Edition: U.S. / Global

Berlin to Gdansk: Two Days, $123

Published: August 15, 1993

THIS summer I found out what many East Germans discovered right after the Berlin wall came down: bus trips are an inexpensive and efficient way to see Europe. On a recent trip from Berlin to Gdansk, those sights included vast yellow fields of rape flowers covering the Polish countryside like a blanket, and tiny villages with their new-car dealerships and Coca-Cola signs.

Perhaps more important, the bus also offered a camaraderie that quickly led to discussions that went well beyond polite chitchat. Bus trips, I discovered, throw passengers together in a camping spirit that just doesn't happen on planes or trains.

It all started last May when I decided to explore a bit more of Poland before returning to the United States after spending four years in Germany. I wanted to book a flight to Gdansk, but a travel agent told me there were no flights from Berlin and no good connections from Warsaw. The only direct train from Berlin arrived in Gdansk at 4:30 A.M. I considered driving until the agent warned me of the spiraling theft rate of cars with foreign license plates.

A year earlier, I had taken an overnight bus ride to Paris from Berlin for only $120, less than half the train fare, and about a quarter of the plane fare. The ride had been pleasant enough, with plush reclining seats and refreshments on board. My fellow passengers on that trip were more interested in sleeping than chatting, but at the early morning breakfast stop on the highway in France, I discerned a budding esprit de corps. I promised myself I would take another bus ride soon; like many great resolutions, it got laid aside until that moment at the travel agency.

The next Sunday, I combed through the extensive bus advertisements in the Berliner Morgenpost travel section. I was amazed at the number and variety: round trips to Paris and London, some open-ended, some virtual marathons with 12 or 14 hours to see the city; day trips to German cities like Hamburg in the west or Dresden in the east; five-day trips to Italy, Spain, Portugal, with everything included for extremely low prices; weekend trips to Prague and Budapest.

Although bus trips are offered from many European cities, Berlin is the de facto capital of bus travel because of its physical isolation from the rest of Western Europe and the burgeoning numbers of Eastern German travelers.

Among the ads in the paper was one for Gdansk, two-and-a-half days, including the bus ride of seven hours each way, two nights in a hotel and two meals a day for $105.

I called the agency and asked for someone who spoke English, just to make sure details didn't get away in a flow of German. I was told it would cost $18 more to have my own room, making a total of $123, which I could pay on the bus.

The bus left at 2 P.M. on Friday afternoon from Fehrbelliner Platz in western Berlin, after having picked up the eastern passengers at Alexanderplatz. Fehrbelliner Platz is a four-stop subway ride or a $6 taxi ride from downtown Berlin. The bus was a 10-year-old Mercedes with about 40 comfortable, reclining seats with ample leg room and a modern clean bathroom. There were coffee, soft drinks, beer and even champagne on board.

A hostess greeted us, told us about our itinerary and the price of the drinks (about $1 for a soft drink and $3 for champagne) and collected our trip money. She offered two tours in Poland at $15 and $12 respectively, and I decided to sign up for both of them.

There was absolutely no pressure to sign up, and the hostess, seeing that I was the only foreigner on board, came up to me and told me that all the tours were in German.

"I speak English," she added. "If you don't understand something, let me know."

It turned out that Edda Frotta, a writer as well as a tour hostess, not only spoke English, but Polish, Czech, French, Danish and Russian. She had been born in East Germany of a Polish father and a Czech mother, and had worked during the Communist regime as a tour guide in the monstrous television tower that looms over eastern Berlin.

The passengers on our bus seemed about equally divided between young people in their 20's and early 30's and older folks around retirement age. I sat down beside a couple in their 30's and a young man, who were already cheerfully talking to each other. All three were from East Germany, although Jurgen had lived in Hamburg for the past 25 years, moving back to East Berlin after the Wall came down.

Gabriele, his companion, had never left, and had never been to Poland either. Jean, the young man from Potsdam whom Jurgen and Gabriele had instantly befriended, had served in Poland briefly as a soldier in the German Democratic Republic.

Conversation with the three was easy, a mixture of German and English. Jean had an odd way of mixing up English words with Russian diminutives, so we eventually lapsed into German.

I didn't discover the hidden drama on the bus until the border stop between Germany and Poland. After the passports were quickly checked, we all got off for a 20-minute break. When Jurgen, Gabriele and Jean wandered off for a beer, I decided to meet some more of my fellow passengers.

"Is this your first time in Poland?" I asked one of the older couples.

"We were born here, although it wasn't Poland then," the woman replied. "We're going home."

I then understood why the bus ride had been advertised as Danzig, the old German name for the city, rather than Gdansk, the modern Polish name.