Poland - Gdansk

Stettin

Lunch was a little later than expected, because of the delay in getting off, but eventually we pull into a hotel for lunch - mushroom soup, side salad, some meat and rice and a cake thing for desert.

Back on the road, then after a few more toilet stops we get to Gdansk at about 9.30pm. Then it is time for dinner, which was a buffet.

Gdansk sightseeing

We opt out of the optional sightseeing tour - its a walking tour of the old town. We get up and out in good time, however its pouring with rain. Kagouls at the ready (waterproofs to you, if your not familiar with kags).

The old town is not far from the hotel, but we decide to go to the far end first and work back. The only map we have is a photocopy from a travel book, but this is what we did on the town trail:

Down the main street from the Orbis-Hevelius Hotel, passing most landmarks without a second glance to "The Golden Gate" at the top of Dluga. Also had a look at the "Highland Gate" while we were there. A couple of nice structures.
Further on to a few towers - Corner, Schultz and Brewery (just these towers, y'know, especially as at least one wasn't really what you'd call a tower!).
Down Ul. Dlugi and Ul. Dlugi Targ: Quite a smart road leading down to the town hall. The buildings mostly have interesting facias some dating back quite some time (1500s and 1600s). A few picture stops made down here - from various sheltered locations as the rain showed no signs of abating.
The Green Gate is at the end of the road and is in scaffolding - this is tour, instead of being "The baltic States and Scandinavia" should perhaps be renamed "The Baltic States and Scaffolding".
We find a way through (via the Bread Sellers Gate) to take a picture of the Gothic watergates and quayside from the bridge over the River Motlawa, where we encounter the tour group going the other way.
St Mary's Church (possibly even cathedral).
The old Town Hall and Great Mill - looking into the various churches as we go along.
The monument to the fallen ship workers, near to the shipyards and the founding place of the Solidarity movement.

We return to the hotel just in time to get stuff together and onto the bus - suitably rotated, though there are some who seem to be having trouble with concept of the rotation of seats. We do have some "characters" on the tour, and I think that's all I should say as people have varying opinions on others. I, for example, may like or dislike a person for totally arbitrary and irrational reasons.

Poland to Lithuania via Russia

The bus gets on the way at about 10.15, for the 219km drive (crow-wise) to Klaipeda in Lithuania, making one toilet stop (as I recall) before arriving at the Polish/Russian border at Gronowo - we have to pass through Russia to get to Lithuania. I didn't have a map at the time so I'm not sure what route the driver took, but looking later it didn't look like the shortest way to Kaliningrad, which is our target stop for lunch.

It takes about an hour and a quarter to get through the Polish border crossing. About half an hour at the first Russian border post before spending over an hour at the next Russian border post. One of the problems is that none of the British party has an entry card, issued by the visa people, because the visa people in the UK (the Russian embassy/consulate) INSIST that it is not required to enter Russia, however the border officials insist that it is. We are not flavour of the month while the officials complete the paperwork by hand. The hand written entry details is for this border only and they won't give us a piece of paper to take to the other borders, so we have this ritual to perform three more times - as you need it to exit Russia, too.

We picked up our Russian local Guide here and she was put to work immediately in sorting out the border problems, which she did brilliantly.

After all that waiting we are finally in Russia for the first time and possibly only for the next six hours or so.