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Baltic adventures

From the Daily Mail
The woman at the travel agents couldn't believe her ears. 'A beach holiday in Poland?' she exclaimed. 'But there isn't any sea, is there?' Well, as it happens, there is just the tiniest bit of Baltic at the country's northernmost tip.
Hardly a regular haunt of UK holidaymakers, not least because the nearest town is Gdansk - which conjures up images of grim shipyards bedecked with Solidarity banners, rather than golden sands.
However, the shadow cast by the cranes and industrial chimneys of the Lenin Dockyards does not stretch the 10 miles up the coast to Sopot, the seaside resort that is Poland's Brighton and Blackpool all rolled into one, as well as home to the magnificent Grand Hotel.
Over the past 75 years, the long, dark red corridors of this palatial Art Nouveau pile have been trodden by such distinguished figures as Charles de Gaulle, the Shah of Iran and Val»ry Giscard d'Estaing.
This summer, it was the turn of myself, my wife and three children.
In terms of looks and location, the Grand more than lived up to its name, not merely adjoining the beach, but dominating it.
The hotel even commanded its own private corner of the Baltic, thanks to a thin, ET-like finger of land called the Hel peninsular, which keeps out the chilly, weed-clogged waters that characterise this part of the world.
Five minutes after pillaging a breakfast buffet that included everything from salami to scrambled eggs, and rollmop herrings to honey and gherkins, the children (ages six to 12) were agitating to be out on the beach they could see through the restaurant window.
Only endless repetition of the let-your-food-go-down-first lecture managed to stem the tide of trunk-donning.
And so it continued for the next three days, with swimming and sandcastle-building interrupted only by spells in the hotel beach bar, swigging fizzy drinks and tucking into giant, juicy frankfurters and gently-spiced kebabs at just nine zloty (£1.50) each.
No question that Poland is cheap to visit. Full-scale restaurant-meals for the five of us never rose above the £25 mark and while some of the local dishes were a bit too pickle-and-cabbage flavoured for young palates, we grown-ups loved the bigos (meaty, smoky stew), pierogi (stuffed pasta dumplings) and zurek (sour chicken and potato soup).
Sophisticated would not be a word to apply to Polish cuisine - witness the golonka (fatty boiled pork knuckle) and the ubiquitous chicken and chips (kurczak z frytki), washed down by beer (piwo) or vodka.

Read more in our destination guide to Poland.