Surprising Gdansk(Tricity)
My first trip on my own was to Gdansk, a place in Poland. I wanted to go there after hearing stories from a friend who went there and was really enthousiastic, so I bought a plane ticket and ordered a room in a cool hostel and there I was, on my way to Poland!
The first steps on Polish ground were not so great, I couldn’t find my way to my hostel and couldn’t find anyone who could speak english, everybody was speaking polish there. I wandered around, but was not panicing, because what I saw during that walk, was amazing. A lot of old, typical Polish architecture, a lot of art and a lot of Polish people is what I saw. I walked through a parc where modern art was statued and there were a lot of colourful garlands were hanging under the trees. It felt like a warm, personal welcome to Gdansk and it was fun to look at and to walk underneath it. When I was done playing there, I walked to the centre to look at a local touristshop for a map of Gdansk, maybe then I could find my way to my hostel.
When I finally found my hosteI was lost once again, and asked a person who could speak English and then it turned out it was right behind me, stupid me), I took a quick shower and then walked into the city centre. My hostel was right at the port and my walk to the centre was right along a lot of old ships. The centre of Gdansk looks very old, I think a few centuries.The only thing what kept me from thinking that, were the large amount of restaurants with modern food and the staff that wanted me to come into their restaurants. While the city centre looks old, it was actually rebuild after world war 2 as the whole city was bombed to the ground during the war.
The centre is very touristic, but in a fun way. Not like the big touristic cities of Europe but in a smaller amount. It was fun to walk through and there was a lot to see. I decided to get some money and go to a restaurant to get some food to eat. I brought a book to spare the waiting time and got my dinner. After getting my dessert and getting the bill, I was highly surprised. I just ate a 3-course-dinner for only 15 euro’s including my drinks? That is amazing!
The next day I went to a place next to Gdansk: Sopot. Sopot is a place with a very famous beach and boulevard. Sopot is famous about his architecture, like the building ‘Kzywy Domek’, the crooked building. It is funny to see the differences with our architecture. I stayed a few hours wandering on the beach and then went back to Gdansk. There I wandered through the port, looking to all the amazing and old boats. When I sat on a couch looking at some of the boats, and old man sat next to me and told me about Gdynia, he said that I would like that place if I liked these boats. And boy, he was right.
The next day I took an early train to Gdynia, Gdynia is a harbor place, with a few old boats in it that you can look inside. There is an impressive torpedo-boat which was used during the second world-war and after that, and a very big other ship. In Gdynia there was a big aquarium where I spent some hours and the harbor is very impressive to look at. I sat on the top of the harbor looking over the Eastern Sea and that was an amazing sight.
Another historic, and underrated place of Gdansk is the Lenin Shipyard. A lot of people in the communistic Poland worked here. I visited the European Centre for Solidarity what was quite impressive and taught me a lot about the history of Poland, the murder of the Polish Pope and the fall of communism. After they fired Anna Walentynowisc several months before her retire, people felt that this was unfair. They formed a group called Solidarnosc and started a strike, which had no influence in the start. When days and weeks passed, people locked themself inside the shipyard and made up ten demands. Under the lead of Lech Walesa the movement was getting bigger and bigger. So big that millions of Polish people felt solidarity for the workers at the shipyard. Later all Europe started to feel they needed to help the workers and the strike was getting bigger and bigger. Until a moment it get so big and powerful that Poland was the first country behind the iron curtain that had democratic elections for a president. Lech Walesa became the president of Poland under the communistic regime of Russia. This in fact was the first brick of the Berlin wall that fall many years later. All thanks to the Polish people.
At the last day of my trip I decided to go to Westerplatte, a peninsula next to Gdansk. This island was the first place Hitler drove into Poland during the second world-war. From there he had the power to fight against Poland and that was the start of the second world war. A lot of history on a very small scale. It was very impressive to walk there, there were old building standing there which were damaged by bombs and there was a lot of information about that period. It made a lot of impact at me. After visiting Westerplatte I decided to visit the war-museum of Gdansk, to finish my ‘history’day in Gdansk.
What I learned in Gdansk that touristic places doesn’t have to be that expensive(4 times dinner that week and that only took 70 euro), that there is a lot of history going on in that area and that the Polish, once you can communicate with them, are very sweet and loyal. I really want to go back to Poland once, maybe to finish Warshaw and Auschwitz. We’ll see in the future.
