Leaving the Baltic trail. Slupsk - Ustka - Masurian Lake District

We ended our trip in the Masurian Lake District, in an old East Prussian manor house similar to the one my granny grew up in. I found my granny's actual old home on a map (Gut Scheuba near Widminnen, now Wydmyny). It wasn't far from where we were staying, just a few lakes down the road really. However, apparently the estate itself was razed after the war, and I thought it would be a bit depressing to go there and look at an empty field. So we just relaxed in this truly idyllic place instead.

Under Communism, most of the old manor houses were turned into housing for the collective farms or just left to rot. After the end of the Cold War, they were sold off for a pittance, but restoring them must have cost a fortune.

Barbara, the new owner, was keen to protect the house's heritage. She even preserved the old German family cemetery up on the hill.

Old German graves in the family cemetery by the manor house

One of the former inhabitants who fled as a child in '45, an elderly German lady, now comes once a year to visit.

Rather spooky inscription - "I called you by your name, you are mine."

Barbara has a passion for manor houses and has crammed the place with antiques. I had actually planned to buy some antiques here myself, but in the end I couldn't bring myself to do it. From a rational point of view, it's of course much better for these items to be used and treasured. But I wouldn't feel comfortable knowing that this or that bargain was originally looted from people running for their lives, especially as the events in the former East Prussia were particularly bloody. It was the first bit of land taken by the Red Army, so the people there bore the full brunt of revenge for German atrocities.

I spent a lot of time thinking about my granny - the contrast between her luxurious upbringing and her post-war life in Berlin, which was very modest. What would she have made of this trip? To be honest, she would probably have been a bit baffled, especially by the walk. Why walk when you can take a comfortable train... But she would have liked the photos, I think, and been pleased to hear that the old houses are being appreciated again.

I'm now back in London. The headlines are all about the refugee crisis. Maybe a good time to remember that so many of our own families were refugees at one time or another?

Slupsk and Ustka, then and now

Our long hike ended in the Baltic towns of Slupsk (Stolp) and Ustka (Stolpmünde). My granny was born in Slupsk, though she grew up in the Masurian Lake District, which was then East Prussia. Ustka was where my granny and my mother boarded the ship to the West when they fled in '45.

Friendly seagull in Ustka

Some of my relatives are buried in Ustka and perhaps also in Slupsk, but the old German cemeteries have been destroyed and replaced with a new Polish one. There's a newish memorial at the cemetery in Ustka to all the dead. I placed a flower there in memory of some family members who died on the refugee trail, or were deported to labour camps, or shot themselves when the Russians arrived. 

There's no doubt that the end of the war was terrible for the Germans here, from the snowed-in refugee trail to the mass rapes and killings by the Red Army. On the other hand, it annoys me that this has turned into such a big political issue in modern-day Germany, with certain groups campaigning for a memorial and museum in Berlin for the Germans who were displaced from the East. I've also met quite a few Germans here who insist on referring to all the towns and regions by their old German names. It's understandable if they're elderly people, but as for younger Germans who keep talking about "Ostpreussen"... come on guys, it's Poland now!

Having said that, I feel that Polish-German relations have generally improved a lot. The locals have even restored some of the German inscriptions in churches, like this one from 1764 in Darlowo, which is nice.

German prayer in a church in Darlowo (Rügenwalde).

Walking through Slupsk and Ustka was also a reminder of all the horrors that happened before the arrival of the Red Army, and which some of the old-homeland-nostalgia crowd are less keen to remember. The synagogue of Slupsk, for example, was destroyed in 1938. Half of the Jewish population emigrated, and most of the others were deported. There's no longer a Jewish community in Slupsk, nor in any of the dozens of Baltic towns I passed on my two-week trip. 

Memorial where the synagogue of Slupsk used to be

Memorial to the deported Jews of Slupsk

And then there's the suffering of the Poles. When I was looking for my relatives' graves, I started talking to an elderly Polish lady who spoke excellent German. She was very friendly and tried to help me find the old part of the cemetery. I complimented her German, and she said rather drily: "I had very thorough schooling from '39 to '45." She was from the Polish corridor that used to separate East Prussia from the rest of Germany, and which was brutally occupied in '39.

