One Trip, Multiple Stories: A Travel Writer's Rail Journey through Europe

For the journey detailed below, I received on-the-ground assistance from local tourism authorities and hotels. Full disclosures are included with each linked article and blog post.

This is, believe it or not, post number 600 on this blog. A lot of water has flowed under the virtual bridge since I started it in 2008, and travel writing itself has become more challenging in terms of extracting an income from it.

However, for this post I'd like to reprise what I did for post 400 and post 500 - that is, to dissect a particular travel writing journey and show how my travels are converted into specific stories. At the end I'll add a summary of profit and expenses.

For this post I'm looking my 2016 trip to Europe, travelling through Germany, Denmark, Poland and Ukraine over four weeks in May-June that year.

Are we sitting comfortably? Then let's begin...

Sunday 8 May 2016

Fly from Melbourne to Hamburg via Dubai.

Monday 9 May 2016

Activity (from Monday to Wednesday): Visit the Speicherstadt Museum, Speicherstadt Kaffeerösterei and the Coffee Museum, as well as contemporary cafes, in Hamburg, Germany.

1. Resulting story: An article about Hamburg's coffee history and culture for Lonely Planet's website.

Tuesday 10 May 2016

   
Activity: Join Hempel’s Beatles tour (in which the guide plays a ukulele!) through the St Pauli district of Hamburg.

1. Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about the tour here at Aerohaveno.

Activity: Visit the historic Kaifu-bad baths in Hamburg.

1. Resulting story: An article about Germany's spa culture for Traveller.
   
2. Resulting story: An article about Germany's spa culture for Lonely Planet's website.
   

Thursday 12 May 2016

   
Activity: Visit Café Niederegger, famous for its locally-manufactured marzipan, in Lübeck, Germany.

1. Resulting story: An article about Lubeck's marzipan for Lonely Planet's website.

Activity: Visit the Hanseatic Museum in Lübeck, Germany.

1. Blog Post: A post about the museum here at Aerohaveno.

Friday 13 May 2016

Activity: Catch train from Lübeck to Copenhagen, Denmark (including ferry crossing).

1. Blog Post: A post about the journey here at Aerohaveno.

Saturday 14 May 2016

   
Activity: Take Nordic Noir tour (featuring The Killing and The Bridge) in Copenhagen, Denmark.

1. Resulting story:  A 'Postcard from Copenhagen' article for the Spectrum (culture) section of The Age newspaper in Melbourne.

Sunday 15 May 2016

Activity: Take a guided tour of the counter-culture enclave Christiania in Copenhagen.

1. Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.

Activity: Visit the Thorvaldsen Museum of classical statuary in Copenhagen.

1. Blog Post: A post about the (surprisingly interesting) museum here at Aerohaveno.

Monday 16 May 2016

Activity: Visit Kronborg Castle (Shakespeare's Elsinore in Hamlet), in Helsingør, Denmark.

1. Resulting story: An article about the castle for Traveller.

Tuesday 17 May 2016

Activity: Catch bus to Ystad, Sweden, then overnight ferry to Świnoujście, Poland (arriving Wednesday, connecting with train to Warsaw).

1. Blog Post: A post about the journey here at Aerohaveno.

Thursday 19 May 2016

Activity: Day-trip to Łódź, Poland by train, to join a tour of the city's post-industrial and cinematic sights.

1. Resulting story: An article about the city for Lonely Planet's website.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about the city here at Aerohaveno.

Friday 20 May 2016

 Activity: Taking a tour focusing on Warsaw's architectural highlights.

1. Resulting story: An item about the city in an article about less-crowded European destinations, for Traveller.
2. Blog Post: A post about the city's architectural oddities here at Aerohaveno.
3. Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including a Warsaw bar mleczny and other items from later in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.

Saturday 21 May 2016

   
Activity: Train to Gdańsk, visit the city's new Shakespeare Theatre.

1. Resulting story: An item about the theatre in a list of Best Travel Finds of 2016, for Traveller.
2. Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including a historic local restaurant and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.

