Baltic bliss

On the north coast of Poland is situated the once-German city of Gdansk (Danzig). In its satellite resort town of Sopot, I stayed for five nights with Slaven, a friend I met in Prague last year. Our first excursion was to the Stutthof concentration camp.   A military re-enactment was taking place on the road to the camp and some soldiers fired their machine-gun at us when we drove past.  Regardless of the fact that they were blanks, the noise and flamebursts from the guns still make you scream like a little girl when someone aims it at your face!  While it was not even a death camp, I still found it very difficult to walk through at times. The capacity of humanity for cruelty is both sobering and distressing to behold.My favourite spot in Gdansk was Mariacka street and I got up at 6am one morning to take the train in and enjoy the sunrise while no one was around to ruin the moment. It looks a little Harry-Potterish. A two-hour drive over dubious roads took us to a national park in the north west. We were joined on our walk through the swampy forests by a number of deer and about five billion hungry mosquitoes. The travelling sand dune cut suddenly into the forest with a blunt delineation so we climbed and walked all the rest of the way to the beach. In Helsinki I visited the cemetery and met some red squirrels.My stay was brief (only two nights) by I spent my last morning in complete heaven, exploring the island of Suonenlinnen. The ruined fortress there is riddled with tunnels and dungeons, through which I explored with boyish delight. Some were so dark I could see nothing but the garish glow of my lighter as I stumbled forward through the dripping passages. I felt like Steerpike exploring forgotten corners of Gormenghast. But there is never time to linger and I left before noon to catch a ferry over the sea to the Estonian capital of Tallinn...