Short Polish trips, Tue, 13 Oct 2020 | written by Simon
Jemma and Simon at a Lake, Museum, Sea in Europe, Poland

  • Gosań
  • Gosań
  • Smoked fish in Międzyzdroje
  • Międzyzdroje beach
  • View from Zielonka Hill
  • Spaceship tree
  • Very accomplished on Zielonka
  • Turquoise Lake

Bored with hanging out in Poznań and not wanting to stay in Zieleniec all the time, we decided to go on a spontaneous trip. Also, Simon has a couple weeks off, so time to go somewhere!

The decision to go to the seaside was determined by the weather – it’s horrible everywhere else this week! So seaside it is!

We arrived to Dziwnówek last night, checking in to a basic self-service apartment. Clean, but very cheap and basic. The shower is of the ‘fancy’ type, with jets, music, lights, etc. None of that works and water pressure is abysmal. But hey, it’s all good.

Today we had a lazy morning and left about noon. First stop: żubr! There is a small pen with żubr, deer, boar, and other animals here. A lovely walk through a nice forest, and Jemma was so happy!

We followed on to the Gosań Hill, which was described as the tallest cliff of the Polish seaside. It’s quite underwhelming, as it’s not really a cliff – it’s not a sheer drop, but rather a very steep, maybe 60′ slope. But the view is great and lunch tastes so much better with a view!

Next stop: Międzyzdroje. The famous seaside resort and host to a Polish film festival, it’s a bit underwhelming, with its combination of nice buildings that are super run down, and not run down buildings that are rather rubbish. But it’s also nicely refreshing after the Spanish seaside, because it’s not completely built up with horrible multis. At least the basic buildings have the decency to not be too tall.

After some walking, we got some smoked fish from an old-school stand next to the beach, and ate it next to the beach, on a viewing spot just off a very ugly walkway. What is it with the seaside places all being so ugly?

We moved on South towards the Szczecin Lagoon. It seemed a bit weird that the proper name for it is a lagoon – in my mind that word is reserved for tropical Pacific paradise islands. We went to Lubin which is a location of an old Slav stronghold – alas, no longer in existence, and it’s remains are only open to visitors in season. Instead, we went up towards the Zielonka Hill, which offered a great view of the lagoon. It turned out to be a wonderfully quiet and remote place, a great addition to our album!

From there we took a short walk towards the Turquoise Lake. The forest walk was itself great and the lake did indeed have a distinct shade, visible even in the evening. On a hill from which we viewed it, we found a spaceship-tree. What a journey! Jemma captained us to a distant planet which turned out to be Twin Earth, remarkably similar to our own planet. We walked back to Lubin, wondering if we’ll meet Twin Jemma and Twin Simon, and what we’d do if we did. But on the way we found another spaceship and travelled to Third Earth! What a Lem-like situation, we though, and continued to wonder what to do next, in case it turns out that the Third Simon and Jemma decided to travel to our Earth and steal the Baron. To prevent it, we travelled back to Twin Earth with the next spaceship. When we got to Twin Baron, it turned out that we can’t open it with the key! D’uh! Obviously, our key only opens the Baron! Thankfully, Jemma quickly found another spaceship, this time mind-operated, and used her supreme space-piloting skills to bring us safely back to Earth. Thankfully, none of the other J&S’s stole the Baron! But a bit of a shame we didn’t meet them, could have been an interesting night…