Gdansk - day 1, 27th May 25

 Hi all,

Well, we thought Krakow and Warsaw would be hard to top - however in our humble opinion, Gdansk has done just that. For a city that has been part  of Prussia, part of Russia, and Polish along some of the way - it certainly has its own architectural identity, with the merchants from around Europe who traded here giving Gdansk a unique mix of styles. Very reminiscent of some other Baltic ports such as Copenhagen.

Today we explored the length and breadth of the old town and the river banks of Motlawa as it winds its way to the Baltic.

Then a visit to the red brick St Mary’s Basilica- which started life in the 13th Century, a huge church in red brick that is hard to get a full picture of.

Further along the river, we crossed a modern bridge just as the alarms were going off to tell us to get off - it was a lifting Bridge to let ships through. We passed a few 15th century buildings, including the crane in the bottom right, below. Plenty of old red brick here.

After lunch we walked a bit more towards the Museum of World War Two. A great ultramodern building with a comprehensive presentation of the lead up to the war and emergence of the axis powers, then the fate of Poland and its people who seemed to get it from all sides. Only one photo inside, a poignant representation of the displaced people (their suitcases). The other pictures below are of a memorial to the 1944 uprising and the old Prison outside the town.

A busy 10km day today, on a beautiful sunny day, well worth the effort. We even had our first Ukrainian meal for lunch - good tucker.

Happy birthday to you June, although it is past your bedtime now. All our love from the travellers, as we prepare for another day of exploration tomorrow ⛪️❤️🧳🏰


Comments

  1. LauraMay 27, 2025 at 8:29 PM

    Wow Felicity, what an amazing trip. The architecture and design looks incredible. VERY impressive footy tips last week, here I was thinking you'd fall off the radar while exploring!!!
    Safe travels, we miss you!!!

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Getting Ready for our next European Adventure

Image
 Hi all Only another month before we head off to Europe again! This trip we won’t visit Italy, much to Norm’s continued disappointment about the “we can’t go to Italy every year” rule! However, that will be balanced out with the fact that all of our trip this year will be “North of the Rhine” and as we know Dr Felicity, the Romans never made their presence felt there! So, while much appreciated in past trips - no Roman ruins this time Norm. Still, there will be plenty of Cathedrals to fill in the void. So this year we plan to start our journey in Munich, then a revisit to Vienna and Prague before our first visit to Poland. Thanks to the fact that Qantas still has some economy frequent flyer flights available, in contrast to the hen’s teeth business class, Holly will be joining us for the first two weeks of the trip.  Felicity and Norm are looking forward to trying Finnair business class for the first time, another swipe at the ridiculous Qantas fare prices and our failure to f...
Read more

First day in Munich - 29 April 25

Image
 Hi all After an early morning (6am) flight from Hobart we caught our Qantas/Finnair flight to Munich via Singapore and Helsinki. The somewhat grumpy check-in person at Qantas informed us we were taking a big risk booking a seperate flight from Hobart to Melbourne, so she couldn’t book our bags all the way through. She said it wasn’t worth the risk and we should book with Qantas all the way next time - Norm said, “and pay the extra $8000 compared to Finnair”, she said she would - bugger that! Anyway, we had a smooth flight, albeit long, and arrived in our apartment just off old town Munich just before lunch. Public transport is a dream here - we bought a group ticket for all 3 of us (could have had up to 5 people) for all travel around greater Munich for the 5 days we are here for about $60 each. Caught the S ban into the city from the airport in about 35 minutes. We had a quick look around the local area ,Marienplatz, just to be sure we had landed in Germany! Beautiful as expected...
Read more

Munich day 2 - 30 April 25

Image
 Hi all After long day yesterday, where we picked up Holly in the late evening after her trip from Hobart, we thought we would have a lie in this morning. However, we all had a good post jet lag sleep and were up for a walk around the Munich Altstadt this beautiful sunny morning.  It was only a short walk from our apartment and it wasn’t long before we found a few churches to explore, once we had spent a few hours in the old king’s Residence (palace). There was plenty of opulence on display from the 15th to 19th century when the Bavarian princes (Electors) were in charge. This included the hall dedicated to their ancestors that Holly is starring at above. Normie made the sacrifice of a long narrow climb to the top of the St Peter’s church tower to get the picture in the top frame. Holly and Felicity stayed in the comfort of the church in the bottom right hand picture below. The walk was flat and the town is very easy to get around with some great, car free and pedestrian frien...
Read more