Wonderful place to spend time ... and spend money

A white, very long, wooden construction crosses the wide beach and cuts deeply into the water. The pier - the top attraction and the symbol of Sopot. This picturesque city is truly a unique place on the map of Poland, an exclusive resort that is frequently called and compare to Italian resort Rimini. 

It is easy to spend a lot of money there, but thousands of people think it is worth to do so.

Sopot is the smallest city in the Tri-city agglomeration. It is located about 13 km (8 miles) from the Old City of Gdansk, and about 10 km (6 miles) from the center of Gdynia. The earliest documented information about Sopot comes from the 13th century. The Pomeranian duke gave the village as a donation to the Cistercians in Oliva (see the article). Over the centuries, Sopot was an agricultural-fishing settlement. As a resort, Sopot was discovered at the beginning of XIX. The first bathing beach was built in 1819.

"Monciak" promenade and tenement from fairy tales

Today the city is divided into two parts the Upper and the Lower. While the upper part is mainly residential, the lower is touristic. Especially the famous promenade called Monciak. The Monte Cassino street is a wide walking path. The route was created in XVII to combine the agriculture settlement with the fishing village. Now on both sides of the street, there are tenement houses, with lots of restaurants, bars, and stores - usually expensive, and full of tourists.

Some of the tenements are definitely worth to take a glance at. One of them is Krzywy Domek (Crooked House), with its fabulous architecture inspired by the fairy tales drawings of Jan Szancer. It was built in 2004, and quickly became one of the symbols of the city. The house was awarded as one of the 50 strangest buildings of the world, by The Village of Joy portal.

The other attraction is SPATIF Club - a legendary place of meeting Polish artists in the second half of XXth. The Club in a wooden tenement still exists and maintained in the climate of that era.

The longest wooden pier in Europe

The extraordinarily Sopot Pier is the extension of the Monciak. The longest wooden pier in Europe at 511.5 meters (558 yds) length was open in 1827. It consists of two parts: the wooden walking path over a beach and water, and the Spa Square on land - the place where concerts and other cultural events are organized.

But of course, neither the promenade nor the pier would have any popularity if it was not a Sopot beach. It is wide, and beautiful with yellow sand. The beach near the pier, especially in summertime, is very crowded but is also very long, so everybody for sure will find a perfect place to chill out.