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In Which I Go To Hel And Back
November 19, 2006 by Mike
Chalupy
Route: Gdansk - Sopot - Gdynia - Reda - Puck - Wladyslawowo - Chalupy - Hel - Chalupy
I have a Polish spy. Everyone should. They're highly recommended. (Don't worry Linda, I won't reveal yr identity.. especially as you sent yr detailed email during office hours, and Steve probably thought you were writing an important report or something.)
She tipped me off on the far east of the country -- "people there like to consider themselves as a very unique community - Kaszubi - and they speak weird polish accent or their own ever weirder language I would not understand"; she tipped me off about Gdansk -- "it's very nice to take a walk or sit down and have a pint of OKOCIM MOCNE (my favourite) along the river Vistula (Wisla) there"; and she warned me that the other components of the Tri-City area, Sopot and Gdynia, aren't worth as much of anyone's time.
Sopot has the longest pier in the Baltic, so the Brightonian in me had to stop for a peek. It was a pleasant stroll and the lack of candyfloss, dodgems and commerce in general was a pleasant surprise.
Brighton has the Grand Hotel, where Thatcher and the Tories were bombed in 1984. Sopot has its own Grand Hotel, where Hitler took the waters in September 1939 as his troops were capturing Warsaw. You're expecting me to compare the two? The politicians or the hotels? Or the cities? I'll stick to the least controversial comparison. Sopot is lovely but.. well.. the people of Brighton are just better-looking.
My Polish spy was certainly right about Gdynia, an industrial centre that passed in a blur of traffic lights and petrol stations. I was on a mission.
Poring over my road map of Poland, I had been struck by three things:
1. Picture the scene: It's 1938. Herge has put the finishing touches to King Ottakar's Sceptre. Everything is perfect: the plot, the characterisation, the detailed drawings, everything. But then a young Pole working at his publishing house, Casterman, examines the proofs. I picture the little beads of sweat flying off his face, his mouth wide open, as he spots the problem. He hurries round to Herge's studio (picture of him striding purposefully along the street); he rounds the corner (a busy street with taxis flying by, perhaps a pair of street urchins chased by an irate market-stall holder, Thompson and Thomson ambling by, across the street is Herge's studio.) He has bad news: the arch-baddies, Colonel Slupsk of the Bordurian secret police and his henchmen Tczew and Sztum, may sound like perfect Tintinesque characters. But Tczew, Sztum and Slupsk are actually the names of real Polish towns. Yes!
2. Clearly, I need to get a life.
and
3. On the coast to the north of Gdansk is another spit of land. At the tip is a small village called Hel.
Yes, folks, all this is just a set-up for me riding to Hel and back. On the road to Hel. A cold day in Hel. Etc etc. If you can think of any more, please feel free to chip in.
And I want it on the record that I got through the entire day without singing that bloody song to myself. Yes, that one. The one that just started playing in yr head. Though it was a struggle at times.
What I wasn't expecting was quite how lovely the road to Hel would be. Almost a contender for the Top Ten - except nobody'd believe me.
And in case you're thinking of going to Hel yrself, let me reassure you that it's a chirpy little place, some fishing, a bit of tourism. The roads are being dug up at the moment, quel surprise, so I got to sample a cobble or two. At one stage I was forced the wrong way down a one-way street because of diversions - luckily nobody was coming the other way. There's even a Lord Nelson pub and pension in Hel. Good Norfolk boy that I am, I supppose I should have called it a night and stayed there, but I was keen to make some miles.
Yet within twenty miles or so I was reconsidering, as dark set in, and found a little hotel in Chalupy, on the edge of the sea. Well, in truth, everything in Chalupy is on the edge of the sea. The peninsula here is less than 300 metres wide.
To bed with the roar of the sea in my ears. Heaven, not Hel.
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By Laura | November 24, 2006 6:48 PM
Have you now experienced what it's like when Hel freezes over or is the weather warmer than that?