Recommend staying in Sopot or Gdansk?

Where would you recommend staying Sopot or Gdansk? What's a good time of year to go there?

Hmm - I personally prefer Gdansk (very nice old city, great main square, old musemums and buildings). Sopot is a smaller city - but has nice access to the Baltic sea, beaches etc.

I`d say both - or better said it dosn`t make any big difference - both of those cities are part of the same aglomeration and are only a few minutes with the metropolitan railway away from eachother. The main difference is that in Gdansk you`re surrounded with medieval buildings all the time while in Sopot you have an impression that you`re closer to the sea (though it`s not really true.

The best time to visit is definitely summer, this way you`d have also the oportunity to go to some beach along the coast (we`re having right now around 40C ..while during the winter it`s pretty cold here)

If you like music and festivals, Sopot is the way to be (there's the biggest music festival in Poland).

the biggest crap-music festival. Sopot is a holiday resort in summer. The rest of the year it's one of the oldest cities in Poland (in term of the average age of inhabitants) and it's really boring. Fortunately there's a lot of students around - but those on the other hand are mostly drunk.

But as Wujek said, it's a couple of minutes if you take the "metropolitan railway" - jeeez, be brave when you enter those falling apart trains.

I was in Sopot only during the summer times and I think it was cool :).

Ha! Have you seen the trains in Szczecin? They are so old!

Well, you should know something about the Polish railways here - it dosn`t make a difference what company were talking here about.

In many cases most - a large part of the trains the railway is using is 50 and 60 years old. Those trains are simply modernized. (let`s just say that I have some contacts on the railway :) )

i.e. this train - the classic EN57 model - nicknamed by the railway people as the "toilet"

is c.a. 50 years old - a wonderful invention of Polish engineers isn`t it. Today - a slightly modernized version of that train model is being used by the PKP Regional Railways, as well as metropolitan railways in various cities and other private companies.

The modernized version looks this way:

The modernized version of that modernized version looks this way - the PKP Regional Railways variant that is being currently introduced:

and the Warsaw Metropolitan Railway variant that is in service since some time:

but it is the same train - the one on the first photo - if`s a kind of "pimp up my train" that the railways are doing here :) Why am I writing this - well I`m writing this cose that particular train model, unlike newer trains elseware, in the past 50 years didn`t had any single accident.

It's kinda' funny - modern train on historic rails and railway stations..:).

Merged: Gdansk/Sopot in Winter?

Hi there, I've just joined! Was wondering if anyone could help me out with some advice. I'm heading to Gdansk/Sopot for a weekend in Jan with some friends and looking to party. I've heard how good the nightlife is in Sopot in summer, but will the nightlife still be good in winter? Would be grateful for any advice on good pubs/clubs to head to in Gdansk and Sopot.

Yes, it's nearly the same- except no tourist rush, of course there is also no street life. All the pubs work and are full of people.

It's hard to giving advices, as I don't know what do you like- pubs, dancing places, techno party or jazz pubs. All kind are rather full of people in Jan

Many thanks - it's good to know that there will still be people in the pubs and clubs as some summer holiday destinations are dead in the winter!

We would be looking to head into Sopot in the early evening and head to a pub where there is a younger crowd. I dare say we'll end up jumping around at a nightclub later on - any recommendations on the popular clubs would be greatly appreciated! Do you know how long it takes and how much it would be to get a cab from Sopot to Gdansk in the early hours of the morning?

Thanks again for your help!