Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Category: Gdynia

Gdynia – AleBrowar

[I originally posted this in January 2020, but have reposted it to fix some broken image links]

This bar is owned by the AleBrowar brewery who are based near Lebork, which isn’t far from the Tricity. The bar is located in the centre of Gdynia, just a short walk from the railway station. The brewery has also been going for some time, it started brewing all the way back in 2012, so relatively early for the Polish craft beer scene.

There’s a nice feel to the bar, which is modern and contemporary in design and the beers are clearly presented behind the counter. The bar wasn’t particularly busy when I entered, although it got a little busier as the evening progressed. The prices were reasonable and there’s also an upstairs area for when it’s a bit more packed, although that wasn’t open when I visited.

However, the choice recommended to me wasn’t a draft option, it was the Smoky Joe bottled beer which is produced by the brewery. I can’t recall having a whisky stout and although I’m not really into whisky, I don’t dislike the flavours which it has. So, this was a perfect compromise, a stout with the notes of whisky, but still at heart a stout. There was a pleasant, and not too harsh, aftertaste of whisky, but the initial taste of the beer was quite moderate and it isn’t overly rich. As a beer though, this is excellent, as it’s creative, interesting and has some depth to it.

March 22, 2025
Gdansk Group Trip – Day 4 (Train from Gdynia Redłowo into Gdansk)

I had wondered how easy it would be to get back into Gdansk after watching the football in Gdynia, but fortunately it’s a short walk to Gdynia Redłowo which is part of the SKM line. The station was quite busy, but most people were heading back into Gdynia, meaning that the platform into Gdansk wasn’t too busy. The signage here is clear and explains how long it takes to get to the stations further along the line.

The police marching onto the station for reasons I didn’t uncover and thought best not to get too closely involved with. There was a little bit of a queue for the ticket machine and I’m always slightly nervous when there are ten people behind me in the queue and I’m using the machine I’m not used to. Fortunately, all went well, and I don’t think I held anyone up. Ticket prices were cheap, something like £1 or so.

It’s a bit clunky as a train, but it does the job well enough. It reminds of the Pacer trains that Northern were using until relatively recently.

Into Gdansk around an hour after we left the football ground. This is Gdansk’s railway station and, interestingly, it is similar to the railway station at Colmar station in France, these were two locations in the German Empire at the time of their construction in the late nineteenth century. Unusually for Poland, the renovations and modernisation to this railway station seem quite overdue as they’ve been doing them for years and I’m not sure when the final completion date is planned for. It is the biggest investment that PKP, the national rail provider, have yet made so I’m assuming it’ll be all rather impressive when it’s finished.

May 19, 2023
Gdansk Group Trip – Day 4 (Watching Football – Arka Gdynia vs Ruch Chorzów)

Ross and I thought that it would be a marvellous idea to go and watch the football whilst the others gossiped about what a good job I had done at leading the group. I think it’s important to give people that chance to chat about just how challenging they’d been and how I had reacted so positively to the problems they’d brought me. We didn’t know whether we could actually buy tickets at the ground, but thought it was fairly likely that this wouldn’t be a problem. It wasn’t, and after a twenty minute wait in the queue we had the bonus of a ticket seller who spoke English and guided us through the process. Fortunately we both had ID as they needed to see it and before long we had two tickets from the home stand.

A man with a flare, seemed a bit raucous to me.

Outside the stadium around thirty minutes before the kick off.

And into the seats which we managed to find without too many problems.

I went off to find food and drink as that seemed to be an important part of the proceedings to me. The beer was non-alcoholic, although that is seemingly not usually the only option and the hot dog was suitably tasty and they’d made something of an effort with the presentation.

We had toured Gdansk’s football ground earlier on in the week and they said they’d only filled it when Justin Timberlake performed there. Gdynia’s ground was similar and not anywhere near capacity, meaning it all felt quite spacious.

That sun was a little sub-optimal if I’m being honest.

