We toured Gdansk

photo: View of the Old Town and the Motlawa


Started the day by nabbing the public bus and heading to the train station to purchase train tickets for the rest of our vacation. Fortunately we were assisted in this process by a friendly English speaking Polish girl with red-dyed dreadlocks who let us cut in front of her friend in order to get our reservations figured out. No one seems to like to speak German here in Poland, which probably shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise. From there we headed in the direction of the shipyard, but ended up meandering around toward the confluence of the two Rivers Motlawa, which provided nice views and picture taking opportunities of the old town.

After running into a dead end (a bridge was out and in the process – seemingly rather slow – of being repaired), we headed back toward the Old Town for a closer look at some of the more beautiful churches and the rebuilt plazas and old shops. Amber jewelry and artwork was being sold there in abundance, at seemingly decent prices, although we have no use for such items. After viewing an intricate astronomical clock made in the 15th Century in St. Mary’s Church, we ate a lunch of bread and cheese and then made a short visit to the town hall museum, which housed a multitude of interesting artifacts and a number of interesting exhibits – not to mention a reasonable portion of dubiously translated explanatory texts.

For dinner we ate at a vegetarian restaurant, served by some grumpy young ladies who were probably somewhat miffed that we arrived less than half an hour before the joint was set to close. After a longer than usual search for the appropriate bus to take us back to our hotel, we settled into our beds to watch some ski jumping and for me to drink a „Tatra“ beer.