Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poland. Show all posts

Friday, August 23, 2019

Gdansk, Poland

August 12, 2019

Gdansk is a large port city in Poland on the Baltic Sea. The city was reconstructed after it was destroyed in WWII. The first shots of the war were fired here. Now it is a very popular tourist destination. There were crowds of people. We took a historical walking tour . It was very informative and helped to better appreciate what we were seeing. Again as with most large cities we could have stayed longer, visiting a lot more things, but the crowds were draining. August is not a good time to visit Gdansk or anywhere along the Baltic Sea. It was a 3 day traffic jam just trying to get from Germany to Gdansk.

View down Long Market, a very busy pedestrian street.


The exterior of many of the buildings were beautifully decorated.



More views of Long Market.


Inside St. Mary's Basilica


Arts and crafts were for sale on all the pedestrian streets.



Lots of fresh produce for sale.

Long Riverfront - another pedestrian street along the Motlawa River.


The Crane - restored 15th century port crane powered by 2 giant treadwheels.

Love lock bridge in Gdansk.


Sunday, June 26, 2016

Poland

Poland


Poland is a large country and we don't have much time before meeting JoAn in Helsinki, so we concentrated our time visiting Krakow. Krakow is a wonderful city. We only spent two days, but you could easily spend much more.

Krakow - We stayed outside of town and took public transportation into the town center. It was easy to do and very convenient. The first thing we did was take a free walking tour. The guides work for tips, so they are inspired to do a good job. We have taken them in several different cities. The guides are usually college students and have lots to share about their city. In addition to an excellent tour, our guide suggested a good inexpensive authentic polish food restaurant favored by the locals. We had a delicious dinner.


Damian our Free Walking Tour guide. 

There is lots of street entertainment in the main square.


The horse carriages are amazing.

Rynek Glowny - a covered market in the center of the main square.


The dragon of Krakow

Man covered in mirrors on the sidewlk.


There are shops selling amber everywhere.

Graffiti art in the Jewish Quarter.

Love locks on a pedestrian bridge. 

Vistula River with the Wawel Castle in the background.



 Wawel Castle


One of the many churches in Krakow


Views of inside the church.

The main square in old town in the evening. It is still crowded with tourists.




Rural Poland - The countryside is very similar to Romania and Slovakia. Lots of green rolling hill and lakes. It is beautiful.


Near the boarder between Poland and Slovakia.

View from our camping spot on a lake. We had a nice evening walk around the lake.


Another camping spot on a lake. We had another nice evening walk along the shore.