Sunday, July 10, 2016

The Riddle of Swinoujscie

Hello!

So, err ... yesterday ended on an interesting note.

I washed up in Poland, at a Baltic port town called Swinoujscie. This put me a bit less than two hours away from the extraordinarily-named city of Szczeczin, where I was hoping to end the day's travelling.

The port area of Swinoujscie is separated from the rest of the town by a channel where international ferries dock, and the railway station is on the port side. My ferry from Sweden turned up at 8pm, which (according to the Polish Rail timetable) meant I could jump on a train at 8:30pm and be in Szczeczin by a little after ten. 

Great, except that I hadn't booked any accommodation there, because I hadn't found an open wi-fi connection all day. I'd spent most of the day on the Baltic Sea, which is not known for its fantastic wi-fi coverage.

The upshot: I had half an hour to get to the station (ten minutes' walk from the port), buy a ticket, take advantage of Polish Rail's free wi-fi to quickly find a hotel, and jump on my train.

Except ...

Well, except that Polish Rail is what it is.

So ... first, there was no 8:30pm train, according to everyone in the station. They didn't say it had been cancelled  they simply acted as if it had never existed. I could see it on the departures timetable printed on the wall, but to everybody else, it was like the dirty family secret in an old British detective novel. 

"A-HEM! We, er, don't speak of the 8:30pm train. It's just that ... well, I'm sure you'll agree, Mr. Nerd, that some skeletons are best left safely in the closet. So, I suggest we simply forget you brought it up; shall we?"

The next and only train, they insisted, was at 10:30pm.

That was the first issue. Second: no wi-fi in the station, or anywhere nearby. Clearly, Polish Rail's attempts to supply a free access point in all their stations hadn't reached this far northeast yet.

In a vain effort to circumvent these issues and put together some kind of plan, I even took the foolish step of having dinner at a cafe that adjoined the main railway building. I thought there might be wi-fi there (as the sign on their door promised), and booking a hotel would at least get one of my problems out of the way. 

As they brought me an unconvincing impersonation of a sausage, resting on a bed of sour cabbage that looked as if it had been harvested from the bottom of the sea and then sat wilting for a month before being served on a slightly chipped plate, I asked "Tutaj ma vee-fee?" (Is there wi-fi here?).

"Vee-fee nema" (There isn't wi-fi), came the answer. "Na dworcu kolejowym" (In the railway station).

Damn.

Third ... when I went back to the station to investigate this late train more closely, I discovered the following things: it was bound for Warszawa, a journey lasting around ten hours; and the sleeper cars were fully booked. 

"So", I thought, "I guess I'm staying in Swinoujscie".

Next question: "How the heck do I get across the water and to the town? I can't swim with a wheelie bag."

That question was answered when, quite unexpectedly (for me at least), a little car ferry suddenly came into view. As it drew nearer to the port, a crowd appeared almost from nowhere, standing near what looked like a terrible bar but turned out to be both a ferry terminal and a terrible bar

This car ferry, I learned, was free for locals. Tickets for non-locals existed in theory, but they were were certainly not available anywhere I could see. I thought about asking upstairs in the bar, but a woman was sitting on the stairs, crying and being sick, with an almost-equally-drunk man attempting to comfort her. There was no way I could get past them ... and nor did I particularly want to see what was at the top of those stairs, if this was any indication.

So ... time to blend in!


Car Ferry
Swinjouscie, Poland, 09.07.16


















By the time I got to the township, it was almost 10pm. Then began a long search for a hotel ... and I mean a really long search. There was a hotel district, apparently, but it was on the opposite side of Swinjouscie to the ferry terminal. And when I finally reached it, the pricing options were not ideal. 


Wondering why on Earth this place was so expensive, I dragged my wheelie bag into and out of about eight hotel receptions. The town wasn't overly well-lit, and in the darkness I could barely see anything. But I heard groups of people singing football chants, came across old aged pensioners sitting quietly on fences, and passed an eerie kind of amusement park (closed due to the late hour, but dimly lit) with big clown-face statues hanging over it. I just couldn't work this place out  what kind of town was I in?

And all the while, I was despairing more and more of finding an affordable bed. 

I was just about to give up and hand over 300 złoty to the nearest overcharging hotelier, when I came upon a place that actually did have a reasonably priced room. 

The owner and receptionist was friendly, and spoke to me in German (the closest thing we had to a 'common language'), and the room turned out to be great. Seemed like my search had ended well :-)

Once in the room, I opened a bottle of cider which I had with me, smoked on the balcony, then collapsed on the bed and fell asleep without finishing the cider. It was almost 1am.

I woke up six hours later to the sound of two giant, Northern Europe-sized seagulls squawking outside the window. What were they doing here? 

Again, more questions about Swinjouscie. This place was turning out to be quite a riddle. 

After breakfast, a little wi-fi chat with my delightful partner in Kazakhstan, and other readiness-making activities, I left the hotel and headed in the general direction of the ferry terminal. I was in no hurry, because my schedule had been completely thrown off, and there were no trains until 2pm.


Heading Downtown
Swinjouscie, Poland, 10.07.16

















And this is when Swinjouscie finally revealed itself as the charming little place it is. Even the downtown (or at least parts of it) was a haven of green, with spacious parks, cute little heritage buildings, stately manors and shaded, tranquil streets. That, plus the sea frontage, explained why it felt like I was in a holiday spa destination, rather than just the uneventful port town I'd assumed it would be.


Communist Car Party!
Swinjouscie, Poland, 10.07.16

In one of the parks, I was also lucky enough to catch what looked like a weekend gathering of Communist-era car enthusiasts, sitting around chatting about their Trabis (the East German car of the period), Skodas and so on. It was awesome :-)

Super-Cute Trabi (if you like that sort of thing)
Swinjouscie, Poland, 10.07.16

So that was the riddle of Swinoujscie solved. What kind of place is it? A very nice one, like so many others in Poland :-)

I'm now in Szczeczin, learning how to pronounce it properly (you say Shche-CHIN!, using the same rhythm you'd use if you were imitating the ch-ching! of a cash register) and planning my next move. Have to get from here to Ukraine, which is never easy due partly (once again) to the vagaries of Polish rail.  

It looks like, in the end, I won't be able to avoid what I was trying to avoid yesterday: namely, doing an overnight journey in a sitting compartment rather than a sleeping one. Poland is bigger than most people think, and I want to go Szczeczin-Warszawa-Krakow-Przemysl (on the Ukrainian border) in a single day. That's a hectic schedule, so the sitting-up overnighter seems like it might be the only option. 

It's also going to require a long and exhausting battle with a Polish Rail ticketing machine. This is, again, something to be avoided if you value your sanity; and yet, it's still better than standing in the queues at the ticket sales window. Much as I love them, Poles have this annoying habit of going up to the window with a shopping list of questions, and then pre-purchasing every ticket they plan to use over the next 12 months, one by one. Personally I suspect that standing behind them while they do this probably qualifies as a form of torture under at least one article of the Geneva Convention. So ... machines it is. 

On the up side, I got to be an 'accidental tourist' in Swinjouscie today, and I also got to travel to Szczeczin in daylight, which meant taking in the scenery around the vast and beautiful Szczeczin Lagoon. I also had a chance to wander around some of this city, which is certainly not without its beauty either. And I must say, rail dramas aside, it's always great to be back in this country :-)

Bye!

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