48 Hours in Gdansk, Poland // Most Colorful Town in Poland

Tucked away on the northern coast of Poland along the Baltic Sea is the colorful port city of Gdansk. This city felt like a fairy tale. Colorful row homes and cobblestone streets all centered around a massive 15th century cathedral that offers amazing 360 degree views of the city and is home to some world-class artwork. The city offers picturesque canal ways with huge pirate ships and it holds historical significance being the site of the first shots of World War II and being an important source of the amber trade. I had so much fun wandering aimlessly through this photographer's paradise. This was one of my favorite stops on my Poland trip and here's how it went. Good afternoon guys, welcome to Gdansk, Poland. I just took a three and a half hour train ride up to the far north of Poland along the Baltic Sea from Warsaw and this is honestly one of the cities I'm most looking forward to here in Poland. It's just going to be this cute old town, small winding streets, very colorful town homes, massive churches, canals. I'm going to spend a couple days here and as a photographer, this is one of the places I'm most looking forward to photographing. So let's go check it out. All right guys, so from the eastern side of the old town, you enter the city through the golden gate. On the golden gate is the coat of arms for Gdansk and then on the top there's four statues representing wealth, freedom, peace, and fame. So we're going to walk through the gate now and enter the old town. So once we pass through the golden gate, we're on Long Lane which is about almost half a mile pedestrian street that kind of cuts through the old town and you're just surrounded by all these colorful town homes. There's all the street side dining, a lot of restaurants, there's people playing music, and just tons of people walking around. And as you're walking down the Long Lane, you can see the town hall tower off in the distance. So we're heading that direction. I'm already in love with this city, this Long Lane. It's just so beautiful. So many different colored town homes and so many of the town homes, they just have beautiful detailing to them too. And then at the top of the facade, you have these beautiful shapes and intricate designs. So it's just a gorgeous walk down the Long Lane here. So about halfway down Long Lane here, you'll see a massive clock tower and that's the old town hall building which was built in the 1500s and used to be the home of the government here in Gdansk. And now it's a museum, there's a restaurant, bookshop. It's a very beautiful tower. You can even go to the top to get a view. And then near the town hall, the Long Lane kind of opens up a little bit more into more of a plaza. So all the way on the west side of Long Lane, you go through another gate that takes you out of the old town and then you come across these canals out here. So you're right along the river, and again, there's a lot of restaurants and cafes, and there's some ships on the canal here. And so once you hit this canal, you can clearly see there's still some old town architecture on this side, but on the other side of the canal, you have these very modern triangular apartments and hotels. So the canal kind of seems to divide the old town from this more modern take on the buildings here in Gdansk. So after walking along the canal here a little bit, I'm going to head back into the old town down Marioska Street. Gdansk was known to be a big exporter of amber. So there's going to be a lot of amber stalls, a few restaurants, but then we're going to be heading to St. Mary's Cathedral, which is one of the largest brick churches in Europe. Wow, I absolutely love Marioska Street. This is one of the cutest European streets I've ever been on. It's this very narrow cobblestone street, beautiful townhomes just on each side, and then you're just walking straight towards this massive 13th century aspired church. So right at the end of Marioska Street and right in the heart of Old Town is St. Mary's Basilica, which is Europe's largest brick church, and it is massive. It is so big. It took about 150 years to build. They started constructing it in the mid 1300s, and it wasn't finished until about 1500. But yeah, I'm very excited to go in there and see what it looks like. And then you can go on top of the tower. There's a viewing platform where you can look over all of the old town of Gdansk, and that's one of the things I'm most looking forward to in this town is being up above and looking down on all the colorful row homes and getting that photo. So let's head in the church And now it was 14 zloty to go up the tower, and so I'm going up this very narrow brick staircase. It was 150 stairs on this very tight narrow staircase, and now I'm in some sort of attic space. This is a huge tower, and up here you can even see the bells that ring on the hour. It just keeps going. It's still winding all the way up. All right, 400 stairs, and I made it. They painted the number of stairs like every 10 steps so you knew how far you were going. That was a long hike, but check out these views. This is beautiful from up here. All right, guys, that was beautiful. The church is this nice like minimal white, but there's some beautiful texture on the ceiling and nice gold ornamentation. And then going up to the tower, it's just a beautiful view looking down on these colorful homes, and it's just so cute. All the colorful little townhomes and the facades, and just to see it from up there is so beautiful. But do be warned, at sunset, it's a tiny little like viewing platform, and it was just like packed. You could barely move, and you had to like fight for a spot. So try to come well before sunset to like secure your spot. And then as I was coming out, the church service was starting, and there's like beautiful organ music playing, which is actually the background for what I just used to show the church there. And then I came out, the bells were tolling, just a beautiful European night. So anyways, that's just the first afternoon here in Gdansk. I'm looking forward to having a couple more kind of slow, chill days just exploring, again, doing a lot of photography of the colorful homes and everything here. So I'll see you guys tomorrow. Good morning, guys. So one of the best things you can probably do in Gdansk is just walk the old street, just kind of get lost. And just there's so many like winding, beautiful, colorful streets. So that's what I'm going to do this morning. It's nice and quiet. Shops aren't open yet. And so I'm just going to walk these beautiful streets and show you some of the beautiful buildings. So let's go for a walk and check it out. So it's such a beautiful morning, so peaceful. And this town is just so colorful and so beautiful. It's