By telling us your country of residence we are able to provide you with the most relevant travel insurance information.
Please note that not all content is translated or available to residents of all countries. Contact us for full details.
Shares
For the ones coming from a warm country, the sea is usually associated with the ideas of swimming, sunbathing, maybe playing on the beach. I didn't find anything like that when, in February, on the northern coast of Poland, I met for the first time the Baltic Sea. Before then I had never seen the snow falling and the sea at the same time, in my mind those two things always belonged to two different pictures. Pictures that were now merging before my eyes. I was standing close to the tip of a pier reaching out to the sea for about half a kilometer. Being the longest wooden one in Europe, it made for quite a touristic attraction and some people were actually defying the bad weather in order to take a nice picture. Ironically, because of the thick snow falling, the view, especially in the distance, was a gray wall mixing together sea and sky. Where I was, a small edifice, a restaurant, gave tourist the chance to walk up a short staircase leading to a tiny viewing platform from which enjoy a better panorama. Once there, the land is left behind and one's basically surrounded by water. My friends were taking pictures on their own, giving me the chance to have a moment alone with the landscape. Keeping my hands on the railing, I couldn't help but think that I was looking at the largest horizon I had ever seen. Growing up close to the Alps, my skyline has always been populated by huge, rocky giants, rising up to the sky covering whatever was behind them. But there, in that snowy day, I could see that vast emptiness, a spectacle that only the sea can offer. Sure, the same snow ruining many selfies was also obstructing my sight, but I knew that there wasn't anything to see anyway. No mountains, no buildings, just two different shades of blue pushing against each other where sea and sky meet. That emptiness made me think: what lies beyond this sea? It was kind of a silly question, as I technically knew the answer thanks to some basic Geography learned in school, but there was more to it. It actually was the first time I thought anything like that. Looking at the mountains, part of my horizon since forever, I never felt the desire of going past them to see what was on the other side. That winter sea, so different from what I was used to, gave me something I was lacking before, curiosity for the unknown. Up to that point, I had been traveling being interested in everything new I could experience, but that sentiment was somehow different. Standing on that pier, surrounded by the sound of pictures being taken, I imagined how someone from ancient times could have felt by looking at the same sea. In those times when the Earth was still mostly a mystery and maps still had to be charted, people where maybe looking at the horizon as I was in that moment, feeling the same desire to see what was on the other side. That pier was my equivalent for the pillars of Hercules, from which I was staring into my Atlantic Ocean. After all, that was the farthest away I had ever been from home. From that moment, these feelings tagged along in any of my subsequent journeys, becoming a valuable travel companion. One always pushing me forwards, curios to know what we'll find beyond the edge of the world.