Szczecin; Sunday, 22 July, 2012

First stop of the morning was the train station to visit the tourist office. I had intended to go their directly, but on the way I spotted an automatic ticket machine for the station, rather than having to join a massive queue and try and do everything in my non-existent Polish, I decided to use that to check how much it would cost to get up to the coast.

Given how cheap it was, and that seats were available, I booked for later that afternoon with the return mid-evening. With the tickets in my pocket I continued down to the tourist office to get a Szczecin card and then on up to the Ducal Palace to have a good look around.

Having taken in the sites of the Ducal palace I headed down to the old town hall and had a look around the historical museum that is based there, before grabbing a quite bite to eat and then heading over to the station to catch the train to the coast.

Swinoujscie (formerly Swinemünde) is located in the very north western corner of Poland, at the mouth of the Odra river delta and with some stunning beaches. It’s also got quite a fair amount of ruined fortresses due to its location.

From the train it was a short ferry crossing over the river Swina to the town centre and first stop, as it was closing within the hour, was the museum of deep sea fishing. Having looked round that, I went for a long wander through the town and the large park that surrounds much of the town centre.

I eventually found myself down by the river mouth at one of the many fortresses and had a look around that before continuing along the river to where it empties into the sea and then walking back along the long sandy beach.

I had a nice long walk along the beach, so long in fact that I left Poland altogether and entered Germany! Having returned back across the border I wandered back through the town towards the station and made my train with about 20 minutes to spare, but sadly no time for dinner.

By the time I got back to Szczecin I was just able to catch the last tram of the night up the hill from the station to the hotel where I picked up a bite to eat at the bar before turning in for the night