There was a calm atmosphere at the stadium, although they allow smoking in the stands which I think is far from ideal, but there we go.

The players from Ruch Chorzów.

This block of fans were the most vocal and had huge amounts of energy to jump up and down throughout most of the game. They tired me out just watching them, but I was impressed at their enthusiasm.

This was the final score.

The sun started to disappear just as the match finished.

And that was the end of that, an interesting experience. There was a Polish man who spoke to me in the queue and fortunately spoke English. He asked politely why I was at a match in Gdynia and when I explained I thought it was positive to come and support the local team he was most enthusiastic and welcoming. He asked how long I had been in the area and I mentioned that I had arrived in Gdansk four days before. He jokingly replied that he wasn’t interested about Gdansk, just how long I’d been in Gdynia, and I forgot that there is rivalry between the two teams.

There were plenty of families at the ground and matters seemed calm, with plenty of police in the area. Watching football is to me similar to going to a supermarket when travelling, it helps build up a bit more of a picture about the local culture and traditions. All really rather lovely and an enjoyable way to spend the early evening. With that, we went to get a train into Gdansk to see how the others had coped without me.

May 19, 2023
Gdansk Group Trip – Day 4 (Train to Gdynia and Walk to See Arka Gdynia)

The train which took us from Sopot to Gdynia and the slightly muddled nature of the Polish ticketing system in the area became apparent once again when we bought tickets. I didn’t want to wait in the queue for the ticket machine and went to the counter to buy a ticket and the five of us who used that counter were charged the same price, whereas Bev who went to the neighbouring desk was charged a slightly cheaper rate. I have worked out now what is happening here, but the system probably does need a fair bit of simplification and it looks like that new contactless machines are being rolled out which will make things better.

The Joseph Conrad monument, although it’s not clear to me what actual links he has to Gdynia in particular. Not only does he have this monument, he has also the JD Wetherspoon pub in Lowestoft named after him, I can’t imagine which he would be most impressed and excited by. Conrad is one of the greatest Polish novelists and he specialised in seafaring stories, which is perhaps why Gdynia wanted to mark his contribution.

Bev paying homage to the rear of the monument.

Lots of concrete here and the rest of the group weren’t convinced that I said this was as lovely as the pier in Sopot that we hadn’t walked down. There were pleasant views over the nearby coast though and it’s a nice walk along the promenade back to Sopot.

The group then split up, with Ross and I going to watch the Arka Gdynia football match which was about a 40 minute walk away, whilst Richard went off to a nearby bar to tell Bev, Susanna and Steve about what he had been getting up to in Warsaw. I make no further comment.

May 18, 2023
Gdansk Group Trip – Day 3 (Mercure Gdynia Centrum)

Richard and I were staying in Gdynia for the evening, although he opted for a more decadent room in the city’s Mercure hotel than I had because of his great wealth. I had chosen this hotel as I thought it would be somewhere new for me and it was also part of an Accor extra points promotion, which I’m pleased to note have been posted correctly. Anyway, when I arrived I realised that I stayed here in January 2020, I had completely forgotten that. I do get muddled up easily….

The grand reception area. The welcome from the staff was friendly, authentic and genuine, so I was pleased to be back in such an inviting place. The bar area off to the right was busy and there was a vibrant feel to proceedings. In this instance, I should say that I mean vibrant in a positive sense, sometimes I use it as code for a venue where it feels like there will be a massive fight within ten seconds.

I was upgraded to a room on the eighth floor and given the alcohol themed room. Of course, I’m not sure why on earth they thought that would be suitable for me, but I didn’t say anything. Unfortunately, the bottles in the barrel were empty.

One of the features in the room was this little display, which are real corks and not some wallpaper. I liked theme rooms, and especially so this one, although if they had popped some extra beer in it then I would have liked it even more.

Wine posters. I was pleased to note that there was a bath in the bathroom, it’s more common practice recently to take them out to install showers instead.