Promenade in Ustka, beautifully restored

Ustka shore in the 30s

So… lots of sad history, but a hopeful present. The best moments of this trip were not about the past, but about new discoveries and new friendships. We met such warm and friendly Polish people along the way, saw stunning scenery, charming villages and beautiful gardens. It's been really nice getting to know this country, which is so full of energy and hope. Oh, and I finally learned a bit of Polish! Look forward to practicing it next time I shop at a sklep in London.

Day 11 on the Baltic trail: Osieki - Darlowo

Day 11 on the Baltic trail. Osieki - Darlowo. Yesterday's theme was Back to Beauty. After another sore-footed 20k along a dusty road, the light turned golden and we walked past gorgeous old farmhouses, lots of friendly storks and lush flower gardens.

This is particularly nice as we're now in one of my family's old hometowns. It would have been such a downer to finally arrive and find that it's so much uglier than the rest. Instead: prettier.

My great-great-great-grandmother is apparently buried in the town where we are now, Darlowo (Rügenwalde). We'll try to find her grave later, though I'm not sure the old German cemetery still exists. I think most of the old cemeteries have been razed. Yesterday we tried to find a Jewish cemetery that was on the map, but in reality someone had planted a field over it.

We also passed quite a few spooky, abandoned farmhouses and mansions. This one looks like no one's set foot in it since the German owners ran away in 1945:

Quite fittingly, one of the villages on our route, Iwiecino, is known as the Village of the Apocalypse. Apparently that's because the inside of its church is painted with scenes from the apocalypse. The church was locked so we couldn't see the crazy paintings. Oh well.

As we move east, the churches' names are becoming noticeably more creative and poetic, like something out of The Tin Drum. Iwiecino's church is dedicated to "The Mother-of-God, Queen of Poland". It used to be a Protestant German church but was converted into a Catholic Polish one in 1946.

Iwiecino of the Apocalypse

This stork may look like the one we saw a few days ago, but it's actually a new stork. I think we saw it in Iwiecino. Apocalyptic Stork.

However, Stork of the Day goes to this conference of storks:

Day 10: Koszalin - Osiecki

Day 10 on the Baltic Santiago trail: Koszalin - Osieki. Today we actually met some fellow hikers!! It was incredible. After 10 solitary days I'd basically forgotten that this trail is meant to be a major tourist attraction that will revive the Baltic coast from Rostock to Kaliningrad.

But there they were, four determined Polish-German women walking from Ustka (former Stolpmünde) to the border. Which is funny as I'm walking from the border to Ustka. They also had a Baltic family connection and were doing the trail properly - with shells dangling from their backpacks, some sort of rosary prayer scribbled on a piece of paper and stamps from different churches. Yep, they were actual Santiago pilgrims (or St. Jacek as he's called in Polish).

We on the other hand are total frauds. We're just using the trail because it happens to run through my family's old hometowns. I mean, we're not even Christian.

"Is there even a Jewish version of the Santiago trail?" I asked Dan as we walked on.

"Yes. The Jewish pilgrimage involves buying bagels on a Friday, walking over to my mother's place, sitting down, eating a nice dinner and then sleeping in a comfortable bed," he replied.

15k into another day of walking, the Jewish version sounded so much more appealing.

Day 9: Rest day at the perfect Polish home-stay

We'll be walking on to Koszalin tomorrow after a day at the most wonderful, idyllic home-stay near the little village of Komory. Our hosts, Hanka and Pawel Kujath, treated us to delicious food and lovely company in a cosy old house surrounded by fields, orchards and winding paths lined with blackcurrant bushes.




We spent most of the day relaxing in their conservatory, accompanied by Basil the cat… listening to the rain (first proper rainfall since the start of the trip). I'm reading 'Primeval and Other Times' by the Polish novelist Olga Tokarczuk. Hanka has given me a whole list of Polish novels to read in translation, from thrillers to romance to ghost stories. Thanks to Dan's Kindle I should be able to download most of them.

