Arriving in Gdnyia

Its been a whirlwind since we arrived back from the Opener festival in Gdnyia Poland last Sunday (2nd July 2017).

Arrival, tall ships and great weather

Dar Młodzieży

Thanks to the flights we arrived in Gdyina a few days early for opener. Taking an early morning flight from Manchester to Gdansk then a short train ride we were in Gdynia in time for lunch. We checked into the Hotel Mercure Gdynia, a 70s era concrete pile. There were plenty of follow festival goers checking in, indeed there was some deal for the VIP holders. Then headed out to eat lunch at Pyra bar. A potato themed place that did great potato babka.

We then spent the afternoon enjoying the good weather, and a few beers around Gyndia.

Tuesday we ate a fantastic breakfast  at Trafik. They were doing some festival specials which were very tasty, so tasty we ended uop returning nearly every day for a post festival breakfast / brunch.

Pyranha

After breakfast we headed to the pier and had a wonder around the aquarium. This was quite good, most of the sections had dual language descriptions so that I could understand what I was looking at.

They was also some big sections on the dangers of ocean pollution.

After the Aqurium we had a wonder around the ORP Błyskawica a second world war era destroyer originally build in the UK for the Polish navy. It saw service in the war then was used by the Polish navy during the Soviet era. It is the oldest preserved destroyer in the world, and provider a fascinating time spent wondering around.

Open'er Festival bands

We went to pick up our festival bands, a day early but it avoided the large queues that appeared later in the week. We got our from the train station not realiseing that there was an open'er festival station right outside the hotel. Indeed there was an open stage for the festival where bands were playing for free in the city.