bit more wandering with no particular aim other than to see what was around ...

After about 20 minutes in the area around the Airbnb I headed toward the water and started making my way to downtown. This scooter hotspot is quite close to the Hilton. We didn't actually scoot in Gdansk proper, but made up for it with some good rides in Gdynia and Sopot.

More vibe shots. Just an attractive city center to wander around. Especially when it's quiet.

Happy with my meanderings I stopped in a bakery (pretty sure it was this one, with mediocre reviews). They were nice enough to me. Got a couple loaves of bread and one of those Polish pastry tacos you see in the top of the third pic below (probably not the official name ... looks like the tray is labeled 'Nalesnik', which translates to crepe ... maybe?). Whatever it was, really tasty. Subtle flavors. We enjoyed it, would recommend.