Our welcome drink, with Richard getting some wine whilst I was able to choose between a number of beers from a local brewery. I went for the Kurortowe wheat beer from Browar Miejski Sopot, a very acceptable way to end the evening.

The hotel is 40 years old this year and there’s promotional material throughout the building noting that. There was also a welcome gift of food, I appreciated that. Richard saves his for when he gets home as a reminder of a trip, whereas I eat them straight away. There were more than two in the pack incidentally, that’s all that’s what was left by the time I took the photo.

The view of the sea from my eighth floor room. I stayed here for two nights and it is a well run and managed hotel, but there was the limitation for me that there’s no air conditioning and the hotel is something of a sun trap. It was all too hot for me, so I likely wouldn’t come back here as it wasn’t relatively that hot in Poland during the visit, so I suspect that I’d find it almost unbearable in the height of summer. Indeed, the vast majority of negative comments are about the air conditioning, but I’m not sure how the hotel is going to fix that without a substantial refit of the entire building. The hotel got an odd complaint a few weeks ago saying that the staff didn’t speak Polish, which is an unusual comment I’ve never seen before about an Accor hotel in Poland. It seems ridiculous anyway, the hotel responded that all of the staff were Polish, although this gives me an opportunity to say that their English was perfect as well.

May 16, 2023
Flixbus – Gdynia to Torun

Fifteen minutes before the scheduled departure time, the Flixbus pulls into the coach station located at the front of Gdynia’s railway station. The Flixbus app provides useful information on not just where the coach station is located, but also which bus stop to wait at. And, also, at the bus stop there’s confirmation that the Flixbus departs from platform 6.

I think it’s fair to say that I’m not the biggest fan of Flixbus, they have been buying up what seems like most coach operators around Europe and the service offered has been, frankly, inadequate. After tens of journeys, not once have they managed to provide all of the following components:

(i) A friendly driver

(ii) Working wi-fi

(iii) Adequate temperature

(iv) Working power

(v) Details of where the coach stop is (accurate information that is)

Usually at least two or three of these aren’t achieved.

But, glory be to God, after years of travel and much disappointment, this was my first perfect Flixbus journey. The driver was friendly, the coach was clean, the app was accurate, the power and wi-fi worked, as well as the temperature being appropriate. The coach arrived on time, the whole service was impeccable and excellent value at just £5 for the journey. The driving was safe and either things are getting better on Flixbus, or I’m just becoming lucky, but this was a bargain journey with a company that made everything easy.

January 15, 2020
Gdynia – Mercure Centrum

This subtle little hotel does somewhat dominate the area it’s in, with some cavernous public spaces. Another hotel in the Accor chain, indeed I’m not moving away from them on this trip, it’s a little higher up their hierarchy then my usual Ibis hotels.

The room, which was spacious and spotlessly clean. The hotel kindly upgraded me to a privilege room, located on the ninth floor of the building.

The decor was modern and contemporary, with this apparently being one of the room designs chosen by staff.

I’ve had worse views from a hotel room….

Ooooh, I love Nespresso machines. Not enough to actually pay for one myself, but I like it when other people or hotels have them. And, as another bonus, the staff were assiduous in their restocking of the room for the second night.

My welcome gift, a rather lovely local beer. A nice gesture, one I commend.

The downstairs bar area, spacious and clean.

My welcome drink of Żywiec, although they did offer an IPA from the barrel. In retrospect, I should probably have had the latter to show that hotels should do more beer such as this. One day there will be a dark beer to choose from, or something a little more unique. Anyway, the service at the bar was friendly and helpful.

The long corridors of the hotel. As for breakfast, I got lost walking around the ground floor looking for it. I gave up with looking for it and went to ask the staff member at reception. She seemed used to telling people where they’d hidden the breakfast room, and I don’t think anyone else noticed me walking around looking lost.

