Tag Archives: From UK to Gdansk

Gdansk to Kaliningrad by Bus: Where’s that Bus Stop?

Possibly Gdansk’s best-kept secret

12 January 2026 – Gdansk to Kaliningrad by Bus: Where’s that Bus Stop?

Once upon a time there was a bus stop, and once upon a time, this bus stop was not much different from any other bus stop. People wanting to catch a bus from this stop would make it their destination and, once there, would wait for the bus to arrive and stop, as that’s what bus stops are for.

Then came an event concerning a country not that far away which changed that bus stop overnight. It was still, for all intents and purposes, a place where buses stop, but nobody knew where it was and, even if they did, they had little idea of where the buses that stopped at the stop were going when they had finished stopping.

Ostensibly, this bus stop is just one of many sharing space with other stops at Gdansk’s central bus station, a horrid place by day, yet not so horrid by night, when, thanks to the action of darkness, it fails to offend one’s visual senses, not to mention imagination, to the extent of making you want to dash for cover, which, at the hidden, secret bus stop, there is almost as little of that as there are of other amenities.

The bus station’s information office is the perfect place for concealment. Like members of a certain ideological group, now consigned to history, they declare to a man and a woman that they know nothing, though to the innocent, untrained ear, the collective, official response sounds something very similar to “Don’t blame us, we’re just following orders!”

An attempt to uncover the stop by conducting an all-points bulletin search of the many and numerous bus bays using Shanks’s Pony is an unrevealing exercise that is guaranteed to leave you incredibly more annoyed and infinitely more frustrated than when you first embarked upon it, which is how, having fully exhausted ourselves, we arrive at the point of this post.

Gdansk to Kaliningrad by Bus: Where’s that Bus Stop?

Spoiler: In the unlikely event that you are one of those vaunted mythical heroes who would rather not know in advance that the travel arrangements for your journey are faultlessly prepared and who relishes, nay invites, as many opportunities as there are migrants in the UK to trip yourself up every step of the way, my advice is look away now! Missed it! There goes your bus! For I am, without compunction, about to reveal to you, the patient and tolerant reader, exactly where that Kaliningrad bus stop is; the one that you have been searching for, and on whose bus, when it pulls in, you will embark with satisfaction, and experience more of the same when, with you on board, it then pulls out.

This is what you need to know: The number of that stop is legs 11, or, without resorting to Bingoism, just plain old number eleven; and once again in numerals, memorise this: 11.

Calling all buses and passengers, be on the lookout for a place where buses stop in Gdansk that answers to 11.

Gdansk to Kaliningrad by Bus: Where’s that Bus Stop?

Don’t bother doing the rounds of Gdansk bus station again, or you’ll entice me to return to ‘ Once upon a time, besides, you’ll be doing yourselves no favours by scooting around the bus bay area. Number 11 isn’t there; number 11 is ostracised, pushed away, shunted off, singled out for special treatment, exiled, marginalised, cloaked, sidelined and generally put under wraps. In the best tradition of treasure hunts, bus stop number 11 is concealed at the side of the building.

The building to which I refer is that curious, old, crumbling, neglected, sad-sack sort of a place that goes by the name of Główny Bus Station. Sounds a bit like ‘Clowny’, doesn’t it? The building and its park look as though they were knocked up sometime in the 1960s during the concrete height of the Soviet era when that material was considered king and have sat there ever since, basking in the most glorious state of under-maintenance and slow decay. I quite like it for what it is, decaying, but just because I’m strange does not mean that you have to be too.

Come on, Gdansk administration, that’s a beautiful town you’ve got there; for gawd’s sake, do something about that urban eyesore bus bunker, preferably with the belated assistance of a large and heavy hammer. There’s got to be more to a building’s life than functioning for the purpose of spoiling the gateway to a wonderful city and obscuring for those in transit the whereabouts of the Kaliningrad bus stop.

Now see here!

How to get to Kaliningrad from the UK
Is the Poland-Kaliningrad border open

A few months ago, it may possibly be more, for time has that unusual propensity to continually keep on moving, just to make finding the Kaliningrad bus stop that little more problematic, along comes some Herbert Kowalski and decides that he will revert the Soviet name of ‘Kaliningrad’ to its unpronounceable Polish ancestry, and so overnight Kaliningrad is hereon in referred to, if only in Polish circles, by the substitute name of ‘Królewiec. And it is this, for most of us, shocking tongue-twister which, for several months at least, gained something of a prominence in Gdansk’s bus-blighting city, with people when you asked them not knowing of Kaliningrad, even though it can be traced on every map in the world.

If they, the privatised companies that took over from British Rail, chose to refer to London as ‘Londinistan’, no one would blink an eyelid, for such a change would be self-explanatory, but going ancient with the name Kaliningrad, and bypassing Königsberg on the way, well, what a to do, I must say!

