The Irvken Experience

At last we’re on a proper coastal path, but walking 20KM along a sandy beach is difficult with big boots and a big rucksack so we’ll be keeping to the path that runs pretty much through the centre of the peninsula. You don’t see much of the sea (in fact never) but you can hear the sound of crashing waves from the Baltic occasionally through the trees.

As I said before this is not actually part of the designated E9 ( which follows the Kopernicus Szlak on the southern side of the Vistula lagoon) but is another well marked footpath called the Jantar Szlak which translates apparently from the Lithuanian as The Amber Way.

The whole pine forest that makes up the spine of the Vistula Peninsula is criss-crossed with paths, so it’s very easy to get lost if you don’t keep to the way marked trail. It also makes it quite difficult to find your way out of Krynica Morska, but if you make your way to the Cemetery in the west of the town the path runs alongside that. The markings this time are a white rectangle with a yellow stripe across it.

Very soon you’re out of town into deep pine forest, a sandy softly undulating path makes very easy walking. Butterflies, dragon flies, green blue and black stag beetles make up the fauna, and lots of birdsong and chirruping crickets. If the sun is out ( and it was for me) it makes for very easy walking.

There was no-one else on the path all morning, occasionally you’ll see holiday makers crossing the path from the resort villages on the south side of the spit to the beach on the north, but only once did I jump out of my skin when a mountain biker whizzed past me. This is also a national cycle route R64.

The path continues like this for about 7.5 KM getting quieter and quieter until just East of Przebrno it drops back to the main road that parallels it along the peninsula. It’s almost worth chancing the criss-crossing paths to avoid the next bit, ( or using the beach) but your intrepid narrator decided if he was walking designated coastal paths he should report them accurately.

Walk along the road for approximately 400m and a path dives off to the left by a bus stop and heads to the lagoon shore. Here the path is darker and muddier and more overgrown , but quickly breaks out of the wood into open fields full of cattle ( I nearly turned back!) and then into along open path alongside holiday cottages into the small village of Przebrno.

And I mean small, there was only one shop/café and the café wasn’t open, plus the shop didn’t sell non-carbonated water, by this time I was very thirsty. Word of warning if doing this section, bring provisions. There is no-where to purchase anything including water between Krynica Morska and Katy Rybackie, a distance of 18.5km. I bought a carton of orange juice and went on my way.

After 0.5 km you might see a disused wooden babrbque venue with lots of garden seats and tables hidden in the trees, this is good place to rest for a little while in the shade. I was quitev supised to see what good time I had made and reached here at 11.30 after setting off at 9, nearly 10km in 2.5 hours.

About a 1km out of Przebrno the path gets seriously difficult. Still well waymarked it is very overgrown and the insect life is overwhelming. Rutted and alternatively sandy and muddy it runs between the lagoon reed beds to the left and the rising slope of the pine forest to the right, occasionally meandering into both. If I could have I would have tried to break out through the pine forest but this is not a managed forest like most pine woods in England and would be very difficult terrain particularly if you didn’t know where you were going. After about 2km of this, I was suprisingly glad to see the road for once. It took me 10 minutes to wipe all the insect detritus and cobwebs from me. Walk along the road for about 30m and the path starts o the right hand side again and climbs back into the pine forest and the sandy footpaths familiar from the first section.
The path continues for 6km like this until you come to a metalled road that bisects it, here you can drop down into Katy Rybackie a pleasant little holiday town not on the same scale as Krynica Morska but with a good selection of rooms to let and places to eat, and a small Tourist Information office at the harbour with a bar where you can have a cup of kawa and rest your tired feet.