Sunday 22 May 2016

Activity: Tour of Malbork Castle, near Gdańsk.

1. Resulting story: An article about the castle and its restaurant for Traveller.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including the castle's restaurant and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.

Activity: Visit the new European Solidarity Centre, in a historic former shipyard in Gdańsk.

1. Resulting story: An article about walking the city's historic heart for Lonely Planet's website.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about the centre here at Aerohaveno.

Monday 23 May 2016

   
Activity: Visit Wilczy Szaniec (Wolf's Lair), Hitler's Russian Front HQ during World War II.

1. Resulting story: An article about the eerie site for Traveller.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about the site here at Aerohaveno.

Tuesday 24 May 2016

   
Activity: Driving to Bohoniki and Kruszyniany in eastern Poland, to visit their historic mosques.

1. Blog Post: A post about food highlights, including traditional Tatar cuisine of Kruszyniany and other items from elsewhere in this visit to Poland, here at Aerohaveno.

Wednesday 25 May 2016

 
Activity: Taking a tour of Białowieża National Park in eastern Poland (where bison still roam!).

1. Resulting story: An article about the park for Lonely Planet's website.
   
2. Blog Post: A post about the park here at Aerohaveno.

Thursday 26 May 2016

   
Activity: Overnight sleeper train from Kraków, Poland to Lviv, Ukraine.

1. Resulting story: An article about the rail journey for Traveller.
   

Friday 27 to Monday 30 May 2016

   
Activity: Exploring cafes and other attractions of Lviv, Ukraine.

1. Resulting story: An article about the city's cafe scene for Lonely Planet's website.
2. Resulting story: An article about the saucy Masoch Cafe for Traveller.
   
3. Blog Post: A post about the city's attractions here at Aerohaveno.

Tuesday 31 May 2016

   
Activity: Joining a tour of communist-era architecture and history in Kiev, Ukraine.

1. Resulting story: An article about the tour for Lonely Planet's website.
2. Spiked story: An article about the tour for an Australian magazine which was cancelled (for which I received a part-payment 'kill fee').

Wednesday 1 to Thursday 2 June 2016

   
Activity: Two-day tour of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, Ukraine (sleeping over in Chernobyl).

1. Resulting story: An article about the tour for Lonely Planet's website.
2. Resulting story: An article about the tour for Traveller.
3. Resulting story: An article about how to visit Chernobyl for Lonely Planet's website (ahead of the Chernobyl TV series).
4. Spiked story: An article about the tour for an Australian magazine (for which I received full payment).
5. Blog Post: A post about the tour here at Aerohaveno.

Saturday 4 June 2016

   
Activity: Overnight sleeper train from Kiev, Ukraine to Warsaw, Poland.

1. Blog Post: A post about the rail journey here at Aerohaveno.

And that's it! I flew from Warsaw back to Melbourne on Monday 6 June. I feel exhausted just typing all that. It was a great journey, full of variety. The visit to Chernobyl was the strangest thing I'd done yet on my travels, incredibly moving and memorable.

Writing output, financial income

By my count, the trip produced a total of 25 paid articles for various publications (include two spiked articles I received payment for), and 14 posts on this blog. I've also delivered (so far) two paid talks about my 2016 Europe trip to audiences at public libraries.

I calculate the paid articles earned a total of $12,905.52 (all figures here are in Australian dollars) for both words and photos, before adding any applicable sales tax. This includes the fees from the library talks.

The blog posts don't earn any direct income, but drive traffic to Aerohaveno and thus contribute to the occasional small payments I receive from the Google Ads running on my blog.

Expenses

The Polish government covered my flights and most expenses for my Poland stay, and the German National Tourist Board likewise hosted me in Germany. In Denmark I received a public transport and museum pass from Visit Denmark, but paid for my food and accommodation. In Ukraine I paid for everything except my hotel stay in Lviv (luckily Ukraine was breathtakingly cheap!).

