Day Trip from Gdansk to Sopot on 8/10

We travelled to Sopot, the 2^nd of the Tri Cities, located about 80 minutes by boat up the Motlawa River on the Baltic. It's famous for its healing sea air and the number of spas and is known as Nice of the North. We sure wouldn’t have thought that was possible given the current state of the beach and murky seaweed filled water even though we’ve never been to the south of France.

Leaving Gdansk, we saw shipyard
after shipyard; we'd never seen one so big
 even though we've spent a lot of time on the
east coast.

Marianne - I thought of you seeing
 this ship from Denmark.

Arriving in Sopot immediately off our boat,
we watched this guy perform acrobatic stunts
diving into the water, doing summersaults, etc.

Walking toward shore on the 'Molo:'
at more than 1600 ft long, it's Europe's
 longest wooden entertainment pier.

Coming into town at the end of the pier;
people wanting to walk on the pier from town
have to pay 5ZL or $1.66.

The famous beach compared to Nice's;
no way would we have wanted to
 sit a spell here as the beach was littered
 with cigarette butts everywhere. Both of us
have been surprised at the numbers
 of young Poles smoking on the streets;
sure feels like the majority.

The Grand Hotel: Certainly far 'grander' than our
Grand Hostel in Gdansk! Walked inside to see the photo wall
 I'd read about of famous/infamous personages who've stayed there;
among them Hitler (no picture of him though), Castro and Dietrich
all of whom stayed in the same room but not at the same time!

Sopot Church: Built in 1899 as an evangelical church. It was assigned to the military priesthood of the Roman Catholic church in May of 1945; it was then renamed St. George Church.

Halfway down Monte Cassino Heroes St., the town's wonderful pedestrian promenade, was
the so-called Crooked House. Hard drinking Poles refer to it as the 'Drunken House' and say that when it looks straight, it's time to stop drinking!

A short 40 minute ride back to Gdansk by train;loved seeing this mileage marker especailly since Steven's hometown of Cleveland was on it. Figure these must be 'sister cities' to Gdansk.

In front of Golden Gate.

Gdansk should be nicknamed the City of Gates 

as we passed through probably 10 of them; 

this was Lovers' Gate of course!

Now Steven's turn in front of Golden Gate. 

Streets like these were the norm in the Old Town.

The beautiful St. Mary's Church left and below.