Evenings along the River in Gdansk

On late Monday afternoon I did my first walk through the Green Gate towards the river.

I walked across a small pedestrian bridge to Wyspa (Island) Spichrzow. (I regret that right now my access to Wi-Fi is not strong enough to add video to my blog entries. Someday when I'm in  a strong Wi-Fi area, even if that means home, I'll put up a large number of videos.) Right now I can't share with you that every time one walks through the gate openings one finds very accomplished young adults playing all kinds of instruments. In fact one of the memories I'll take away from Gdansk is that almost always when on the street one is hearing excellent music.

A short walk brought me to a view of a pleasure boat dock area.

After looking into the shops here for a bit, I walked back across the bridge and then turned right, walking towards Targ Rybny.

I saw tugboats and

and a working barge. Made me feel right home, scenes I might see on the Mississippi.

Noticing French Fries on a customer's plate in a restaurant, I decided I was hungry. Stopped at a very nice restaurant and ended up with this lovely steak dinner.

After a month of chicken and pork, oh! steak did taste good! To the left, see just a glimpse of a glass of beer. This is the very best I've ever had. It must be a local brew, never have seen it before anywhere. In English the name translates to Golden Lions.

Wandered slowly back to my room for a rest after this lovely dinner.

On Tuesday evening I decided to be a real tourist.

 I decided to give this tourist boat a try. There are two like this, but neither was in the harbor. I found a young woman sitting along a table on the river side of the fence and she sold me a ticket for the 5 PM ride. Since I had not had any lunch, I went to a nearby shop and got  zapiekanki. I wondered as I stood along the river eating zapiekanki if anyone would suspect that I was an American here in Poland as a volunteer English teacher. (In fact, the first evening when I stopped for supper, the waiter noticed me at a table. He picked up three menus; I thought there must be two other customers nearby. No -- he came to ask if I needed Polish, English, or German! Today when buying some jewelry, the woman asked me first, "German or English?")

The boat ride sailed up stream. What I saw reminded me so much of doing boat trips in the Duluth harbor.

 The shore area is very industrial, not scenic.

We saw many ocean going vessels. This one, which appears to belong to a German company by the writing on the side, has the improbable name, Don Juan, and is registered in Singapore.

This large green boat caught my eye. As we were going upstream on our return, it was leaving the harbor accompanied by a pilot boat. It is the Charlemagne and is registered in Luxembourg.

We also saw Polferrie which sails between Gdansk and port south of Stockholm several times during the week.


We saw historical sites.

This is Westerplatte, the point at which World War II began.

This is a monument to those who fought against the attacking Nazi forces.

At the end of the shipping canal where boats enter into Gdansk Gulf there are light houses on both sides. Again it felt just as if one is leaving the shipping canal in Duluth to enter into Lake Superior.

I was really glad I did this boat ride. While it seemed hokey tourist, the thought came to my mind that it's just the same as taking a ride on the riverboats just across the river my apartment in Saint Paul. Glad I did it, for it gave me another view of this area.