Gdansk for the memories 4th December 2008
Collection of photos from Gdansk. Usual digital camera caveats apply, but a few proper photos will be forthcoming when I can be bothered to get the film developed. Stacey and I took a cheap flight with Wizz Air from Luton on Monday morning. Luton Airport is like a scumbag version of Stansted, complete with warnings about public drunkeness and fisticuffs. Gdansk in December is a little on the chilly side, but generally very agreeable. In common with Wroclaw it was completely levelled at the end of the Second World War, and large tracts of the center are still awaiting reconstruction 60 years later. However, what has been rebuilt has been done very sympathetically, and looks great. This is main town, around Dluga. To the north there's some great socialist realism in the shape of the post office workers memorial, and wrought-metal brutalism in the Solidarity monument.
On Tuesday we caught a creaky train up to Gdynia (possibly one of the grimmest eastern-block harbour towns I've ever visited) to explore the docks, not realising the ships I wanted to see were long gone- most likely to survive the winter in calmer waters. Back along the SKM line, Sopot is altogether more charming, with it's nice cafes, Jugendstil architecture, pier and stupid fucking 'crooked house'. Klaus Kinski's birth house is a cheesy bar, but it wasn't open for a closer look at two in the afternoon. Slightly disappointed not to sample the local pierogi on this trip, but I got some in the fridge we bought from Tesco this afternoon.
