James and Christine's Big World Tour: James' birthday in Gdansk

So we wanted to find somewhere special for James's birthday. Somewhere he's always wanted to go, but we ended up going back to Poland! It's Gdansk this time though so we're heading out with a positive attitude and thinking that we'll enjoy it more than Warsaw. After a nice smooth flight and two easy airports we headed out for the bus to the city. Christine said to go one way to the stop and James said the other, and of course she was right! It takes about half an hour to get to the main station (and only costs 70p which is a nice change after Norway) and then we have to find our way to the hostel. There's a couple of wrong turns on the way but nothing too serious (and both of us to blame this time) and we're soon at La Guitarra Hostel, right on the river front. We've got a great view of the river from our window, a free breakfast every morning and a room named after Slash. It's only the first evening so we're not too worried about the sights yet but we are going to start making the most of cheap food and drinks and go for some of that famous traditional polish food; Mexican chicken!

A "Rock and Roll" hostel where you can't have alcohol, can't make noise after 11 and there are no TV's provided to throw out of the window. Tut.

Tuesday seems to be the free sightseeing day, hurrah! We should have paid more attention to the opening times though as the freebies shut at 1pm and it's already 12pm, oops. We go to King Arthur's court which is a building impressively decorated with 3D(?) paintings, statues and flying ships. Next stop is the Copernicus mini museum (some astronomer dude) and it really was a mini museum! After a short video we thought we'd be led to the museum but it turned out that we were already stood in it, a teeny tiny room with a few cabinets. It didn't take long to "walk round it" but it was situated in Gdansk's oldest house so that was another sight ticked off the list. James was a bit disappointed as there wasn't much science but lots of 'chat mag' type speculation that Copernicus' secret girlfriend lived there; who'd have thought he was such a naughty boy! With lots of time on our hands we decided to mix it up and try something modern... a 5D cinema! We spent all of 10 minutes having a great time being flung about in chairs whilst 3D zombies chased us through a house AND we had the whole cinema to ourselves so no one could hear James' girly screams, woohoo!

Neptune's fountain

Above: Inside King Arthur's Court

Mr Knickerbockerglory's mini museum

The oldest house in Gdansk

After walking around the town we settle down with a couple of beers and James finds out what is in store for him on his birthday tomorrow. Realising that James has only packed t-shirts we go to a charity shop to buy a shirt. It's a size too big and the comment "ey up young fella, borrow that shirt from your dad did ya?" springs to mind but it's £2 and the only option. Time to sleep, exciting day tomorrow...

Market Square (Długi Targ)

Gdansk's New Town Hall - Why?

Gdansk's Old Town Hall

Happy birthday James! How about seeing the world's longest plank today? The suggestion goes down well and after opening his 'Apple ipad' from his mum and dad we trek through the snow to the bus station.

"An Apple I-pad! Just what I've always wanted!"

The place we need to be is very far away but we're determined and finally find it just outside of a remote village called Szymbark, you can't miss the giant "Guinness World Record this way!!" signs. Now usually places that house such tantalizing delights as the world's longest plank would save the best till last but oh no, not here. We walk through the double doors and come face to face with the longest plank, wow!! After staring at the plank for a while we realise that it is actually just a really long table but the longest plank is on the wall, 36.83m, wow! (Turns out the table was the rest of the tree that the plank came from) After staring at the plank for a while we realise that it is actually the world's second longest plank but not to worry because the longest plank is hanging just above it, 46.53m, wow!

We found the biggest plank!...Or did we?

Which one is it?

This one, hurrah!

After all of this excitement you'd think we'd go for a sit down but we're troopers so we continue onwards, passing some medal winning giant chickens, and come across the next marvel...an upside-down house! Fancy that! The house looks like it has just been dropped off by a tornado and we walk through the attic window, instantly losing control of our legs, it's hard to walk upside down. After some fun with the Pope in the bedroom (or was it the living room?)

That answers the question of what came first.

Do you think the builders were on the beers before they put this up?

Spiderman, spiderman...

Yippeeeee!

Stop playing on the furniture!

Oh that Pope is a cheeky sausage

We find our balance outside and go to say hello to the farm animals. The donkey takes a shine to James and sings Happy Birthday to him HEEEE-ORRRR then quickly changes his mind and tries to bite his hand off! There are some sad monuments relating to concentration camps but we don't want to write about this in James' birthday blog. Next we find another record breaker, the world's biggest playable piano! They don't do small in Szymbark. Ironic since it's such a tiny town.

Where's the birthday cake?

The world's biggest piano

After saying goodbye to the animals and the friendly Polish lady in the shop we get the bus back to Gdansk ready to change into our finery for a rare treat for us both, a posh meal in a posh restaurant.

Gdansk seems to be full of top notch restaurants but Christine has a nice riverfront one in mind. First it's off to our local bar for a pre-dinner drink. Degustatornia Don Piwa is an ace bar with good music and a great selection of beers, we'll definitely be coming back here. On to Goldwasser restaurant for a gorgeous 2 course meal with wine and a lovely river view. The atmosphere is so relaxing and we finish off our meal with the famous Goldwasser liqueur filled with 22 carat gold flakes, yum! We find a bar to finish the night but it's chilled out and we wanted to dance, we wish our local bar was still open!

Proof we went posh (even the chips were)

The famous Goldwasser

Cheers birthday boy!

The next day we decide to treat ourselves to pancakes for breakfast, Christine found a train themed pancake house that she wanted to take James to yesterday but as we were pushed for time we never made it so it's nice to be able to sample the pancakes and pretend to be on a train, choo choo! James goes for savoury cheese and broccoli but Christine is more sensible and goes for nutella, cream and banana, they were gorgeous and huge! Feeling fat we go for a walk around some bunkers that have been turned into a museum, unfortunately its all in Polish but at least we walked off some pancakes and got a good view of Gdansk from up high.

Who wants to tell him it's not a real window?

Let's hope that doesn't affect the taste of my pancakes...

Maybe I should have taken the photo before the cream melted

Educational bunkers...as long as you understand Polish!

Next we head to the castle tower to visit the torture museum, buying our tickets we are pointed in the direction of the amber museum, we must have to go through this to get to the proper tower part. After 3 boring floors of Amber (It was just like walking around one of the jewelry shops) we see the path to the "History of the Building" part but we are stopped by security "No, no, no, no, no!". The girl who we bought our tickets from confirms that that part of the museum is closed for repairs, bah! We wish she would have told us that when we bought the tickets.

After some huge burgers at Original Burger we head back to the hostel with a pit stop at our local bar. There is a home brew beer competition on so the place is buzzing. We try two different beers and vote for our favourite, now it would be rude not to stay to hear the results. "The Good" is the winner which was the one we voted for (the Bad is what comes in the morning!), now we'll have to look out for it hitting the UK shelves heehee! Time for bed ready for our flight to Stockholm tomorrow.