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Polish trains… Now that was an unexpected challenge.

When coming back from Tomász’s bar in the evening, Duha and I wanted to make plans for today. That’s when we realized that the Interrail timetable was wildly different from the Polish Trains’ one. Some were existing in one and not the other and vice versa. There was also no way to book seats from either platforms. It quickly became apparent that we will have to get to the Kraków station early and have some human contact.

Which we did. Good news was that the fast train we wanted to take, first, well, existed, which is always a plus, and second was only about 11 € with Interrail, unlike the 23 € displayed in the Interrail app. We bought Duha’s Poland pass, got back in line, and got our ticket. We went for some grocery for lunch happy about the prospect to only have 5 h of train, when we realized we were actually running out of time. We gave up on the bread and paid quickly at the self-checkout before running to the platform, just in time.

The hilarious part was having lunch, with my friend of misery, consisting of sandwiches made up of two chips and a slive of ham, while seating in the middle of a group of rich elderly people from Luxembourg, discussing about great wines and oenology. Two worlds colliding…

I thought I was done for snow, at least until the mountains of Slovakia or something, but before Warszawa [Warsaw], we actually got into serious snowfall, even though it obviously will not stick.

The fast Pendolino train that we took was great, except for the way too small upper-head racks. Such a fast, smooth, comfortable (except for the trash bin, which was a bit hard for Duha’s taste) ride. They even offered bottles of water.

Finally in Gdańsk, we sat in a café near the magnificent station, waiting for our airbnb to be ready to drop the keys. It took a bit of time, and we had some language barrier issues, but in the end it worked out just fine. Soon enough, we were ack out to hit the streets, and now it was snowing! Not that much, but some nice big snowflakes. Nearly the first snowfall I see on this trip, despite the meters of snow I walked in in Sweden.

Gdańsk is a beautiful city, with a typical Hanseatic feel to it. In a way, some buildings kinda reminded me of Brugge [Bruges], with the roofs finishing flat at the facade level, but with some crazy shapes. It’s yet another superb red-brick city (I love red-brick cities). After a good walk, we ate in a restaurant along the river, got baited by a turning bridge that ran parallel to the river, and went back to the appartment.