I calculate my total expenses on this trip at $2,951.81, which leaves a profit of $9,953.71 (and whatever future income is derived from public talks about that trip).

Some trips have a greater return on outlay, others less so. What's worth noting is how long a particular journey can take to fully pay out. The first published of the 25 articles appeared on 22 June 2016, and the last on 31 July 2019 - quite a chronological spread!

Also, my Europe 2016 talk will continue to be delivered to library audiences throughout 2020 (I began delivering it in early 2019, and I generally change my headline public talk every two years).

It's not easy to make a living from travel writing; but my rule of thumb is to derive a published story per each day of travel on a particular trip. That quantity, if achieved, helps make it viable. That target was largely achieved on this occasion.

After this epic post, it's time for a break! Aerohaveno will be taking a rest over the holiday season, and will be back with you in early January. Have a great New Year!

Nexus of Change: Gdańsk Shipyard, Poland

I visited Poland in 2016 courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

In 1980, the Solidarity trade union was founded at the Lenin Shipyard (later renamed the Gdańsk Shipyard) in Gdańsk, Poland.

Led by electrician Lech Wałęsa, Solidarity became the first independent trade union recognised in Eastern Europe's communist bloc, after a massive strike forced the Polish government to legalise it.

A decade of struggle, repression and civil disobedience followed, until the collapse of the Berlin Wall and of Europe's communist regimes.

The Wall's collapse can be traced back to Solidarity, its foundation having forced the first cracks into the totalitarian structure.

Nowadays the Gdańsk Shipyard is much reduced as a working facility. On part of its former footprint stands the European Solidarity Centre, opened in 2014 with an exhibition explaining the long struggle for freedom which began here.

I walked through it on my 2016 visit, and for a student of history it was fascinating. From mock-ups of communist-era homes and offices, to chilling details of the surveillance state, it gives a sense of what it was like to live through those times.

At the end of the exhibition is a stylised replica of the circular conference table which negotiated a peaceful end to the regime. I saw it as a symbol of hope. Not every tussle for power has to end in bloody civil war.

In addition to housing the Centre, the shipyard site has hosted major rock concerts to mark Solidarity's struggle, and its distinctive Gate Number Two has become a symbol of freedom.

The gate still stands, and makes an impressive architectural counterpoint to the hyper-modern ESC building.

In a time of political uncertainty across Europe, with democracy seemingly shaky, this site - so crucial in the spread of freedom across the continent - is well worth a visit.

The European Solidarity Centre is open daily from 10am, admission 20zł ($7). For more details, visit its website.

Cheap to Rich: The Tasty Food of Poland

I visited Poland courtesy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland.

Something that doesn't get enough credit internationally is Polish cuisine. 

True, it's not particularly spicy, and cabbage is never far away from your plate. However, Poland's native food is diverse, flavoursome and filling, and very affordable for the average traveller. Here are a few dishes I particularly enjoyed on my recent visit.

1. Cafeteria comfort food. During the communist era, the low-budget culinary needs of the worker were filled by the bar mleczny, or milk bar. Some of these inexpensive cafeterias have survived into the 21st century, and are a great place to discover classic dishes at a low price.

I had lunch one day at Prasowy, a surviving milk bar in Warsaw. Having narrowly escaped closure a few years ago, Prasowy has now become a retro favourite with a new generation:

I ordered the vegetarian set lunch. The combination of tomato soup, vege lasagne, salad and house-made juice only cost a few dollars, and it was great:

You can find Prasowy at ul Marszałkowska 10/16, Warsaw.

2. Pancakes to order. Up the other end of the poshness index is Restaurant Gdańska in the port city of Gdańsk.

The highlight of the meal was my order of pancakes (naleśniki) for dessert. A simple dish, I thought, so was somewhat surprised when my waiter wheeled forth a trolley with all the fixings and prepared it in front of me:

The following evening I dined nearby, at Pod Łososiem (Under the Salmon). I'd always wanted to eat here, as it's the place which invented goldwasser, a liqueur flecked with gold, back in 1598. That's what I finished the meal with:

Restaurant Gdańska is found at ul Świętego Ducha 16, Gdańsk, see www.gdanska.pl. Pod Łososiem is situated at ul Szeroka 52/54, Gdańsk; see www.podlososiem.com.pl.

