Day 48 Gdansk, Poland

Gdansk is located on the Baltic Sea and has a history of being destroyed and then re-built.  It was taken over by Germany and it is where the first shots were fired in WW2.  In 1945 the Siege of Danzig saw 95% of the town flattened by the Russians who took control of Poland from the Germans, towards the end of WW2 in 1947. Poland was liberated from the USSR in 1993 when it changed from a communist country to a western style democratic government.  

It takes us around 20 minutes to drive from the port to the old town of Gdańsk where we begin our walking tour.  Our guide is one of the more interesting ones who doesn't bog you down with information.  We stop briefly for points of interest and unlike some of the guides he doesn't prattle on for 30 minutes about nothing!  As you can see from the photograph above, Gdansk was almost entirely flattened in 1945 and to see it today is, well, incredible.  Gdansk does not have any natural stone so bricks were used to rebuild.  The most crucial period of rebuilding started in the 1940's & 50's but took around 70 years to completely rebuild it to the beautiful city that it is. As we crossed the busy and picturesque Motława River into the old town the first thing I noticed is how clean the streets are.  Both sides of the river are lined with restaurants with every taste catered to.  Our guide pointed out a couple of restaurants that served traditional Polish dishes.

We walk through the "Green Gate" that is one of four gates that surrounded the old city and was built in the 14th century.  This gate is a grand entrance to the Royal Route and was built as a show of wealth.  Once through the Green Gate we are greeted on both sides of the road with houses that are truly magnificent. There is a statue of Neptune and the clock tower dominates the skyline.  There are two young ladies dressed in all their finery that immediately take you back to another time in history.  

We exit the Royal Route through another gate and above this gate is a prison tower where people were tortured.  The lower part of the building was used as a courtroom.  I have a very uneasy feeling as we walk through this building.

Our tour guide is now circling back to our starting point but first we walk down Amber street that is a very attractive street with some of the buildings having concrete balconies at the entrance to their homes.  The streets are lined with pop-up stalls selling amber jewellery.  We are told to beware of fake amber.

Our guide leads us to St. Mary's church where he sits us down to talk about the history of this beautiful church.  The building of the church began in 1343 and took 170 years to complete.  It is the largest brick church in the world. The church was partially burnt down in 1945 destroying its wooden roof and some vaults.  The church also houses the largest astronomical clock in the world.

After we leave St. Mary's church we are given the option to leave the tour and make our own way back to the ship of have an hour and a half of free time and have the guide take you back.  We opt for the first choice as Philip has spotted a Galeon that cruises the river.  We purchase tickets but we have to wait for the next available time that is 2pm. That suits us as we can go and have lunch prior to boarding.  We walk a short distance to a restaurant that our guide pointed out as serving the traditional Polish dish, Pierogi.  The restaurant is called Pierogarnia Stary Mlyn - quite the mouthful.  It is very popular and there is a queue waiting for a table inside.  Always a good sign.  However it doesn't take long for us to be seated. I am enthralled by the lighting inside this almost sparse restaurant. 

We are handed the menu that is extensive and a little hard to understand.  There are two types of pierogi - baked (empanadas) or boiled (dumplings).  There are dozens of fillings to choose from and you can have servings of three, five, seven or nine.  While we are trying to choose, the waitress brings us beers.  I chose Honeybee that is quite a sweet beer and Philip chose a wheat beer.  Both were good choices.  

Because the restaurant is so busy it takes quite awhile for our dishes to arrive to our table but the waitress did ask if we were in a hurry and we did say no.  The pierogi are much bigger than I thought they would be and I ordered five different flavours while Philip chose three.  In the end I cut all of mine in half and Philip helped me eat them.  They were really tasty and we were pleased our waitress recommended the salad as a side dish.  The salad enhanced the flavours of the pierogi.

We had time to walk off our lunch before we had to meet the Galeon so we walked the riverfront.  As I mentioned previously it is just so nice to walk streets that are not littered.  A credit to Gdansk.  The public toilets are paid toilets - around $1 au dollar - but are so scrupulously clean you could eat off the floor!

It's time to board the Galeon and we are excited.  But our excitement turned to disappointment as they crowded people onto the old ship.  We had a seat with a view but because of the crowding we had people standing in front of us. There was nowhere for them to sit.  Not that the view was much as we sailed through the industrial area. The kids onboard were happy though as they ran from section to section.  Anyway.  Moving on.  

We had paid for a return ticket but at the turnaround point we decided to disembark as we were within walking distance to our ship.  Looks can be deceiving though as we had to walk a long distance before we found an entrance through the chain wire fence surrounding the area where we were docked!  Certainly got our 10,000 steps in.  

Incidentally our captain had to reverse a long distance to the dock this morning and we also had to have the assistance of a tugboat. The harbour is very small.  Across from us is the Viking Ship that we have been stalking the past few days.