Day 19 – to Chełmo and Ciechocinek

Today started rather leisurely. It is a nice and sunny morning out, bright sun, but somewhat chilly, about 15 centigrade or about 60 degrees. The high today is forecast for about 70 and a chance of rain. As the morning progressed, some clouds appeared. It has been a very cool and wet summer here in the Gdaṅsk area. It’s hard for the farmers as it is hard to get the crops off the fields when it’s so wet. Yesterday Wojtek tried to mow the lawn, but it was too wet–both the grass and the ground. He got a bit done, but then just had to stop.

I spent about an hour or so alone while Wojtek, Alicja, and Filip went on an errand to Pruszcz Gdanski, the nearest “big” town, a town of about 22,000 people. It is not a huge town, but is a popular place to live for those who work in the big city of Gdaṅsk but want the “feel” of a smaller town. It is where the schools are located where Patricja and Maciek (“translators” I’ve met during my stay) work.

We headed out before noon. Our final destination for this day was Ciehocinek, but we planned an intermediate stop at Chełmno. The roads were pretty good. For the first 90 kilometers or so, we were on a toll road, a very nice road where we could cruise at around 120 km/hr or so. Eventually, that ended as it’s still under construction. But we eventually arrived at Chełmno. There, we walked around a bit. We saw the city square and a number of old buildings. Chełmno is a very old town and has some structures that date back many centuries. It was quite interesting and once again I took lots of photos, though the day by now was somewhat cloudy. We also saw a few old churches. One of them is currently undergoing a big restoration/preservation project. They were very beautiful, inside and out.

We hit the road again, but eventually ran into some very bad traffic and were delayed a good 45 minutes, maybe more. It took that long to cover just a few kilometers. But eventually we got past that and made it to our destination, Ciechocinek. Ciechocinek is notable for it’s salt springs and it’s restorative/rehabilitaion facilities. Long ago, they were for the army and soldiers, but now are open to everyone. There are several huge structures in the city that were designed and used years ago to make salt. The water from the salt springs would be put in these huge vats– a kilometer long!– and then the water would evaporate leaving the salt behind.

We checked into our hotel, the Hotel Atlas. My room was 160 PLN, very reasonable. It’s a very nice hotel, nicely decorated with a small bar/restaurant. After our arrival, we had a beer (or two) at the hotel before beginning our evening’s activities.

While Alicja went for a massage, Wojtek and I went to the basen (pool) for a swim. It is a very nice facility, well run. The water felt good and has a number of areas with very strong jets and falling water, as well as lanes for just swimming laps. We swam for quite a while there, it was a lot of fun. Eventually we headed back to our hotel were we met up with Alicja, then departed for the evening’s activities.

I am not sure how to best describe the hall where we went for dinner, drinking, and dancing. I am told it is an old communist place, and kept in the same manner all these years. A very oblong dance floor is flanked by tables on three sides, and a stage on the fourth. There was a band playing music, and they were very good. There was a lot of dancing as well. The crowd was mostly older people, 50s and up, but some younger too. They were all having a very great time.

We had dinner there. I had a cream of mushroom soup that was about the best I’ve ever had, simply outstanding. And for my main course I had Beef Stroganoff–it was pretty good but I’ve made better. Still, the food was good. With dinner we had a half liter of vodka and apple juice. We had a very good time and managed to finish up the vodka. But in the midst of all that there was some dancing as well. It was a lot of fun. There were no polkas, though. But a lot of good Polish folk music. The band was small but the singer(s) did a lot of work to lead people in having fun with dancing and the like. We ate, drank, danced, and had a very, very good time. It was a lot of fun.

Eventually we took off. We had a bit of a ride (bicycle of sorts, a people taxi powered by a cyclist) down to the aforementioned salt structures, whatever they are called. And then we walked around a but and slowly made our way back to our hotel.

Once back here we had a bit more vodka (yes, we’d stopped by a store on the way back) and then called it a day. But a very full day it was. And a very good day.