There will be no more going to Hel on bus 666.
The bus to the town of Hel on Poland’s Baltic coast has long been popular with tourists. But some Christian conservatives have protested against using a number signifying the devil for a bus leading to a place that sounds like the word “hell” in English.
The local bus operator, PKS Gdynia, announced this week that bus 666 would no longer run to Hel. It said it would run the line under the number 669 from 24 June.
Local media said the bus company acted under pressure from Christian groups who had pushed for the change, but was already thinking of returning to the old number amid a public outcry.
The local news portal Trojmiasto.pl said the line had operated under the number 666 since 2006, first as a local joke, before attracting riders from across Poland and beyond. Some people rode the bus simply to say they had taken the 666 bus to Hel, Polish media reported.
Fronda, a Catholic publication, had for years called for the renaming of the 666 bus, arguing that it had satanic overtones and that “to present the reality of eternal damnation as amusing in any way is just plain stupidity”.
It lamented the fact that many Polish journalists, even Catholic ones, took pleasure in the joke.
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