Elblag was not on my radar when I headed towards Gdansk from Kaunas/ Lithuania. While travelling on the train I looked for hotels in Gdansk and there was nothing for less than €250, it was a Saturday. No way I was paying that kind of money, so I decided to get off the train in a town nearby Gdansk, which happened to be Elblag. And whooo, what a place and what a history. The small historic center with beautiful narrow buildings, no one looks alike and another secret soon was revealed – the famous Ostróda-Elbląg Canal, where ships are pulled up a grassy hill.
Elblag
There were two very cheap hotels near the train station, but the reviews were not that hot, so I decided to invest in a taxi to the city center, where more hotels were listed. I knew immediately that this deserved more than one nice.
Elblag
Small historic center with lots of treasures
What looked like historic buildings turned out to have been built in the 1980s.
Elblag historic center
Elblag historic center
Elblag historic center
Elblag historic center
Elblag historic center
At the Sunday fleet market I got to talked to an elderly local who had worked in Hamburg for many years and spoke German fluently. He told me that in the 1980 the area around the church was empty, just grass, no building. The original buildings had been bombed into rubble, which was moved to Warszawa to rebuild the capital, that had absolute priority. Besides Elblag was “too” German, like Gdanzk, the Polish government was not sure which way things were going. Only 35 years after the war, the center of Elblag was rebuilt according to old plans.
Sunday flea market- this verdor had worked in Germany for many years and was a source of never-ending information
Ostróda-Elbląg Canal, a masterpiece of hydro-engineering
The real sensation that makes tourists flock to this charming town is the 80km Ostróda-Elbląg Canal, a masterpiece of hydro-engineering, once used for transporting grain.
Ostróda-Elbląg Canal,
The difference in height (in total 100m) was too large to be managed by traditional locks. So a globally unique system was invented: hydro-power pulls ship up grassy hills to higher grounds. To explain it in a simple way: shortly before such a hill approaches, the ships glides onto a platform that is waiting in the water, the boat is attached with ropes to the platform that has iron wheels. The whole platform with the ship attched to it, is the pulled up on tracks. The genius who designed this 150 years ago was GJ. Steenke, a Prussian engineer.
Approaching on of the five stations
There is along and short version of the boat trip: the long one starts in the center of Elblag, which I took. T join the shorter trip I would have needed to take a bus to the town of Buczyniec to catch the boat there. That seemed too complicated, so I spent the next 4,5 hours on a boat with mainly Polish tourists.. There were also two German couple, so I had somebody to talk to. A recording explains in three languages how each of the 5 stations work, usually you see a gigantic waterwheel somewhere in a small building. The first leg of the boat trip took us across ocean-like Druzno Lake which is a National Park and a birds’ sanctuary.
Druzno Lake is a National Park and a birds’ sanctuary.
The boat is attached on such platforms, while these are in the water and then pulled up with the boat and the passengers
After about an hour, we reached the canal. It took another hour till we approached the first hill. Everybody rushed to the front of the boat, while the crew fastened the boat onto the platform that was then slowly pulled up the hill on tracks.
We wer going up, while a platform was coming down to fetch a boat
This section of the canal, where the boat is transported over these five hills in total ist 9,6 km long. Thus it passes 2300 meters of dry, land covered with grass, being lifted together with the passengers on board on the height of almost 100 m. The shores are covered with beautiful, virgin vegetation. I strongly recommend doing this trip, but the shorter version is just fine. It is there where the boats are pulled across the 5 grassy hills.
Canal next to city center
I always at at the same restaurant because they served ecellent salmon and Bek Pavlova and the view of the canal with the sun setting on the houses and
Bek Pavlova – kingsize
Fresh salmon and potatoes
The 7am train, packed with comuters finally took me to Gdansk. This is when I learned that EACH tickets that is issued in Poland at the counter is manually marked. The ladies (I only came across women in this job) highlight the date, departure and arrival time and track, no matter how long the line is.
Elblag trainstation
Morning train to Gdansk- on each ticket departure and destination are highlighted manually
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