Sopot is Poland’s premier seaside resort, once the playground of the rich and fashionable, now it’s just a small seaside town comprising a beach, a pier and a main street which is patrolled by holidaymakers in the daytime, holidaymakers and drunks in the evening, and Peruvian pan-pipe players at all hours. The pier is, according to whichever guide book you pick up, either the longest wooden pier in Europe or the longest wooden pier on the Baltic. There is nothing on the pier, not even an Elvis show. Once you have walked the length of the pier four or five times you have exhausted half of Sopot’s attractions, and all that remains is to get on a boat.
Various types of marine traffic call in at Sopot pier. A relative newcomer is Viking II, a reconditioned fishing boat done up like the Viking longboat in Asterix cartoons, complete with red and white striped sail, which does 45-minute trips round the bay during the day, and dinner cruises to Gdynia in the evening. The canopied restaurant on deck serves such typical Viking fare as kielbasy, chips and Zywiec, and the seats are adorned with animal skins which you can wrap yourself in when the wind comes up and don a two-horned helmet for the Erik the Viking photo opportunity. The Viking II is sister ship to the Viking I, last seen on the Vistula at Kazimierz Dolny. The sight of a Viking longboat materializing through the Baltic mist is quite impressive, I imagine the town drunks must have sobered up rather quickly the first time they saw it.
However, as we had just spent half an hour sheltering from a downpour under Sopot pier, I ignored Harold’s pleading glances towards the Viking boat (I think his alter ego Sven resurfaced briefly at the sight of it) and piped him aboard the ferry to Hel. The journey, via Gdynia, takes 2 hours, and when Hel finally appears it looks rather like the Isle of Sheppey, only not so exciting. It has one main street with a good many bars and fish restaurants, and – our hearts sank – yet another group of poncho’d Peruvian (or possibly Bolivian) Indians playing the pan pipes! This truly was a descent into Hel. We ate very agreeable grilled cod fillet with chips and salad for less than 50 zlotys all told, including a couple of beers, and after a slow wander through a fairly uninteresting market (not even a T-shirt saying “I’ve been to Hel and back”) boarded the ferry back to Sopot.
The Grand Hotel in Sopot was once, I am sure, quite grand. However, despite reports of recent renovation, it reminded me of nothing so much as the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. The view of the sea and the pier is nice, and the rooms are large, but the Orbis idea of luxury still leaves a lot to be desired. Nice bathroom, but it would have been nicer if the loo door had shut properly, and the corridors were about as cosy as a reform school. The staff were efficient and spoke good English, but unsmiling in that Orbis way they have. This would have all been quite acceptable had the room rate been commensurate with the level of comfort, but the Grand is essentially a 3-star hotel charging 5-star prices (445 zlotys a night). For that price, one expects fluffy towels or at least an extra pillow. However, the breakfast is first-class, and is taken in the dining room overlooking the sea, where it is served until 11 a.m. The cocktail bar is an absolute gem – how clever of Orbis to perfectly recreate a 1970’s communist-era entrapment scenario! Right down to the inebriated Russian (“I’m a businessman – now”) and what must be the only three-generation team of government-sponsored escort girls, who sat grimly smoking while the barman, glued to the Bond film on the TV (nice touch!) studiously ignored the customers. As theme bars go, this one gets first prize.
There are three good restaurants in Sopot, otherwise it’s fish and chips, kielbasa or rotisserie chicken on the prom, chips optional but Pan pipes compulsory. We had a couple of beers on the main square and enjoyed watching the town drunks doing their own version of the Lambada and annoying the Bolivians, some small compensation for them having annoyed us all day. We decided to have dinner at Le Balzac, a name which Harold always insists on mispronouncing. The interior is extremely refined, bordering on fussy, with an invisible pianist hidden away in a
back room. The middle-aged headwaiter was straight out of The Birdcage, camper than a row of tents, and flapped around sibilantly, endlessly lisping “prosze bardzo” and “uprzejmie”. Harold muttered something in reply which also began with “up”, but was in English.
We kicked off with soup – Harold started with wild mushroom and I went for French onion, both of which were freshly-made and delicious. For main course Harold had Italian-style lamb (i.e. in tomato sauce with pasta) washed down with a bottle of Cotes de Beaune, while I remained faithful to the maritime tone of the town and had sole fillets stuffed with salmon mousse, an elaborately constructed dish which I took great pleasure in demolishing with the help of a half bottle of Alsace Riesling. Harold kept interrupting his eating to flick through his Polish-English pocket dictionary – I thought he was trying to decipher the more obscure items on the menu, but he muttered that he was looking up the Polish for “shut” and “door”. It was a wet night, admittedly, the poor dear must have been sitting in a draught.