so fun to just walk around and get lost and just move through the old town. So anyways, it is freezing out. And I saw this pierogi place when I was exploring earlier that opened at 11. So I'm going to go get some pierogies for breakfast. This restaurant is right in the old town here, right near St. Mary's Basilica. It's called Stary Dlin. And the menu looks amazing. So it's got this really cute like wooden interior. These pierogies looks so good. So I got nine pieces, but I got three different flavors of each. I got a roast duck in oven roasted chicken. And then I got a pork, but some of them have like fruits and raisins and nuts in them. So very excited. So good. So good. I've been eating pierogies for breakfast, lunch, and dinner recently because they're just so good. So on the north side of town here, there's another church called St. Catherine's. So I'm going to head in there and see what it looks like. So I've walked back to the waterfront and some of the canal ways along here. There's one interesting fact about Gdansk is the first rounds of ammunition were fired here for World War II. And so there's a big World War II museum that I'm going to check out. But also, there's just like, has some really interesting architecture for the museum. And it's right along the canal way here. So I'm going to head there and check it out. Unfortunately, on Monday, the actual museum here is closed. So I won't be able to go in and learn more about World War II. But outside the museum, they have some placards and some information about Gdansk's role in being the beginning of World War II. That was very interesting. So following World War I, Gdansk became a free city. It used to be part of Germany. Following the Versailles Treaty after World War I, it became a free state in between Poland and Germany. And it became a disputed territory. And then it was at Westerplatte, which is just on the Baltic Sea here in Gdansk, where ammunition was stored, that Germany fired the first shots of World War II, which started the whole war. So very interesting, the history here of Gdansk. All right, so it turns out that this pirate ship in the canal is actually a tour ship, and it takes you to Westerplatte, which is where World War II actually began. So I think I'm going to jump on it. This is a cool old pirate ship. I'm excited to go out and see the Baltic Sea. So Finland. It was about a half-hour boat ride, and it was one of the ugliest boat rides I've ever been on. For about half an hour, we just went through all of these very industrial shipping yards. It smelled really bad, but it was really interesting to just kind of see all of that industry that has to happen to create the civilization we live in. I have about an hour here, and it's about a mile walk to the monument, so I got to get going. So the first building you'll come across on your walk through Westerplatte is the old barracks, which was bombed by the Nazis in 1939, starting World War II. It had stored a lot of ammunition and everything, and you can walk in at your own risk. So let's go in and check out the ruins of this place. Wow, this is very interesting. You can just walk all through these ruins. I feel like I'm in a Call of Duty game here, and it actually is kind of scary because there's just these massive rocks are just hanging here very precariously, like these massive chunks of concrete that are just hanging on by a thread here. Here you can still see some of the floor tiles that are original here. It's crazy. So it says here that on Friday, September 1st, 1939, at 447, Captain Gustav Kleikamp gave the order to open fire at Westerplatte, and it has some pictures here of the explosion in the smoke. And on September 21st, 1939, so just about three weeks later, Hitler arrived here in Poland to give his approval of the invasion of Gdansk. All right, I'm gonna keep moving down the peninsula here and see the big monument commemorating Westerplatte. The walk up to the monument is this kind of spiral little garden that loops around and takes you up this hill. So at the top of the hill here, you have the monument, which has this really geometric shape to it, and these figures formed within it, and it's got a bunch of names and battles from World War II. And then from on top of the hill, you're looking back over some of those industrial shipyards in the background. Very interesting, the World War II history here in Gdansk. So, all right, I gotta head back down and rush to catch my pirate ship. So, back down the hill. Oh, I made it just in time. That was a long walk to the ship, but I made it to the ship, and they have mulled wine and like a whole bar downstairs, so I'm gonna be sipping some hot wine while we take the ship back to Gdansk. All right, that was really interesting and really fun taking the pirate ship out to Westerplatte and learning some history of World War II. So, I think I'm gonna go put my cameras away for the rest of the evening and just kind of enjoy this town, but there's a couple more things I want to do tomorrow before I leave Gdansk. So, I'll see you guys tomorrow. Good morning, guys. It's my last day here in Gdansk, so there's just a couple things that I want to do that I wasn't able to do the last couple days. First of all, this morning, I want to go back to St. Mary's Basilica, and since there was mass the other night, I couldn't really explore much past just the entrance there, so I'm going to go in and check out some more of the artwork and see things up a little bit closer. Wow, that church is stunning. There's so much beautiful art, and it's really worth spending some time in there and looking at some things up close. There's this amazing astronomical clock from the 1400s. There's this beautiful organ in the back, the stained glass, so many sculptures, a lot of, like, really classic paintings, and, yeah, it's just an amazing-looking church. Anyways, it's about 10 o'clock now, so the town hall just opened, and I want to go in there and see what the tower is like at the town hall. Well, somehow I messed that up because Tuesday, the tower is closed, and on Monday, you can actually go up for free, so I could have gone up for free yesterday, and I waited because I thought it was closed on Monday, but bummer. I would have loved to see the view up there, but at least I got the view from St. Mary's Basilica, so definitely got my views up above Gdansk, but not today, I guess. So anyways, guys, that's about it for Gdansk. I'm sure there's a lot more you can see and do. I know you can do a day trip to Sopot, which is just a few miles away, but this is my last day in Poland, so I just kind of want to enjoy some good cafes, check out some of the shops here, and just experience Gdansk as a tourist a bit. So anyways, thanks for following along, and we'll see you next time.