Poland trip, day 1
Index
| Date | Peak | Height | PF | Location | WCP/FP | MAP |
| 20.09.25 | Wieżyca | 329m | 275m | Pomorskie, Poland | – | MAP |
Saturday: We were going to Poland for a week! It didn’t fit well with my projects at work, but I had a lots of holiday left and tried to look forward to it.
Our flight left Ålesund airport Vigra maybe a little ahead of the scheduled 12:55pm departure. This was our first flight with Wizz Air. The booking was OK. Not so much the check-in. Couldn’t do it on the web, had to download the app. Slightly annoying.
When we did the luggage check-in at Vigra airport, we selected “Yes” to print out the boarding passes. The machine said that would cost us more than 1100 NOK extra. What the actual …. ?
There was however no need to print anything. The flight was OK, and the weather was beautiful when we landed in Gdańsk.
While waiting for the luggage, my colleague Radek suddenly appeared. Big surprise!
There was no one in line at the Hertz desk. Big bonus. The guy on the other side of the desk was very helpful and guided us through the semi-complex ticketing system, required for getting out of the airport.
We got a Toyota Camry – hybrid. I didn’t want anything electrical, but the guy assured me I wouldn’t notice. The car was OK to drive. It looked OK too.
Driving on the Polish roads felt a bit chaotic. The speed alarm was constantly beeping, and we didn’t know how to turn it off. The car’s opinion on the actual speed limit couldn’t be trusted. It went from 50 to 20 and up to 90 and back to 30 on a seemingly random basis. I just had to learn to ignore it and follow the general traffic.
We didn’t know where to go. There was no plan, other than visiting the high point in the Czech Republic, from the Polish side. Our rental car agreement didn’t include taking the car out of the country. That was far south. Now, we were in the north. Eventually, Anne decided that she wanted to see the sand dunes on the north coast. So that would be our direction for now.
She also knew that I really wanted to start the vacation by getting a new top, and so Wieżyca was the perfect candidate.
It was located soutwest of Gdańsk and southwest of the town Kartuzy. Kartuzy was a clear candidate for spending the night.
The trailhead we had pinpointed was closed, but we found another trailhead nearby – possible the main trailhead. The parking was almost full. We chatted with a Polish couple about the trail, and they were very friendly.
It didn’t take long before we had to seek help from them. When I locked the car, I could still pop the trunk (the other doors were locked). The guy tried to help us, but no matter what we did, the trunk still popped.
Eventually, he called the rental company for us and learned that the trunk closed when we were at least 10 meters from the car. Very confusing, but with modern technology, it is what it is.
Finally, we could head onto the trail, knowing that our belongings in the trunk probably were safe.
The trail was nice. This is a nature preserve, and hikers stuck to the main trails. It’s forbidden to go off-trail.
There was a sweet scent from the plants, unlike any other scent we’ve smelled back home.
When we reached the top, we discovered a huge lookout tower.
This tower is called Kaszubska Wieża Widokowa (Kashubian Observation Tower)
But first, we stopped by the natural high point. Wieżyca is the highest point in the Pomorskie region and the highest point in northern Poland.
Then we went over to the tower and discovered: a) that there was an entrance fee and b) a guy inside a small hut to collect the fee.
I asked the guy how high the tower was. He couldn’t tell me, clearly feeling embarrassed. Then I realized we could probably figure it out by ourselves.
The tower was probably around 30 meters high and had a nice view in all directions. Nothing particularl stood out in the horizon. This was not mountain country.
This was a great start to our week! Not 3 hours had passed since we landed in Poland…
This was not our first Poland top. We visited Rysy back in 2013.
While the horizon views were not so amazing, we enjoyed the forest view.
By now, we were both hungry and thirsty. We had to do something about quite soon.
We agreed to drive to Kartuzy to check if hotel Hotel Pod Orłem had rooms for us. Along the way, we stopped by a grocery store and got something to eat and drink.
The hotel had a room for us. I had a feeling there weren’t many rooms left, and we got a room with a double bed. Totally OK. The price was 380 PLN, which was just below what we had expected.
The room had plenty space.
Then we went over to the hotel’s restaurant (different building). Anne ordered Tuna, I ordered Duck. We had to wait a long time for the food, maybe 45 minutes. But it was worth the wait. “Generous” and “tasty” were the adjectives I chose after the meal.
We were both quite tired after a long day and called it a night already at 9pm.
Trip statistics: 3,8km, 150 vertical meters, 0h:56m