3. Gothic degustation. When I visited Malbork Castle, the world's largest brick castle, I expected to eat something simple in the onsite tavern. 

However, lunch was at the Gothic Cafe & Restaurant, the base of chef Bogdan Gałązka. As a chef with international experience, he's adapted local ingredients and Polish standards to produce an eclectic array of excellent dishes. I don't know quite what you'd call it - Modern Polish? - but the results are outstanding. 

Again, dessert was the show stopper - here's the chef presenting it:

Within the birdcage was a glass containing white chocolate, sesame seeds, halva, blackcurrant sauce, and fruit. It was superb, all the flavours fresh and working together harmoniously. I don't have much of a sweet tooth, but I loved this.

The Gothic Cafe & Restaurant is within Malbork Castle, ul Starościńska 1, Malbork; www.gothic.com.pl.

4. Tatar tastes. Later in the week I visited Kruszyniany, a tiny eastern village near the border with Belarus. It's notable for its fine old 18th century mosque, a legacy of the Muslim Tatars who were given land here by the Polish king in 1679:

The mosque still serves a community which celebrates its Tatar roots. There's also Tatar food on offer, at the nearby Tatarska Jurta restaurant. 

I had lunch there, starting with this chłodnik, a Lithuanian cold beetroot soup blended with sour cream (hence the pink); and a juice made in-house from local fruits:

The Tartar portion of the meal was this plate of kartoflaniki, dumplings filled with potato, egg, onion and parsley. You drill a little hole into each one, then pour some of the accompanying butter sauce in. Delicious and filling.

Tatarska Jurta is located at Kruszyniany 58, Krynki; see www.kruszyniany.pl.

5. Breakfast plenty. Finally, I should include at least one example of a Polish hotel's breakfast spread. Hotels in Poland - especially the three-star variety - tend to include breakfast with the room rate, and it's generally very good value for money. 

You'll find an array of meats, egg dishes, cheeses and breads, along with a few wildcard choices including herring and pasta. There'll also be cereals and sweet items such as cheesecake. It's diverse and delicious.

To give you an idea of what it looks like, here's part of the breakfast buffet at the Hotel Amax in Masuria, shot from either side:

The Hotel Amax is at Al Spacerowa 7, Mikołajki; see www.hotel-amax.pl.

If you head to Poland, try sampling its cuisine at all price levels - it's tasty stuff. Bon appetit; or as the Poles say, smacznego.

Mysterious Pies of the Baltic (Part 2)

The pie-making entrepreneur of Gdynia in 2006

Last week, I recounted a strange 1994 encounter with Australian-style meat pies in Gdańsk, Poland. Next, in futuristic 2006, I meet their maker...

Gdynia is - how shall I put this? - not blessed with the charms of its neighbours in the coastal Tri-City, seaside resort Sopot and historic Gdańsk.

It’s the ugly sister of the three, a functional port city whose straight, no-nonsense streets are lined with blocky concrete buildings, evoking the gloomy stereotype of communist-era architecture.

But none of this was evident in the charmingly art deco setting of the Willa Lubicz. Here I met Beata Zielińska (pictured above), the fast food entrepreneur of the Baltic coast.

As we sat at a table in the hotel’s genteel cafe and ordered coffee, she explained why the paj.

Pies vs pies

“I couldn't make them under the English name, because ‘pies’ [when pronounced pee-es] means ‘dog’ in Polish,” she explained disarmingly. A sound reason, I agreed.

“In Adelaide, I went to a very nice pie factory, run by a Dutch man, and said ‘I want to learn how to make pies’,” she said. “I worked with him, and learned so much.

“We brought the pie tins over to Poland because they're specially shaped tins; if I'm running out of the tins, my family brings them on the way to visit me. If I'm going to try making a new flavour, I ask my son Martin ‘Can you bring a different shape?’”