There were some hot options at breakfast that I wasn’t too engaged with, but the cold options were excellent and there was plenty of choice across numerous tables. I’d also like to apologise to the hotel, as they probably wondered where the meat on that front plate kept disappearing to. I might have become a little addicted to it as it almost melted in the mouth, one of the best cold cuts I’ve had. They kept bringing more out promptly though and didn’t seem to want to find the culprit.

A proper breakfast should be like this. Incidentally, I had another little emergency at the hotel breakfast at the fruit juice machine. Customers are meant to press the button once to get the drink, and I’m dead good at this now, having had the same machine at the last four hotels. Here though, on my second refill, the machine went a little berserk and didn’t stop pouring, disgorging gallons of apple juice everywhere. Admittedly the machine’s drip tray caught it all (I once flooded an airport lounge floor in India with about half a bag in box of Pepsi, so I appreciated the lack of flooding here), but probably around 20 or 30 litres went through, it was quite a sizeable loss, so I alerted a staff member. She was one of the few non-English speaking members of staff the hotel had and I didn’t know the Polish for “I’ve flooded your apple juice machine”, so by the time she came over to have a look the machine had stopped and she was none the wiser as to what I wanted. I think she just assumed the British aren’t quite with it, so I left it at that.

This is the height of sophistication as far as I’m concerned. I couldn’t find the butter, just pots of margarine and I don’t much like the taste of that. I then stumble (not literally) on this machine which is like a little piece of magic. You press the button and a perfectly formed circular disc of butter falls out of the bottom onto a plate. Quite magical and very delicious. No doubt all my posh friends are used to such technology, but I don’t get out much.

Part of the breakfast room, which was never that busy, so it remained a relaxed and comfortable environment.

As for the hotel generally, it was as near perfect as I could have wanted. The staff were friendly, the room was clean, there were no noise disturbances and I very much liked the view over the sea. The prices were also very reasonable, under £30 per night including breakfast. During the summer months, this is a much more popular hotel as the tourists flood in, so I imagine the prices are higher then. But, for the time I was there, admirable value for money.

January 15, 2020
Gdynia – Traffic Lights

I think it’s fair to say that the content I’m writing isn’t necessarily the most enthralling today, but I’m quite pleased at this development in traffic lights at pedestrian crossings….

There are many crossings across Poland where I’m never quite sure when I’ve successfully pressed the button to cross. Not having an engineering mind, I’ve also noted many other British people struggle with their operation, as they don’t make sense to me. However, revolution is here with these, there are lights which flash to show where to press and then they make clear with all manner of shapes (well, a circle) when it’s time to cross the road.

However, I’ve noticed over the last couple of days that whilst children seem to love pressing them, some of the more slightly mature generation look entirely bemused at them.

I think the local authorities are quite pleased with them too….

January 15, 2020
Gdynia – Beach

Gdynia has a beach, although I expect that it’s a lot nicer and more pleasant during the summer months….

January 15, 2020
Gdynia – Pope John Paul II

Pope John Paul II, who was the first non-Italian Pope since 1523, was an important figure not just to the Catholic Church, but also in the political reform movement. He came to Gdynia in June 1987 and he made a speech which mentioned the word ‘solidarity’ on several occasions. This was a deliberate reference to the Solidarity movement which had sprung up in Gdansk, and in other Polish cities, wanting reform and modernisation of the country.

Wojciech Jaruzelski, the Polish head of state at the time, wasn’t best pleased at this speech, as he had been saying quite clearly that Solidarity was finished and had no future. Jaruzelski, who was later fortunate to avoid trial for serious crimes against humanity because of his age, wasn’t entirely correct, as Lech Wałęsa from the Solidarity movement became the democratically elected President of Poland in 1990. Jaruzelski later renounced communism, although his reputation by that time was shattered beyond repair and I do wonder what he thought of Poland by the time he died in 2014.

Tens of thousands of people turned up to hear Pope John Paul II when he visited and this statue recalls some of the words that he said at the time. The city of Gdynia has also renamed one of its main streets, al. Jana Pawła II, after the Pope.

January 15, 2020