Poland (2020): Short vacation on the Baltic Sea!
Inhalt/Content
Aquarium and beach
For the next two full days of the trip, Sunday and Monday, we had planned two activities: swimming on the beach and hiking to the bunkers and meadow enclosures in the east of the village. Since relatively good weather was only announced for Sunday, we decided to go swimming that day.
During the first night we first noticed how restless it is to sleep in the tent. That was not directly due to the tent itself, but because we are used to mattresses that are too comfortable. Almost all of us woke up several times during the night to change our sleeping position or to cover ourselves up because it was also quite cool. In the morning Nathalie and I went to have a shower and then got breakfast in the nearby supermarket Zabka. When we got back to the campsite, Dominik had woken up too, so that the three of us could have breakfast. René slept like a mummy (we were afraid if he was still alive … but he was still breathing …). We noticed that a larger grasshopper jumped around on Dominik’s and René’s side of the tent in the tent. We called her “Olek”.
Since the weather in the morning was still too cool to go swimming, we decided to go to the aquarium, which was further west on the promenade. Since René was still sleeping, we wrote him a note that he can still have breakfast with the things we brought with us and that he should take care of Olek. When we went towards the aquarium, we saw many shops that were still closed the day before. I also noticed that I had forgotten my sun hat in Germany, which is why I was looking for a new one here. As we strolled through the shops, we noticed that there were hardly any licensed goods here. Many of these were deliberate forgeries (i.e. with original names, but clearly cheaply copied) or copies in which the names were exchanged. For example, we saw bags from Louis Vuitton and Gucci or saw “Justice Magician” as Lego or Batman in the Avengers.
The aquarium consisted of a total of three floors, but only two of them were provided with water tanks. There we could see all kinds of aquatic life, such as rays, puffer fish, turtles and small sharks. There was more of an entertainment area on the top floor. There were larger models of marine life and shark teeth and three screens. In front of these you could playfully perform small tasks with motion sensors, such as hunting prey underwater as a shark by stretching your arms and gliding through the virtual sea.
After the aquarium we wrote to René. In the meantime he woke up and got ready. We then met on the beach promenade, where we looked for lunch. Nathalie was able to persuade Dominik and René to try Zapiekanka. Since I already knew this baguette-like dish from our last trip to Poland, I wanted to try something different. At the same stand there was also fries in a bowl, but with minced meat. I wanted to grab it. After everyone got their order, we walked to a nearby place with benches to eat. Here we quickly noticed that although Polish food is not particularly expensive (although it was still more expensive here than in the country itself due to tourism), the portions are immense! Unfortunately, not all of us managed to finish our lunch menu … and from the trash cans we could see that many other visitors didn’t make it either.
It was early afternoon and the sun made it warm enough to finally go swimming! So we went back to the campsite and only packed our essentials to be able to go swimming on the beach, such as beach towels and books. We had already put on bathing suits at the tent and the books were only for the person who had to take care of the things while the others went into the water. Since the sun was really hot, we definitely wanted sun protection … but unfortunately these were either sold out or simply not available. So we just set up our beach camp next to an empty beach chair to get at least some shade. First René, Nathalie and I went into the water. It was relatively cold, but you got used to it quickly. For the most part, the water was also quite clean, only in a few places you saw algae swimming. What was more impressive was how deep you had to walk towards the lake until you were really under water up to your neck. This was easily 50 ~ 100 meters.
After a few minutes of splashing around, the three of us are out again. Dominik had tanned in the meantime. For the next round, this time Nathalie wanted to stay at the beach camp while the men all went into the water. Since we are all a bit taller than Nathalie (and REAL MEN!) We went deeper into the water this time until we could hardly stand. Here further out the waves were quite high and could surprise you. A moment of shock arose when none of us suddenly felt the sea floor below us. Apparently there was a short tide and we were forced to swim. Furthermore, the currents let our group of 3 drift more and more apart. Only after a few minutes of tiring swimming back towards the beach did we find each other again. None of us had experienced that before. Only later that evening did Nathalie say that we should have been more careful. More than 100 people have had accidents on the Polish Baltic Sea this year because they swam too far out. This event, as well as the fact that the clouds were closing, prompted us to pack our things and go back to the campsite.
It was drizzling a little, but to have something to eat for dinner, we headed back towards the promenade. Here we each got an ice cream or something like that and put it on one of the benches on the square. Here we could see something weird. On the main path to the footbridge there were two showmen who made music. A war veteran in a wheelchair and an Indian band. Because this was the hot sport to get money from as many tourists as possible, these two got into an argument about who could open his stand here and make music. Even if we didn’t listen to the discussion between the two, it seemed that everyone was allowed to take turns playing their music for about 20 minutes. At least now we have noticed what a tourist hell we have ended up in here.
It was getting slowly evening and we walked back towards the campsite. Halfway there was a smoking tent, where a lot of different fish were smoked for sale. Even I, who normally only eats fish fingers and fish fillet, got a real appetite for them when we walked past the stand – and René and Nathalie felt the same way. So the three of us got a smoked kebab skewer, which consisted mostly of salmon and only a few vegetables. We sat down on a couple of benches, which were on a boardwalk that runs parallel to the beach. The smell and taste of the salmon pieces was really good … but unfortunately we had to find out what we had already learned at lunchtime: It was way too much! Nathalie and I just barely managed to eat the skewer completely, but René gave up halfway. But this was not too tragic, because in front of the entrance to our campground there was a larger cat house (where seagulls often roamed around), where you could put cats “offerings” (i.e. food). René did this and we got ready for the night at the campsite. In the tent we played cards in the lobby (the middle community area). In addition to Mau Mau, Dominik also showed us “Name” here.