The final damage was quite steep, but the evening was thankfully free of Pan pipe music or chips, and our Larry Grayson impersonating waiter was simpering at Harold as we got into our taxi. So, he’s lost Blondie in Krakow but can always take comfort in the knowledge that he has a devoted admirer in Sopot. What is he like, eh???
Various types of marine traffic call in at Sopot pier. A relative newcomer is Viking II, a reconditioned fishing boat done up like the Viking longboat in Asterix cartoons, complete with red and white striped sail, which does 45-minute trips round the bay during the day, and dinner cruises to Gdynia in the evening. The canopied restaurant on deck serves such typical Viking fare as kielbasy, chips and Zywiec, and the seats are adorned with animal skins which you can wrap yourself in when the wind comes up and don a two-horned helmet for the Erik the Viking photo opportunity. The Viking II is sister ship to the Viking I, last seen on the Vistula at Kazimierz Dolny. The sight of a Viking longboat materializing through the Baltic mist is quite impressive, I imagine the town drunks must have sobered up rather quickly the first time they saw it.
However, as we had just spent half an hour sheltering from a downpour under Sopot pier, I ignored Harold’s pleading glances towards the Viking boat (I think his alter ego Sven resurfaced briefly at the sight of it) and piped him aboard the ferry to Hel. The journey, via Gdynia, takes 2 hours, and when Hel finally appears it looks rather like the Isle of Sheppey, only not so exciting. It has one main street with a good many bars and fish restaurants, and – our hearts sank – yet another group of poncho’d Peruvian (or possibly Bolivian) Indians playing the pan pipes! This truly was a descent into Hel. We ate very agreeable grilled cod fillet with chips and salad for less than 50 zlotys all told, including a couple of beers, and after a slow wander through a fairly uninteresting market (not even a T-shirt saying “I’ve been to Hel and back”) boarded the ferry back to Sopot.
The Grand Hotel in Sopot was once, I am sure, quite grand. However, despite reports of recent renovation, it reminded me of nothing so much as the Overlook Hotel in The Shining. The view of the sea and the pier is nice, and the rooms are large, but the Orbis idea of luxury still leaves a lot to be desired. Nice bathroom, but it would have been nicer if the loo door had shut properly, and the corridors were about as cosy as a reform school. The staff were efficient and spoke good English, but unsmiling in that Orbis way they have. This would have all been quite acceptable had the room rate been commensurate with the level of comfort, but the Grand is essentially a 3-star hotel charging 5-star prices (445 zlotys a night). For that price, one expects fluffy towels or at least an extra pillow. However, the breakfast is first-class, and is taken in the dining room overlooking the sea, where it is served until 11 a.m. The cocktail bar is an absolute gem – how clever of Orbis to perfectly recreate a 1970’s communist-era entrapment scenario! Right down to the inebriated Russian (“I’m a businessman – now”) and what must be the only three-generation team of government-sponsored escort girls, who sat grimly smoking while the barman, glued to the Bond film on the TV (nice touch!) studiously ignored the customers. As theme bars go, this one gets first prize.
There are three good restaurants in Sopot, otherwise it’s fish and chips, kielbasa or rotisserie chicken on the prom, chips optional but Pan pipes compulsory. We had a couple of beers on the main square and enjoyed watching the town drunks doing their own version of the Lambada and annoying the Bolivians, some small compensation for them having annoyed us all day. We decided to have dinner at Le Balzac, a name which Harold always insists on mispronouncing. The interior is extremely refined, bordering on fussy, with an invisible pianist hidden away in a
back room. The middle-aged headwaiter was straight out of The Birdcage, camper than a row of tents, and flapped around sibilantly, endlessly lisping “prosze bardzo” and “uprzejmie”. Harold muttered something in reply which also began with “up”, but was in English.
We kicked off with soup – Harold started with wild mushroom and I went for French onion, both of which were freshly-made and delicious. For main course Harold had Italian-style lamb (i.e. in tomato sauce with pasta) washed down with a bottle of Cotes de Beaune, while I remained faithful to the maritime tone of the town and had sole fillets stuffed with salmon mousse, an elaborately constructed dish which I took great pleasure in demolishing with the help of a half bottle of Alsace Riesling. Harold kept interrupting his eating to flick through his Polish-English pocket dictionary – I thought he was trying to decipher the more obscure items on the menu, but he muttered that he was looking up the Polish for “shut” and “door”. It was a wet night, admittedly, the poor dear must have been sitting in a draught.
The final damage was quite steep, but the evening was thankfully free of Pan pipe music or chips, and our Larry Grayson impersonating waiter was simpering at Harold as we got into our taxi. So, he’s lost Blondie in Krakow but can always take comfort in the knowledge that he has a devoted admirer in Sopot. What is he like, eh???
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