Changing tastes

The venture was an initially successful one, but there’s no accounting for local tastes. Though she’d started out with a traditional Australian recipe, Beata found she had to tinker with perfection.

“I had to change them to suit Polish tastes,” she shrugged. “The paj australijski had a lot of gravy, but here they like it to be all meat.”

So could anyone achieve success in a similar way, by taking a unique Aussie foodstuff and adapting it to the palates of a foreign population?

Beata shook her head. “I meet a lot of people who come back from Australia, but not many stay. They think it'll be easy to make money here, but it's not. Just like in Australia, you have to work hard for your money.”

Émigré energy

I’ve never migrated to another country myself, but I have Sudanese friends who’ve settled in Australia via the long and stressful route taken by political refugees, and I marvel at the energy and drive they've applied to adapting to their new home.

Despite our relaxed chat over kawa and cake, I sensed something similarly determined beneath Beata’s surface.

Australia has benefited from its many Polish migrants over the years - from explorer Paul Strzelecki to the Solidarity refugees of the 1980s - so it was nice to imagine some of that migrant energy being traded back to its source.

As we left, I took a photo of a bumper sticker on Zielinska’s car, despite her protestations about its need for a wash.

“Paj jest dobry i tani”, it read: “The pie is good and cheap”. Well, indeed. And my 1994 mystery was finally solved.

This post was sponsored by AFerry.co.uk.

Mysterious Pies of the Baltic (Part 1)

Gdańsk was beautiful, sure... but who
was cooking up its mysterious pies?

It looked like a pie. It tasted like a pie. But what was a dinky-di Aussie meat pie doing in a Polish city on the Baltic coast?

The place: Gdańsk.

The year: 1994, only five years since the Solidarity trade union had swept Poland’s communist regime from power.

The month: November, in the week containing All Saints’ Day and All Souls’ Day.

As most of the week was a public holiday in Poland, Narrelle and I had some time off our English language teaching jobs to visit the Baltic port city of Gdańsk.

Enter the paj

And this is when we came upon the pie, at one of the many food kiosks scattered around the centre of the city. Or I should say the paj, for that was its Polish spelling, close to “pie” in pronunciation.

Intrigued by the sight of these familiar-looking objects in what appeared to be classic pie-warmer ovens, we proceeded to a taste test. They were much – but not exactly – like an Australian meat pie. 

Square or round, the right size, but with slightly thicker pastry and solid mince fillings sans gravy. And presumably made of pork rather than beef... but still eerily similar.

Pie mania

I’m ashamed to admit that in the following days we went on a paj-eating frenzy, consuming significant numbers of them. Call it research. But more honestly, call it nostalgia – we’d been away from Australia for two and a half years at this point, the sort of time period that has expats’ eyes inexplicably moistening at the thought of Vegemite.

Tasty as they were, these pajs were a conundrum, though definitely bearing an  Australian connection. One of them was handed over in a paper bag bearing the legend paj australijski, which translated to “Australian Pie”. 

At that point I really was intrigued, but there was no time to unravel the mystery, and in any case my Polish wasn’t up to quizzing stallholders on the provenance of their products.

The legend of the pie

But it turned out the puzzle could, like a cheap milk bar pie, be left on the top shelf for quite some time while still staying warm. Twelve years later I returned to Poland, now a travel writer on an assignment for Lonely Planet.

Researching the Poland chapter in the Eastern Europe book, I was obliged to cover the entire country over several weeks in sub-zero temperatures, thanks to the unseasonable dictates of publishing schedules.

The paj was low in my priorities, but not quite forgotten. Before leaving home I’d done a quick Web search, locating, to my mild surprise, the company that manufactured them in Gdynia, north of Gdańsk.

Their mysterious creator and convenience food mastermind

agreed to tell me all about them when we met at the bar of the Willa Lubicz, a posh hotel on a hill with a view of the Baltic Sea...

