In a move that has left the British travel industry clutching its pearls and reaching for the smelling salts, Poland has resurrected the gloriously named bus service 666 to the coastal town of Hel. Yes, Hel. As in the Norse underworld. As in every goth’s dream holiday destination. The route, which runs along the “Highway to Hel” (a road so appropriately named it could only exist in a country where irony is clearly not dead), has been reinstated after a brief hiatus. This reeks of the sort of continental flamboyance that makes the average UK tour operator shudder into their Earl Grey.
Let us dissect this. Poland, a nation that gave the world Chopin, pierogi, and a proud tradition of resisting oppression, has chosen to thumb its nose at the very concept of subtlety. The bus, numbered 666 (no, it’s not a typo, that’s the actual route number), ferries passengers from the city of Hel to the town of Hel. Which is already a celestial joke. The highway itself was renamed “Highway to Hel” in 2018, a nod to the AC/DC classic that had the local tourism board either sniggering into their vodka or tearing their hair out. The route was suspended due to roadworks and then, like a phoenix from the flames of purgatory, it has returned.
Naturally, the UK tourism industry is baffled. Not by the logistics or the practicality, but by the sheer un-Britishness of it all. Here is a country that embraces its darkly comic side, that names a bus route after a heavy metal anthem and a mythological realm of the dead. Meanwhile, our bus services are named after dreary suburbs and numbered with the passion of a Revenue & Customs form. “The 73 to Tooting? Marvelous.” Where is our flair? Our zest? Our willingness to call a bus the “Soul Train to Perdition”?
The press release from the Polish transport authority practically cackles with delight. “The return of line 666 to Hel is a symbol of our commitment to providing memorable travel experiences,” they declared. Memorable! Not efficient, not punctual, but memorable. That’s a word you don’t hear in British transport planning unless someone has died on the tracks. We are so obsessed with “customer satisfaction surveys” and “safety protocols” that we have forgotten that a bus journey should occasionally be an adventure, a potential anecdote, a descent into the abyss with a return ticket.
And what of the tourists? The British tabloids are in a frenzy. “Holidaymakers queue for the Highway to Hell,” screams one headline, as if expecting coaches full of pensioners to be whisked away to eternal damnation. In reality, the bus is just a bus, painted in standard municipal livery, with no flames or pentagrams. But the idea, the delicious, gothic idea, is enough to send the Daily Mail foaming at the mouth. They are probably drafting an editorial about how this encourages Satanism among the youth, while conveniently ignoring that the biggest dangers on British roads are potholes and the 7.15 to Milton Keynes.
I can only applaud Poland. In a world of sanitised EU regulations and bland homogeneity, someone has decided to inject a bit of infernal whimsy into public transport. Imagine if Boris Johnson had done this. He’d have renamed the A40 the “Gold Road to El Dorado” and driven a chariot down it. But no, we get austerity and train strikes. So, I raise a glass of cheap gin (the only proper response) to the Poles. They have reminded us that transport can be fun, that destinations can be droll, and that occasionally, you should take the highway to Hel. Just make sure you book a return trip, unless you truly fancy Elysium.
