Poland (2020): Short vacation on the Baltic Sea!
Inhalt/Content
Ruins and no bison
The third and last full day had dawned. Today we wanted to hike to the nearby viewpoint and visit the bison enclosure. Wisents are European bison that are almost only found here in the region of Poland. When we got out of the tent to get breakfast, we found that a dead mouse was lying in front of the entrance. This was apparently a tribute for René leaving the smoked salmon at the cat house the day before.
After showering and breakfast we left, but quickly ran into two problems. For one thing, I had hiking boots with me, but no hiking socks, so I first had to buy cheap long socks in one of the clothes shops. Nathalie and I also took this as an opportunity to generally look in the clothing stores to see whether we like something there. I bought a t-shirt with fish on it, which has a white-blue gradient. On the other hand, Dominik had the problem that one of his rucksack straps tore through. So we were also looking for a sewing kit. When we found one here in a 1 euro shop, Dominik was able to repair his backpack very quickly. I, on the other hand, was able to change my socks during that time and put two blister plasters on my feet.
We then walked further east along the coast to the forest, where the path led up a small mountain. After about an hour we arrived at the first sight, namely old bunkers and ruins from the Second World War. As you can imagine, these were already quite rusty and brittle, but we always tried to shine a little light and take a look. When we got to the last viewing platform, we made a U-turn and hiked halfway back, this time to turn off and walk in the direction of the Wiesenten enclosure. Here we noticed that the route was more touristy and that parking spaces were created especially for this sight. On the way we met many families who were also on the way to the enclosure.
After another hour of walking we arrived at the Wiesenten enclosure – unfortunately in vain, because the enclosure was closed and we were standing in front of a large gate. We weren’t the only ones here, as many other potential visitors were also standing in front of it. At first we thought that the enclosure would still open and we were just there too early … but after reading signs and googling something, we noticed that the enclosure is always closed on Mondays. However, this information was not visible on the many signs since the parking lot, nor was it clearly indicated on the Internet. Derp so disappointed we went back down the forest path towards the city.
When we walked back, we took a slightly different route that let us into town at a different end. Since it was already shortly after noon, we quickly decided to look for a restaurant here and to eat really “Polish” again. Also, because this should be the last time that we will eat real food in Poland, because we had to use up our supplies for dinner and breakfast the next day.
After we placed our orders (3 pierogi and 1 pizza) Dominik came up with an idea to pass the time. It is a game that is similar to Stiller Post and plays with slips of paper and pencils. At the beginning everyone came up with a sentence and wrote it on top of a piece of paper. Then the sheet of paper was passed clockwise to the next and that person had to draw a picture for this sentence. Then the sentence was closed and the picture passed on and the next person had to formulate another sentence from it. In the last round the paper was passed on and another picture was painted from the second sentence, so that the chain was: sentence -> image -> sentence-> image. The resulting pictures and sentences can be admired here.
Otherwise not much happened that day. Since it was almost only drizzling, René, Dominik and I were almost only in the tent, babbling, reading or playing something. Nathalie, on the other hand, has grabbed rainproof clothing and went running along the coast to the west. We asked ourselves whether it wouldn’t have made more sense (even if we didn’t know beforehand) to go to the meadow duck enclosure on Sunday and on the beach on Monday. But since Monday was colder and quite rainy, it was probably better the way it went – even if we missed the Wiesenten.
At the end of the day we went to the beach again to see the sunset. We could see various ships and port platforms on the horizon. Also the Viking ship, which as a tourist attraction drives up and down the coast every hour. But we were really happy not to have jumped on the ship, as it looked quite boring in the distance and was also expensive.