Next: The story of the Polish-Aussie pies continues, as I learn about the Dutch guru, the trouble with gravy, and the reason why 'pies' isn't a good look in Polish... [click here to continue]

This post was sponsored by AFerry.co.uk.

Companions on the Polish Road 1: Kraków to Gdańsk

When I travelled around Poland in 2008, I made a point of talking with people I encountered along the way.

As I was researching a possible travelogue book about Poland, I wanted to get the most out of encounters with locals on my journeys.

Two years later on my next round-Poland Lonely Planet trip, however, being interactive was its own reward.

Some of my best travel memories, I realised, have arisen from chance encounters with people, both on transport and on the streets.

Although most Polish trains are divided into compartments and are thus conducive to chat, I find that Poles have something similar to the British reserve. The polite procedure when entering a compartment is to say "dzień dobry" ("Good day") to your fellow passengers, but not intrude further.

But if you do fancy a chat and you both speak enough common language to communicate, it's possible to end up in a warm and interesting conversation.

And there are other ways to meet both locals and other international travellers. Here's a few of my experiences in May-June 2010...

Kraków: In 2008 I discovered the English Language Club by accident, when I noticed its small sign hanging above a street in the Old Town. This time I made a return appearance in the company of Narrelle. The club has met weekly since before the end of communism in the 1980s.

It's run on a pretty simple concept - a mixed bunch of locals, tourists and expats meet in a big room up a tatty staircase to chat informally, helped along by tea and biscuits. If you're ever in Kraków on a Wednesday, get along to a meeting from 6pm to 8pm at ul Sienna 5, near St Mary's Church; it's a fun way to meet the locals.

Kraków-Łódź: On this meandering train journey to Poland's second-largest city, I realised that a couple down the corridor were lightly bickering in English. Passing by their compartment, I introduced myself and discovered the male half of the sketch was a UK academic who was heading to Łódź to consult with colleagues there about a possible joint project.

We had a pleasant chat, and speculated whether onboard catering might materialise once they added an additional complement of carriages to the train at Częstochowa. It did - in the form of a lady with a trolley - and I scored the last kanapka (sandwich).

Warsaw: Visiting funkily-decorated hostel Oki Doki to check its details for the LP book, I bumped into its owner, Ernest. That's not as obvious as it seems, as he spends a lot of his working days at other locations; but somehow we always happen to be there at the same time when I drop in every two years.

We sat in the hostel's bar and shared a beer or two as I heard about his latest travels. Ernest is the most well-travelled Pole I know, having been to just about every continent with his wife and daughter. But not Australia... yet.

Wrocław: In this attractive southwestern city I had arranged a meeting with artist Tomasz Moczek, creator of the famous dwarf/gnome statues which are scattered through its Old Town's streets. First I scored Poland's chattiest taxi driver, who was determined to have a lively conversation about Australia no matter how limited my command of the Polish language.

He deposited me at a crumbling old industrial complex which turned out to be a former brewery full of artistic offices and studios, and I sat outside in the sunshine with Tom and two of his friends who helped translate, as we all drank beer and talked art. That was fun.

Gdańsk: In the Baltic port city, I met up one evening with my friend Andrzej Gierszewski, as I have since Narrelle and I met him in 2007. On that occasion I was looking for someone to interview about the amber trade for a 'vox pop' box in Lonely Planet's Poland country guide, and Andrzej was perfect - he related a great set of tests you could do to discover if a piece of amber was fake.

Every time I return we've met up at cafe-bar Kamienica on ul Mariacka, a beautiful small street of terraced shopfronts featuring gargoyle-head drain pipes. We drank a bit too much beer (Polish beer is becoming a theme, I see), and talked history, culture and politics as the sun set.

Next week: Enter the internationals - an expat cafe-owner in Toruń, a Belarusian fellow-traveller, two American ladies on a bus, and the Polish-American couple at the Golden Donkey...

Poland 2: Gdańsk by iPhone

Anyone who has an iPhone knows how impressive it is as a portable computer that also provides telephony - and also just how poor its inbuilt camera is. There's no flash, no zoom, and it struggles in low light.

