Sopot — the pier, the beach and the festivals of the Tricity.

Sopot is the smallest town of the Tricity (17 km², about 35,000 inhabitants), but for most of the year the most recognisable — chiefly thanks to its pier, the longest wooden pier in Europe (511.5 m), and to the Forest Opera, where the Sopot Festival has been held since 1961. Its status as a spa, its sea microclimate and its 19th-century spa traditions keep the town living on tourism twelve months of the year.

The heart of the town is the Bohaterów Monte Cassino promenade, known locally as the "Monciak" — several hundred metres of bars, shops, restaurants and hotels running from the railway station to the pier. This is where the Crooked House stands (opened in 2004), a building inspired by the illustrations of Jan Marcin Szancer and Per Dahlberg and one of the most photographed structures in Poland.

Sopot is not only a summer resort. In autumn and spring people come here for walks on an empty beach and for the spa hotels (with brine pools and spas). In winter there is an ice rink on plac Zdrojowy, and Christmas here has a particular atmosphere — the Monciak decorated and the restaurants full. In summer, meanwhile, there is a beach 4.5 km long, one of the cleanest in Poland, with white sand and often flying the Blue Flag (the ecological standard for bathing beaches).

Sopot is part of the Tricity — linked to Gdańsk and Gdynia by the fast SKM railway (a train every 6–10 minutes, a ticket of 4–6 zł, a journey of 7–25 minutes). That means that basing yourself in Sopot puts within easy reach the Gothic and amber of Gdańsk, the modernism and Skwer Kościuszki of Gdynia, plus the Hel Peninsula and Kashubia an hour away.

From Warsaw to Sopot is about 3 hours by PKP IC train, or 4–5 hours by car on the A1 and S6. Gdańsk-Rębiechowo airport is 18 km from Sopot (about 25 minutes by taxi, or about 45 minutes by SKM with a change).