On the way back through the Baltic we visited  the TriCity in Poland, comprising Gdynia, Sopot and Gdansk.  Between the wars the area lay in a disputed region between Poland and Germany, becoming known as the Polish Corridor.  It was where the invasion of Poland began leading to the start of WW2 and then later in the 1980s it became the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, which played a major role in bringing an end to Communist rule in Poland and helped precipitate the collapse of the Eastern Bloc, the fall of the Berlin Wall and the dissolution of the Soviet Union.

It is hard to believe that the centre of Gdansk was badly damaged during the last war as it has now been restored to its former glory and new buildings are being constructed to resemble those that had been demolished. The tall building with a black wall in the distance on the waterfront is The Crane which has become a symbol of Gdansk’s former trading importance. It dates from 1442 and was once the biggest working crane in the world used to transfer cargoes and to put up masts on ships.  Two huge wooden wheels, each with a diameter of 6 metres, were originally powered by men walking inside of them to turn the lifting mechanism which was capable of raising heavy objects to a height of 11 metres. It remained a working crane until the middle of the 19th century but was 80% destroyed in 1945 but has been restored and is now a museum.

I anticipated that the large port of Gdynia would be ugly but was surprised and apparently it has been voted as the best place in which to live in Poland.   While massive cranes tower over the huge container ships at Gdynia there are some historical ships including a destroyer and tall three masted ship, museums and attractive squares, all with a backcloth of wooden hills and nearby sandy beaches. One such is the beautiful sandy beach at the spa town of Sopot where we enjoyed coffee and cake on the beach and wishing we could join the swimmers in the sea on the warm sunny afternoon.