However, give the iPhone camera some strong, consistent light and you can take a decent shot with it. I took my iPhone 3GS's camera for a test run yesterday as I walked through the streets of historic Gdańsk, Poland, on my current Lonely Planet assignment to update the Eastern Europe guidebook.

Here's what the lens caught...

1. Rivers of Gold(wasser). This statue of Neptune is the symbol of the city, and stands above a fountain in the main market square, Długi Targ. It's said to have once gushed forth the famous gold-flecked Gdańsk liqueur, goldwasser. I suspect this of being a tall story invented by the city's tourism marketing department a few centuries ago; perhaps after the Thirty Years' War, when visitor numbers had presumably slumped.

To be honest though, the real miracle about the statue is that it's here at all - the entire city centre was little more than rubble at the end of World War II, and was painstakingly restored in the decades which followed.

2. The Milk Bar That Shook the World. In the communist era, the state subsidised a type of cheap cafeteria known as a bar mleczny (milk bar), which supplied basic meals to the proletariat for nominal prices. Most of them have vanished since the fall of the regime, but a few have survived by moving with the times. Behold the Bar Mleczny Neptun, with its cheap snacks and (shock!) capitalist cola...

3. Silent Picture. I love it when buildings bear faint traces of previous incarnations. On the wall of the Dom Harcerza, a budget hotel, you can just make out the word "KINO" - as it was once a cinema.

4. The Medium is the Message. Just outside the old city wall, I spotted this slightly dilapidated floral arrangement. As Czyste Miasto Gdańsk means "Clean City Gdańsk", I assume it's connected with some sort of environmental awareness program.

5. I Want to Break Free. It's a largely forgotten fact these days, but between the First and Second World Wars, Gdańsk was its own independent micro-state. The Free City of Danzig (Danzig is Gdańsk's German name) was established by the League of Nations as an independent enclave between Germany and the then newly reborn Poland.

I stumbled upon a small new museum in ulica Piwna tht's devoted to the Free City era, called Historical Zone: Free City of Danzig. It exhibits lots of artefacts from the era, such as promotional brochures, maps, stamps and passports. It was intriguing, and the caretaker was so taken by my enthusiasm that he let me handle some of the documents. Below is the cover of a tourism brochure of the period, in English.

6. You Are What You Eat. Sigh... there's just no way to take a sexy "food porn" pic of dumplings, is there? But take my word for it, these pierogi from the dumpling specialists at U Dzika made a tasty lunch.

7. Completely Drained. This decorative drain pipe in ulica Mariacka, Gdańsk's amber retailing strip, catches the eye as effectively as the nearby outdoor stalls selling amber-studded jewellery.

8. Water Sports. It's always a pleasure encountering something new in such an old city. I happened upon this fountain, installed only last year, which seems to encourage passers by to interact with it. These guys were having a lot of fun trying to anticipate its spouting patterns and getting each other wet.

9. Tall Timber. Speaking of history... here comes the Galeon Lew, which takes tourists along the Motława River to Westerplatte (which, you might be interested to know, was the spot where World War II broke out in 1939, when German gunships attacked a Polish fort there).

10. Wall No More. Finally, some recent history - a piece of the Berlin Wall, encountered outside the Roads to Freedom exhibition. The museum is devoted to the downfall of European communism, which began when the Solidarity trade union took on Poland's communist regime in 1980s Gdańsk. This slab is a fragment of history, and a thought-provoking one.

 

So, the photographic verdict? Clearly Apple has a long way to go in providing an iPhone camera that you'd want to use as your sole photographic device. Of course this could all change with Apple's upcoming iPhone 4, which is rumoured to contain a vastly improved camera. For the time being however, I'm certainly not ditching my regular Olympus compact digital camera.

But, as you can see, given enough light, a close enough proximity and an interesting enough subject, even the iPhone 3GS's camera can turn out a surprisingly good travel photo.