Celebrating D-Day on Hel Peninsula, Poland: Travelogue

Just because World War II’s D-Day invasion didn’t happen in Poland’s Hel Peninsula, and didn’t occur in the month of August, doesn’t mean you can’t celebrate D-Day in Poland’s Hel Peninsula in August.  I did just that, back in August of 2012, and also visited the sandy beaches of the peninsula for a little R&R too.  Read on for more!

Arrival in Hel Peninsula from Krakow

After a tortured 13-hour night of sitting fully upright in a hot, jam-packed Polish train car of fairly smelly people on our way north from Krakow, Cecilia and I were nearly at our next destination, Hel Peninsula, in the north of Poland.  We pulled into the city of Gdynia to make a transfer to another train for two more hours of travel.  We ate some terrible boring pizza for lunch at a railway station-adjunct eatery in Gdynia while we waited for the next hourly train to Hel.  The date was August 16th, 2012.

Hel Peninsula is a narrow finger of sandy land that stretches into the Baltic Sea some 34 km.  It’s about 3 km thick at its widest point.

In summer high season, ferries and buses regularly operate between the tri-city area (Gdansk, Sopot & Gdynia) and Hel.  We took the train to Hel because we were already at the train station.

To clarify:  the peninsula’s name is Hel and the town we were going to is also named Hel.  This kind of duality always gets confusing for asking directions when you don’t speak the language.  “Is this Hel” is always yes in such a circumstance.  Fortunately, the town of Hel was at the terminus of the train line which made things easy.

The tiny town of Hel is a distinctly Polish holiday destination – we didn’t see a lot of other foreign nationals with backpacks wandering about upon arrival.  Nope.  Mostly just sandy sunburnt vacationing Polish families and uniformed World War II soldiers storming Normandy Beach.

Celebrating D-Day in Hel Peninsula

Wait… I thought I was in Poland, not France?

Correct.  June 6th, 1944, allied troops invaded northwestern France in Operation Overlord, a massive amphibious military operation that led to the loss of German positioning in France and that signified the turn of tides in the western front of WWII.  As in, NOT coastal Poland in mid-August.  Yet here we were in Poland, in mid-August, in the middle of a D-Day reenactment, parades, and other WWII related tourism.

To my knowledge (and to be clear), there was no military action of note on Hel on June 6th, 1944.  However, the (strategically located and militarily fortified) peninsula was the location of a 1939 Polish/German conflict known as the Battle of Hel, in which Polish troops held back German forces for over a month.  Militarily significant, yes.  Otherwise D-Day related, no.

Festivities went on between August 12-19, 2012. This year’s Hel celebration occurs between August 18-25.  Click here for more info (website in Polish).

I can’t remember the last time I celebrated D-Day at home in the United States.  I’m not from a military family, so June 6th comes and goes by unheralded each year.  It’s just plain old June 6th.

D-Day (well, belated D-Day) in Hel was actually pretty eventful:

• Daily/nightly parades of tanks, jeeps and costumed reenactors
• Packed beaches and restaurants during the day
• A certain family carnival atmosphere with more fried fish, lody (ice cream) and gofry (waffles, usually with sweet toppings) than anyone could ever hope to eat (but oh, they tried).

military band of young ‘uns.

And of course, the reenactment of the amphibious landing.  We missed the beginning of the landing, which was pretty normal because we didn’t come to Hel initially for a D-Day celebration and weren’t altogether concerned with the goings-on, but drifted that way when massive, deafening explosions started coming from said part of town.  It really sounded like we were under full-scale attack.

Click through for a Youtube video of the 2012 Hel beach landing reenactment shot by someone that’s not me.

Allied troops moving in.

This confused little dog kept running toward the deafening pyrotechnic explosions during the re-enactment.

Allies seize the Nazi flag (which they trod upon afterward).

