Sailing by ferry to and from Poland. Ferries between Poland and Sweden

Does anyone have any experience of reaching Poland by boat?

I had the idea after joking about cycling to Poland. I realised the idea might not be so crazy after my brother told me about his bicycle journeys from Prague to Vienna and around various bits of eastern Germany. The idea clicked into place when I realised it would be quite easy to cycle to a port on the east coast of England, take a ferry to somewhere in Scandinavia, cycle to Karlskrona, then go by ferry to Gdynia. The only ferries from England to Scandinavia go to Esbjerg in Denmark and there are a few bits of water between Esbjerg on the Jutland peninsula and Karlskrona in southern Sweden.

My girlfriend wants me to go to Poland by the traditional method of sitting in a car all the way from France, through Belgium, the Netherlands and Germany and across to the opposite side of Poland. I don't suppose I could persuade her and the kids to get on bikes for their summer visit.

Wouldn't Copenhagen - Świnoujście route be faster (and probably cheaper) than Karlskrona - Gdynia? If you don't mind landing in the north-western Poland (Świnoujście is about 80 kms, 2 hours on train or 3 hours by bike, from Szczecin).

Another route operated by Polferries is Ystad (south of Malmo in Sweden) - Świnoujście.

Copenhagen might be quite nice, but Karlskrona's got a big square (I assume that's a good thing and hopefully not the only good thing). Another thing - Gdynia's named after a river. Świnoujście looks like it's named after pigs.

I know it requires a different thread, but I don't know much about cycling in Poland. From some of the roads I've been on, I might be better off catching a couple of trains instead. It would be good to arrive in £odź by boat though, not that it's a particular destination I've chosen. I may have to stick a rubber dinghy in one of my panniers.

good luck with paddling to £ódź... hahahaha

osiol, why not ride the chunnel and all the way to polska that way?

I've been through it twice. They put you in a box and you end up in France. I suppose you can pay more money, get a seat and end up somewhere a bit nicer than some converted wasteground outside Calais, but I prefer to feel the roll of the sea and have a deck to stretch my legs. That's for a couple of minutes at least. Ferry = floating bar.

Well, you need a good map and some planning before such a trip. I hope you wouldn't like to go the shortest way (inhalating the exhaust gases from the cars on the motorways and generally risking your life/health). Trains are a good option on some stretches, but cycling through the National Parks (Woliński - with Polish bison, żubr, at Międzyzdroje, and Drawieński - with kayaking trails, if you really want to row, row, row your boat).


No, "ujście" is the final part of a river (like delta, estuary, firth etc.) before entering a larger body of water (like another river, sea, ocean) and "Świna" (not "świnia" is the name of the local river or more precisely strait. The Odra river estuary enters the Baltic Sea through 3 straits (which are sometimes consiedered 3 short rivers, 16-20 kms long) and Świna is one of them.

It seems that someone have read this thread and took your original idea seriously. London to Olsztyn, 2725 km on a bicycle.