Editor Pick
Gdansk Old Town
- September 2, 2006
- Rated 5 of 5 by
Shady Ady from Hinckley, United Kingdom
For me, Gdansk is second only in beauty to Krakow when it comes to Polish cities. Gdańsk is the Polish maritime capital with a population nearing half a million. Lying on the Bay of Gdańsk and the southern cost of the Baltic Sea, the city is a thousand years old. The city is known as the birthplace of Solidarity, the labor and democracy movement that helped to bring down the Communist government in Poland. Today, Gdańsk is the capital of the Pomeranian province and a popular tourist destination, and now with flights with Ryanair, even more tourists are making Gdansk a holiday destination.
Most people who visit Gdansk are drawn towards the old town, known as Stare Miasto, a delightful place that astonished me considering its surroundings. Taking a walk from the main train station, Gdansk Glowny, it will never prepare you for the beauty of the old town, passing numerous Western-style shopping malls, including the familiar brands of McDonald's and KFC. The Old Town was very much destroyed during WWII, but has been extensively rebuilt in the old style that once made Gdansk a formidable economic port.
The old town is the heart of historic Hanseatic Gdansk and contains numerous narrow streets just back from the waterfront. There are two canals in Gdansk, Raduna and Motłava, and it is along Motłava where you can see some of the most picturesque buildings of the town, including the most famous "Żuraw Gdański," a huge wooden crane, which is the biggest and oldest in Europe. The most beautiful streets include Ulica Długa and Długi Targ, and around the main square, where the town hall is located. At each end of the old town, you will find the Golden Gate and Green Gate, marking the entrance and exit.
When you walk through the streets, you will see numerous colourful houses containing small shops, which all seem to be selling the "gold of North Poland," amber, which is on sale everywhere. There is also a wide selection of cafes, pubs, and restaurants. There's a Bar Mleczny (Milk Bar) roughly at the middle of ul. Długa (Long Street) selling hearty Polish food at affordable prices. Fish in one of the bars facing Motława River won’t set you back more than 25zł. Other highlights in the old town I would recommend seeing are St. Mary’s Church, Town Hall Museum, and the Great Mill (Wielki Mlyn), the biggest medieval mill in Europe, originally built in the 14th century. Now it holds an indoor market. As each of these are different, it adds variety into your day. Other attractions, such as the Solidarity monument, are only a 10-minute walk from the old town.
Express trains from Warsaw to Gdansk take 4 hours and leave approximately every 2 hours. You can buy an all day public transport pass in Gdansk for 9.10zl (around $3.50). More information can be found at http://www.gdansk.pl/en/ or by visiting the tourist information centre, located at 27 Heweliusza St. (phone number +48-58-301-43-55).
From journal Things to Do and See Around Gdansk, North Poland