You know, it’s difficult enough should you arrive at the central bus station by way of the pedestrian underpass, for, as with the café that is no longer there, another useful facility that no longer serves its purpose is the lift. Thus, having climbed the North Face of the Eiger to reach the level where the bus departs, lugging with you your travel bags and later needing a truss (that’s not Liz Truss, by the way), the last thing you will want to do is run hither and thither around the bus park playing find the Kaliningrad bus stop. Suffice it to say then that magic number 11, being the stop which you are looking for, stands at the side of the building exactly where the bus bays aren’t.

You may be jumping to the conclusion that having found the stop, your worries have come to an end, and that you are home and dry. But sadly not, my friends; I cringe in telling you, there is more.

I say!

Kaliningrad to Gdansk via London-Luton and back
Sleep and Fly, Gdansk Airport

Generally speaking (and why not?), 90% of the buses leaving Gdansk for Kaliningrad come to rest at stop 11, but – and mark this if you will! – there is yet a 10% chance they won’t. Sometimes, for reasons inexplicable, they pull up at a stop outside the park on the side of the road. Not everyone is apprised of this, but standing at stop 11, if a bus rolls up across the way, its presence there is visible.

An occurrence of this nature is not liable to excite in the huddle of waiting passengers, who have already asked each other several times at least, “Is this the stop for Kaliningrad?”, an awareness of the possibility that the bus sitting diagonally opposite may, in fact, be their bus. Any sighting of a nearby bus should be treated with suspicion, immediately eliciting a “Could that be the Kaliningrad bus?” inquiry. And should this situation come to pass, my sincere advice to you is to cease asking the question among yourselves and toddle across the road as sharpish as you like, which is the same as saying with some alacrity, to put the question to the indifferent bus driver, who, whilst having obviously spotted you loitering at stop number 11, is not the sort of man who would quit his cab to tell you anything, forsooth seeming well determined to drive off with a bus as empty as the one in which he left the depot that morning. There is a phrase that is often used by inveterate, seasoned bus travellers, and that is ‘catch the bus’, which is better done, I’m sure you’ll agree, before its wheels start rolling.

A footnote to these proceedings is that the Gdansk bus bunker does possess one important, nay essential, facility, and that is a public toalety. Access to this delightful place is obtained by going around the bend; that is, the bend at the side of the crummy old building – left if you’ve got your back to it, and right should you find yourself facing it. Whatever you want to do in that toilet, it will cost you no less than 5 zloty, so be prepared and have it in hand!

Travellers not yet acquainted with Gdansk’s best-kept bussing secret, the whereabouts of stop 11, might discover some usefulness in consulting the photos below, which, I sincerely hope, will greatly assist them in their quest to catch that bus on time.

Gdansk to Kaliningrad by bus. Bus timetable.

Travellers, please take succour from this aggravating pith: nothing in life is not without effort.

God speed to you! And, of course, Good luck!

Kaliningrad via Gdansk

Kaliningrad via Gdansk
My first visit to Kaliningrad: left UK 23 December 2000

Kaliningrad via Gdansk is one in a series of posts that recount my first visit to Kaliningrad in 2000, and my first impressions of the land, the people and its culture.

Updated: 18 January 2022 | First published: 16 August 2019

It’s 7pm, 23^rd December 2000, and I am sitting nervously on a British Airways’ plane bound for Warsaw, Poland. I am one of those peculiar types that believes sitting in an aluminium tube with thousands of gallons of highly inflammable fuel at 35,000 feet is perfect insanity. Never mind about the well-meaning ‘statistically safest form of travel’.

But was it a nice place where I was hopefully going to get to?

Previous post in this series: See you in Kaliningrad, Russia!

As I said in my previous blog post, I hadn’t flown since 1971, but here I was jetting off to Warsaw. From Warsaw, we would take a bus to Gdansk and then, after a night or two there, a train to Kaliningrad, Russia.

For a non-flyer I took a perverse almost masochistic delight in the journey, overcoming much of my fear with the aid of three or four vodkas and a very complacent brother, who grinned like a jackanapes all the way.

For my own part, arriving at Warsaw Airport was not only novel in that we had arrived but also for the officialdom that greeted us. Here we were in the East, where it pleased my literary and cinematographic prejudices to discover a far more officious and militaristic reception. In London, Heathrow, it had been all suits, ties and ‘ladies and gentleman’; here, in the East, it was visor caps, uniforms, side-arms and cold stares. Passing through passport control was a stereotypical dream come true: the steely eyed and expressionless face of the man inside his little glass booth, glancing first at my passport photo and then searchingly back at me.