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

I can only guess why D-Day re-enactments go on in Hel in August (correct me if I’m wrong, please – I didn’t interview anyone about D-Day in Hel, so these are just assumptions!):

• Polish troops took part in D-Day invasions at Normandy – Poles were thus stakeholders.
• Poland lost so much to the Germans in WW2 (in general) that such a major historic allied victory is well worth celebration.
• Hel Peninsula is the site of significant historic military installations including multiple bunkers, observation towers and decommissioned 100mm+ naval gun turrets.  It’s military territory.

Oh, and by far the best reason to reenact D-Day in Hel:  everybody likes summer vacation beach trips.  I could get into reenacting if it meant big yearly trips to the beach with my buddies and colleagues.

Finnish machine gunners in the Russo-Finnish Winter War of 1939-1940.  This war gets re-enacted too, which just seems kind of cold and miserable to me.  I think I’ll stick with beach invasions.

Thanks to the revelry, lodgings in Hel were pretty well booked up.  We asked around anywhere we saw Pokoje Gościnne and/or Zimmer Frei signs but were coming up short.  Hel was “occupied” by the military.  Get it?

After a tiring search, we shrugged and took a room a bit above our budget – around $50 US per night for a private double in a quiet, clean guesthouse run by somebody’s grandparents.  Our host owned the tiniest, wiggliest dachshund I’ve ever seen and referred to us as “beautiful young man” and “beautiful girl”.  After our long overnight expedition from Krakow, we deserved a little comfort.  A little flattery didn’t hurt either.

D-Day was a curious distraction for Cecilia and I, but it wasn’t why we came to Hel.  We came to sneak in some hopefully-sunny beach time after what had been a particularly grey, rainy, chilly few weeks between Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, (and in Poland) Warsaw, Auschwitz-Birkenau, Zakopane and Krakow.

The easiest access beach in Hel is along the main tourist street on the peninsula’s southern side, and it was also the busiest and dirtiest beach we saw in Hel.  Broken glass and cigarette butts littered the sand, there was hardly any available real estate upon which to lay out towels, and then there were the approximately one million screaming kids.

nah.

We didn’t last long at said beach and moved to another.  Wider, quieter beaches lay to the east at the tip of the peninsula, and even more isolation can be found on the north side of the eastern tip.  You can walk there from town.

I wouldn’t say that Hel’s beaches are the nicest I’ve visited, but they were still sandy places to relax a bit.  We got in the water momentarily, and found the water cold and full of jellyfish.  Apparently it’s like that year-round.

Still, it was nice to be on the beach for a time.  If you’re planning a visit, don’t expect perfect tropical beaches – instead, temper your expectations you can still have a great time and get a little color here so long as the sun comes out (no guarantees, but it did for us!).

Beer with Fruit Flavored Syrup

In Hel, we finally took our first taste of a very very Polish beverage:  draft beer with sok malinowy (raspberry syrup) added to it.  Oh boy.  There was a reason we had been putting this one off until the end.

experiment / control

I try to keep an open mind about new food and drink while I travel, but I really still have no understanding why anyone would dump raspberry fruit syrup into a lager or pilsner.  It escapes me.

But it was a common sight to see everyone from women to big tough dudes ordering draft beers with fruit syrup added.  Probably the same tough dudes that took part in the arm wrestling competition.

My favorite Hel D-Day event for sure.

We ordered fried fish at an unassuming al fresco eatery along the water and got one beer with sok malinowy and one without.

salmon / cod

The fish was fine, if not a little over-fried.  The beer was not so ok.

“I thought I was going to puke,” Cecilia confessed shortly thereafter.

Every place I go, people do things a little differently.  Some of it’s just different, some of it’s just, well, bad.  This is one of those things that gets the thumbs down.  Sorry Poland, I prefer my beer without fruit syrup.

Oh, speaking of drinking:  nightlife in Hel was quite limited despite the influx of “soldiers”.  This is a family destination even during celebration time.  Eat your dinner by 9:00 PM, before most places close.

August 19th – Leaving Hel

We had one last body (basically, soft-serve ice cream) each and it was time to get out of quirky little Hel.  D-Day was winding down and so was our 2012 trip in Poland.

lody.

NEXT STOP:

Gdansk, Malbork and Torun