Sopot is a suburb of Gdansk that is refereed to in travel guides as the St. Tropez of Poland. So we decided to check it out today. It was a quick trip on the tram to the train station, and then a very short train ride to Sopot. We arrived to a very nice main street that led right down to the ocean.
Sopot is a very nice beach town with the typical array of souvenir shops, restaurants and ice cream stalls. The waterfront is very clean, and the beach is wide and the sand is inviting. As a weekend destination it would be really fun.
It is also the home of what is reported to be the longest pier in Europe. We walked up to the pier hoping to take a stroll out only to find that it required a ticket to get on the pier. After a short debate we decided to pony up the money as we are unlikely to return to Sopot.
It seems like it is pretty new, and it is quite long. We walked out to the end of it to see what the longest pier in Europe felt like. At the end of the pier was the same pirate ship that we kept running into in Gdansk, so now we know where they went on their two hour ride.
The only down side we saw to Sopot was the water itself. Away from shore it looked pretty clear, but right up against the beach there were seaweed beds that made the water look dark and not too appealing. So our rating is beach and sand outstanding and on par with St. Tropez, water not up to the crystal clear green and warmth of the Mediterranean.
We finished our visit with a lunch at KFC. KFC is by far the dominant fast food place in Poland. They are everywhere, and about every other rest area on the freeway has a KFC in it. Ton thought it was interesting, because while chicken is a big part of Polish food the traditional dishes were all baked or grilled. We saw no Polish fried chicken. The KFC was different than the US and good, but in the future we are going to stick with the Milk Bars for our Polish lunches.