As much as I'd love to spend the rest of the week here, we've got many more miles to cover. Bye-bye Komory and thank you for a blissful stay!

Day 8: Kolobrzeg - Komory

On the road again! In Kolobrzeg I reunited with my favourite hiking companion = the husband. He arrived in Kolobrzeg by train from Berlin, I arrived on foot from Karnice, and we met at the train station. It's kind of incredible that this actually worked. Thank you, Internet. 

Today was an incredibly hard day as we got lost again and ended up walking about 30k. I wanted to see two of Poland's oldest trees, 750-year-old Warcislaw and his older brother, 800-year-old Boleslaw. One highlight was telling a helpful local lady that we were looking for Warcislaw and Boleslaw, and she actually knew what we were talking about and directed us to the forest.

Unfortunately there were many many many trees in the forest and we didn't find the two really ancient ones. Instead, we got lost.

However… when darkness fell… and we felt thoroughly sore-footed and broken-shouldered… we arrived at a RUSTIC POLISH INN. Precisely the kind of place I've been yearning for, for about a week now. It's in the middle of gorgeous countryside and the lovely owner fed us home-pickled gherkins and red wine. Pictures tomorrow.

Over dinner, the owner told us that this house is actually an old German house. In 1990 or so, an elderly German man turned up at her doorstep. He had lived here as a child, and hid in the communal bread-baking house with his six siblings when the Russians came. He then walked from here to Rostock, which must be about 150km or so, working for farmers along the way to feed himself (he was 13 at the time). Anyway, he came back to see if he could find any of his siblings here, and to look at the old house. He said he was happy for the new Polish owners to live here, as it was theirs now, but just wanted to see the old pear tree his grandfather had planted in the garden. He stayed under the tree for a long time and prayed.

The Polish owners then became friends with him, and their daughters even spent a month in Germany with his family. Apparently it was strange for many Poles as well to live in these vacated houses with other people's plates, cutlery and furniture (the Polish families were also forcibly relocated here at the time so it wasn't their choice). 

Well, here we are, old/new Baltic people happily swapping stories over wine and pickled gherkins. It's really nice to see these old houses to beautifully restored and filled with life. I wonder who lives in my granny's old home now? We've got another week until we reach Stolpmünde/Ustka.

Stork of the day: sighted near Strzepowo.

Note the little birds on the wires. Every stork's nest has them, they seem to live as tenants in the bottom of the nest.

Day 5: Karnice - Gryfice - Kolobrzeg….

Rebuilt town hall in Kolberg. 95% of the town was destroyed in the battle for Kolberg in March 1945.

Karnice - Kolobrzeg...

… by public transport. Yep, I cheated. I'm meeting someone important in Kolobrzeg (Kolberg) tomorrow. So I had the option of either running from Karnice and stopping at a homestay by a motorway that looked very unpromising on the Internet, or taking a bus to Gryfice and then a train to beautiful Kolberg. My feet hurt and I needed a better map anyway so I chose option 2.

Smoked fish stand in Kolberg

As for the map. A note to fellow hikers. Don't do what I did and rely on Oma's stories, a compass and the official 1:300,000 Pomeranian Way of St. James map to show you the route. The map is fine as long as you walk on the beach or a road, but as soon as you turn into those little paths that cut through the fields, it's easy to get lost.

I just bought a 1:50,000 "comfort! map" for Wybrzeze Srodkowe at the tourist information in Kolberg. I have great great hopes for my comfort map. Apparently the route will soon take me through a forest that's home to two ancient oak trees. One is 650 years old and is called Warcislaw. The other is 800 years old and is called Boleslaw. Boleslaw is *the oldest oak tree in Poland*. I'm so much more likely to find Warcislaw and Boleslaw with my new map!

Right now I'm sitting on a balcony close to the sea. I can hear:

1. Seagulls

2. Unidentified little birds

3. Storks. They make a sort of click-clack sound with their long beaks

Stork of the day:

Stork's nest in Karnice