My first visit to Kaliningrad (year 2000) and my first impressions of Kaliningrad and Russia. Links to posts in this series arranged in chronological order:
1. The Decision: My first visit to Kaliningrad December 2000
2. Kaliningrad via Gdansk (23 December 2000) {{You are here! 😊}}
3. First Day in Gdansk (24 December 2000)
4. Christmas in Gdansk (25 December 2000)
5. Boxing Day in Gdansk: Kaliningrad 2000 (26 December 2000)
6. Into Russia (27 December 2000)
7. Kaliningrad: First Impression (27 December 2000)
8. The Hotel Russ, Svetlogorsk (27 December 2000)
9. Exploring Svetlogorsk (28 December 2000)
10. Svetlogorsk to Kaliningrad by Train (28 December 2000)
11. Kaliningrad 20 Years Ago (28 December 2000)
12. Russian Hospitality Kaliningrad (28 December 2000)

The ‘Sausage’

Somewhat disappointed that I had not been mistaken for the spy that they had been waiting for, I was then treated to what for most people I should imagine is a dull and onerous routine ~ retrieving one’s luggage ~ but which for us, thanks to a certain bag in our entourage, proved to be most entertaining.

The bag in question was a cylindrical-shaped canvas hold-all with a rubberised waterproof base. In theory it was a great piece of kit, capable of holding, well, anything really, and, when empty, folding away into nothing. Problem was, however, that when full it was very bulky, extremely heavy and extraordinarily long and, although it was well-catered-for with various handles and straps, those little wheels, which are such an indispensable feature of today’s large travel bags, were conspicuously non-existent.

So there we were with the rest of them waiting patiently at the side of the carousel for our luggage to emerge. One by one our cases appeared, and we duly retrieved them. But where was that last, that special bag?

With about six people left around the carousel excluding ourselves, we began to grow concerned. But just as we began to fear that we may have lost our exclusive bag, we caught sight of it, coming out of the luggage hold from behind the rubber flaps ~ only it didn’t. It sort of popped out, sat there for a while and then nipped back in again.

Two or three large heavy cases then came tumbling out in a kind of jumbled confusion, quickly followed by another sighting of our long and lost bag. For some odd reason, it was making its exit and entrance at a compromising angle.

Moving closer to the exit point, we could clearly hear lots of huffing, puffing and cursing from behind the rubber curtains. Our bag was now sandwiched sideways across the gap, forming a blockade with the remaining cases caught on top and behind it. From what we could make out, a lot of frustrated energy was being expended out of sight behind the scenes and then, with a thump and a cry, our obstinate bag and the others that it had bullied came tumbling into view.

Whether our long bag didn’t think much of Poland or was simply a petulant creature, this we will never know, but It was evident from the large boot prints on either side of the bag that our ‘Sausage’, as it became to be known, had put up a hell of a fight!

By bus to Gdansk

After this trauma, we no doubt took a quick snifter or two of vodka from the hip flask that I had brought with us. It was now time to lug our luggage, including our recalcitrant Sausage, from the warmth of the airport to the snowy wastes outside.

The plan was to bus it to Gdansk. We were both looking forward to the journey, to relaxing on the bus, that is until we saw what it was that we would be travelling in. Being English, we can be forgiven for believing that we would be going by luxury coach when, in fact, the carriage awaiting us was a rusting, clapped-out minibus with mustard lace curtains that once no doubt had been white.

I don’t recall being too perturbed by the fact that almost everyone was smoking on the way; my brother was a smoker and I was prone now and then to indulge in the odd cigar. Looking back on it, it must have been a right old stinker ~ the curtains weren’t yellow for nothing, although my smell memory retains a distinct essence of diesel fumes more than it does tobacco.

It was a long journey, and we were very tired. It was snowing continuously and sometimes quite heavily, but this merely added to the stereotypical image that I had nurtured, and it pleased me for its novelty as much if not more than for the differences I noted as we trundled on our way: shops and road signage, all written, of course, in Polish; the filling stations whose names I did not recognise; and, when it was possible to see through the steamed-up windows, the distinctive change in architecture.

As the open road gave way to increasingly built-up areas we knew we were travelling through the outskirts of Gdansk.

We had in our possession a computer printout identifying the hotel where we would be staying and, according to the bus driver, we were close to where we wanted to be. We alighted from the bus, cramped and stiff, on the side of a dual carriageway teaming with traffic, shell shocked from travel fatigue but anaesthetized by vodka.

My wife to be, Olga, had arrived there some hours before us and, as luck would have it, I spotted her having a cigarette in the window of the hotel restaurant across the busy street from where we were standing. Remember those wonderful days? Having a cigarette in the restaurant! {Post-normal days’ comment: Remember those days before coronavirus, ie sitting in a pub or a restaurant!}

Thus, the first stage of the journey into Russia was complete. We would stay for three days in Gdansk, which included Christmas Day, and then, on the 27^th December, leave Poland by train for Kaliningrad.

Next post in this series:
3. First Day in Gdansk

Feature image attribution: Photo by USFWS on Pixnio: https://pixnio.com/vintage-photography/men-in-the-aircraft-cockpit-old-vintage-photo#