Poland & Berlin: Part 1 - Day 1: Stockholm to Gdansk

In the summer of 2023, I stepped foot onto a new country - Poland! I have heard how cheap Poland is, especially the beer and lots of hearty meal. But what I did not hear of is how much history Poland has from World War 2. It was really painful to hear the stories from the walking guides, and then when we stepped into Berlin, it was more painful history of the Jews, which I ashamedly admitted that I have little knowledge of. After the trip, I was enriched with knowledge and it is difficult to comprehend why would people go to war against one another. Why is it difficult to live together, accept one's another differences and enjoy the company of one another? 

Last year, I made the mistake of travelling from Stockholm to Munich to Bolzano and back to Stockholm using the same route. This year, we travelled from Stockholm to Gdansk by ferry, took the train across Poland and into Germany and took the long distance train from Berlin to Stockholm. We decided to take the ferry because we could spend a night on the ferry and reached Poland by lunch the next day. Also, a travel companion would like to avoid flying as much as possible. All train tickets to travel within Poland were purchased from PKP Intercity. I am happy that everything went well according to plan and there was room for ad-hoc activities too.

This is the summary of the trip: Stockholm --> Gdansk, Poland (2 nights) --> Warsaw (1 night) --> Zakopane (4 nights) --> Krakow (3 nights) --> Berlin, Germany (3 nights) --> Stockholm

Here is a summary of what is spent on Day 1.

21/7 Day 1: Ferry departed from Nynäshamn at 6pm. Overnight on Polferries.

Costs

(1) Polferries ferry ticket: SEK1893 per person that includes a bed and 1 breakfast. The tickets were bought from Polferries's website. 3 of us shared a room with a window so we could have a sea view. 

Food

(1) Dinner on Polferries - corn-fed chicken fillet PLN61, Beer 330ml PLN8. Total PLN69 / SEK188,20 

(2) Coffee latte PLN17 / SEK46,39, Irish coffee PLN22 / PLN60

The Story

21072023 Evening: Our trip started at Nynäshamn port. 

We registered our names at the ticket counter and got our ferry tickets. I tried saying 'thank you' in Polish to the ticket attendant and he replied back 'you are welcome' in Polish. I felt really proud of myself! 

This is our room with a seaview. There was a shower head too but we did not use it.

For dinner, we went to a restaurant in the ferry. There are not many options to choose from. It was either a cafe or a restaurant. I had a corn-fed chicken fillet with potato gratin, vegetables and mushroom sauce. It was nothing unusual about the food. I tried to choose the cheapest because food and drinks on a ship are not cheap. So, the vege nuggets are the cheapest (if you see the price from the menu in the photo below) but I do not fancy nuggets. There was a salad buffet so we had that before the main meal came in.

After dinner, we hung around random places, walked around the ship and had coffee. My friends took Irish coffee which is much more worth it than a my coffee latte. The irish coffee was really good and I think, alcohol is cheaper than the non-alcohol drinks on the ship.