Friday, March 9th, 2018
Distance covered: 613 km
Driving: 9 am – 7 pm
Weather: Grey day
Lowest temperature: 2C
Border crossing: none

After breakfast we realised, that an additional seat for David, who joined us the night before, was actually missing. But: “leave no man behind!”. Within half an hour of extreme luggage tetris of the two cars, we made space for David in our Touareg, while Debbie stay in the G-Class of Team 68.

We started a long drive and a boring day: The beauty of white ice, snow and empty landscape was replaced by a grey and brown and far too many small towns with frequent speed traps along the street. Well, Poland has 38 Million inhabitants and a density of 123/km2 while Finland has 5,6 Million inhabitants and a density of 16/km2 (Germany has a density of 232/km2).

As a first quick stop we visited the location of the former Tannenberg monument, that was build in 1924 to remember the Battle of Tannenberg during Word War One. Later it was redesigned by the Nazis and used as a grave for Generalfeldmarschall Paul von Hindenburg. In 1945, with the Red Army quickly approaching, the remains of Hindenburg were moved to the West and the monument got blown up. Not much to see these days.

We had a quick McDonalds lunch in Marienburg, took a picture of the massive castle and drove further west.

Driving on, more small villages, brown woods and fields.

Only other highlight of the drive: a T-34 tank, a couple of WWII canons and a sign on the Pommernstellung right in the middle of nowhere.

While we initially planned to spend the night in Kolberg, we decided in the afternoon to drive further west and stay in Stettin, just at the German border. We reached the city in the dark, checked into our unremarkable hotel and had a Polish Pirogi–dinner in the small but nice city center.

Almost back …