Thursday 23 May 2019

Gdańsk travel diary | day 2

Tuesday 14th May 2019 | 17,200 steps

When we got up on Tuesday morning it was gloriously sunny, so the view from our balcony (to the right, not the view of the construction site to our left) was just gorgeous. We got ready and headed straight for the waterfront, stopping for brunch at Billy's American Restaurant - not very Polish, of course, but delicious all the same. There's a 'where we ate in Gdańsk' post coming soon...

view of buildings under a blue sky

me sitting at a table in a red t shirt with the canal behind me

The sun was glorious but it was pretty windy, and we decided to have a day of exploring the various museums across the city - or at least as many as we could. I had spoken to the Gdańsk tourist board before flying out, and they had offered to hook me up with a city card which grants you free entry to various places, and discounts for shops, restaurants & more. They sorted me out with a 24h sightseeing pass - find out more here - and were so helpful in providing a detailed map with all the museums I could use the pass to enter. The staff in the tourist office were really friendly and I can honestly say that city/tourist cards are a really good way of getting to see and do a lot of things on a budget. I'll be doing a round up post of all the museums we visited in Gdansk, as I asked on Twitter if that would be more helpful than talking about them in these travel diary posts and and the overwhelming answer was yes - so keep your eyes peeled for that!

view of the rooftops across gdansk, poland


But our first port of call was to head up St Mary's Basilica, which is apparently the largest brick church in the world; it's quite bare inside and they were also doing a lot of work towards the back of it, so it was pretty noisy, but we weren't there to look at the church itself. When you enter the church, take a left and you'll find a little booth where you can buy a ticket to climb the 409 steps up to the viewpoint - it's free with the sightseeing pass, too! Otherwise it's 10zloty, which is just over 2 quid and I'd say it's SO worth it. We climbed right the way up, stopping inside the interior roof of the church, and at the very top we were greeted by a little platform offering stunning panoramic views of the city. It was so windy up there but the views made it completely worth it, for me. The walk is absolutely exhausting, though...

me posing in a red t shirt inside the roof of a church

some amber on display in a glass cabinet

Next we headed back onto Dluga and walked downwards towards the water - we were planning on heading straight to the maritime museum, but got sidetracked when we found the museum of archaeology. So we spent an hour there, and then made our way to the maritime museum, which actually covers various sites. It was coming up to 3pm and the staff at reception were kind of rude, telling us it was too late and we could only choose ONE part of the museum to visit; this was slightly disappointing but all fine because we mostly wanted to go on the big boat that's docked there which makes up part of the museum and we got to do that, which was really cool.

view across gdansk canal

three books on display in the gdansk ww2 museum

Our last museum of the day was the Museum of the Second World War, which was massive and also brilliant. Tuesday was actually free entry day, too! After spending ages here, we made our way back to Dluga once again for a drink at Pub Bruderschaft followed by a quick trip to Flying Tiger at the mall. We also stopped for coffee/ice cream before heading back to the apartment for pizza and an early-ish night - for some reason we were both absolutely done, and we knew the following day would be a long one...

large metal sculpture against a blue sky with trees in the background

tables, chairs and umbrella on the street in poland

Stay tuned for day 3 of my Gdańsk travel diary!

For day 1 of my Gdańsk travel diary series, CLICK HERE

4 comments:

  1. I've never been abroad before so I always love seeing other peoples travel journeys. This place looks beautiful x

    Lauren | www.bylaurenmay.com

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  2. I've just been to Poland but stayed in Krakow, it's such a beautiful country with so much to offer, I really want to explore more! x

    Gemma Louise

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  3. My Dad went to Poland a few years ago and said it was fantastic. I must admit it is a place that I had never really considered, however I have read such good things about it.

    Amy x
    The July Rose

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