Get it!?! Gdansk!?!....dance...care to dance?.....no? Boooo!
After our time in Krakow it was time to head North...waaay north to the Baltic sea in Gdansk, Poland. The first thing we noticed here is how long the days are. We're days away from the longest day of the year (not for you Gordon Jervis!) but it's still longer than we've experienced! The sun was shining brightly by 4:15 am and the sky was still blue at 10PM.
We had a walk to a town called Sopot, which is basically a Polish resort town on the Baltic Sea. It's a nice town and has everything you'd expect for a sea side town, with great restaurants and street venders. There's a huge pier here that juts out into the sea which looks really nice, but they actually charge admission to walk out on it, which is disappointing. We decided not to.
The beach was very busy full of sun bathers, volleyball and frisbee games, but a lot less activity actually IN the water. I had a walk into the water up to about knee depth and discovered exactly why (like it's a huge surprise). The water was capital C COLD....! And full of sea weed... Imagine that!?? The Baltic....
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| About as close as I was willing to get to swimming |
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| Main square by the beach in Sopot |
The main city of Gdansk is pulled back a few kilometers from the actual coast but is well connected by canals. We had a good walk through the streets of the old town, which didn't disappoint. The old town architecture looks almost like you're in Amsterdam.
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| Gdansk port |
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| Main square in downtown Gdansk |
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| Dy having a look out over the Baltic. Looks warm doesn't it? |
Westerplatte
I have to admit, although Gdansk is an amazing city in its own right, my motivation for coming here was for a different reason.
In the Summer of 1939 the German warship Schleswig-Holstein was 'visiting' the free city of Danzig(Gdansk). It was on a 'courtesy' visit. That's what they were telling everyone anyway. On September 1st 1939 the warship opened fire on the peninsula Westerplatte where a Polish garisson sat. These shots, as it turns out, were the first shots fired in WWII.
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| One of the few surviving gueard houses at Westerplatte. Notice all the bullet holes. |
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| Remains of the soldiers barracks |
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| Dy standing in the basement level of the barracks. |
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| Monument to the brave soldiers who held off the Germans. |
