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I Am A Polar Bear

Travel, adventure & wellness with plenty of snow

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Tag: Poland

Eras Train Tour: Wrocław to Łódź | iamapolarbear.com

Eras Train Tour: Wroclaw to Lodz

September 16, 2024

It’s now Thursday and I’m about to move on to my penultimate city! I woke up in Wrocław to find the water was off in my apartment. I had a day and a half of plates and glasses to wash, which is no problem – ten minutes in the sink, except there’s no water! That’s … More Eras Train Tour: Wroclaw to Lodz

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Eras Train Tour: Wednesday in Wrocław | iamapolarbear.com

Eras Train Tour: Wednesday in Wroclaw

September 12, 2024

Wednesday was another day of staying put after two days on the move in a row – Berlin to Poznań on Monday and Poznań to Wrocław on Tuesday. It was also my birthday, which was the main reason for it – I didn’t fancy hauling my luggage around a city, onto a train and then … More Eras Train Tour: Wednesday in Wroclaw

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Eras Train Tour: Poznań to Wrocław | iamapolarbear.com

Eras Train Tour: Poznan to Wroclaw

September 9, 2024

I didn’t at all want to leave my nice light cool apartment with the incredible view but I’d only allocated one night in Poznań. On the other hand, my train to Wrocław, my next destination, was at 15:44 so I’d actually get a little over 24 hours in Poznań. Did I want to spend the … More Eras Train Tour: Poznan to Wroclaw

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Eras Train Tour: Berlin to Poznań | iamapolarbear.com

Eras Train Tour: Berlin to Poznan

September 5, 2024

On Monday, I went to Poland. This was a slightly harder journey than the one I’d originally planned and took four trains instead of one. I started planning this journey in about March, choosing my cities, calculating how many nights to spend in each so that I could get from London on one Friday to … More Eras Train Tour: Berlin to Poznan

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A pirate ship trip at Sopot | iamapolarbear.com

A pirate ship trip at Sopot

July 11, 2024

On Monday I talked about my trip to Gdańsk and I said I’d talk about Sopot today. Well, here we go. In short, I went straight to Sopot from the airport for a trip out on a pirate ship and then went to Gdańsk. Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia are three separate cities – or perhaps towns … More A pirate ship trip at Sopot

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First impressions of Gdańsk | iamapolarbear.com

First impressions of Gdańsk

July 8, 2024

This year, I’m going back and filling in gaps in my blog, either where I never wrote the thing in the first place, or where it needs to be deleted and rewritten. I’ve never been particularly happy with the content from Gdańsk in 2019 so that was an obvious candidate for rewriting – but also, … More First impressions of Gdańsk

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Gdansk and making videos: my first travel vlog! | iamapolarbear.com

Gdansk and making videos (I made a Gdansk vlog!)

February 27, 2020

I enjoyed my weekend in Gdansk in November but I’ve felt like I haven’t written enough about it, while simultaneously feeling like I don’t know what on Earth to say. One day I’ll write another blog or two on the subject. But does it even it out a little that this post is about Gdansk, … More Gdansk and making videos (I made a Gdansk vlog!)

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Who am I?
I'm Julie, a travel, adventure and wellness blogger. I love Iceland, I love jumping into hot water and I do love a bit of snow.

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Most popular posts

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  • Skinny dipping in Helsinki: women's day at Yrjönkatu
It’s not that 2026 has been so bad but it seems to have been busy and harder than normal. One of my Brownies gave me the cold from hell and that dragged on for *thirty-five days*, culminating in pulled back muscles and such incredible pain for ten days that at one point I was stranded upside down like a turtle who can’t physically turn over. I’ve also done three weeks with someone else’s Brownies as well as my own and my Rangers and I’ve got one more week of a Norwegian course that’s taken out my Wednesday evenings since late January, which feels like just one too many nights on. And work hasn’t helped - certain bits of research have been either difficult or hellish in certain countries but my boss and I have agreed a timeline for the current stuff that seems realistic to me and acceptable to him! A few pictures from Suomenlinna on a very cold February day. Helsinki was very cold, averaging about -10°C during the day but it’s also very beautiful. Today’s blog post is about my icy trip over Helsinki’s harbour to Suomenlinna and meant I had to figure out whether or not the ferry is an icebreaker. I have learned a lot about ice classes and propulsion and protection along the way, realised that the answer depends on your definition of icebreaker, picked up @horatiowrites’s Icebreaker again for bath reading and even (accidentally! I didn’t ask!) learned the word in Norwegian during my lesson yesterday. Why, yes, jeg går på nurskkurs. More on that later in the month! I didn’t have a lot booked or planned for my trip to Helsinki but I did book a sunrise swim at Allas Sea Pool, a geothermal pool floating in the harbour. Or, as I discovered when I got there, frozen into eighteen or so inches of solid ice. Did getting up at 7am to walk 1.5km at minus several degrees feel offputting? Yes! Did the run from the showers to the pool in nothing but a thin towel feel offputting? Yes! Did I then discover that my lungs attempted to close up after swimming a few lengths in the relatively warm water? Yes! I’ve spent the last nearly a week in Helsinki, where it’s averaged about -10°C during the day. I’ve tried out four different saunas & pools, discovered aqua jogging, had cloudberry juice with my breakfast, had a successful train adventure to Finland’s old capital and right now I’m in the longest queue for passport control that I’ve ever seen (taking back control, yay! /s) with a bag of korvapuusti, Finnish cinnamon rolls, in my carry on. Blogs will be coming next week - I think I’ve got four or five planned at the moment. Time to talk about The Bath Book, which is the book I’m really struggling to write about hot water, baths, steam, bathing culture and all that good stuff (and the excuse for a few trips I’ve done over the last 18 months). It tends to slide down my priority list but if it’s here on Instagram every month, I have to have an update every month, so I have to sit down and write occasionally. I started this because so many people went skiing in January and now we’re finishing off with my attempts at snowboarding. I started far too old - if I can’t manage one plank, how am I meant to manage two? Luckily, there’s a whole world of other fun you can have in the snow. This week, a storm basically washed away Reynisfjara, one of Iceland’s most popular tourist attractions and most beautiful beaches. It’s like a giant hand reached out and just clawed away the beach, leaving a miniature cliff up by the path. Such is coastal erosion. But does it solve the problem of it being one of Iceland’s most dangerous places or make it worse?

About Julie

I’m a blogger, adventurer, lover of hot water, amateur paddler and polar bear who wilts in hot weather.

Time (by day, I’m a researcher) and funds keep me within Europe and I make regular trips up to the north, especially to Iceland. I like the occasional adventure across Europe by train and I’m starting to make use of my weekends for 48-hour adventures.

This isn’t my only creative outlet – I’ve written two travelogues with a third and fourth being (not to much) written simultaneously right now.

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