Pearl of the Baltic

Today we head to the "Pearl of the Baltic" for the last few days of our trip.

We got the train from Warsaw Central, just a short walk from the hotel, to Gdansk Central; it was around a 3 hour journey, and this time we decided to go second class. We grabbed a coffee and a croissant in the station before boarding the train. The journey was good, and the young Polish guys trying to chat up women and singing the same song over and over was actually quite entertaining.

The train arrived into Gdansk Central, which was also only a 5 minute walk from the hotel according to google (and apple) maps. Well this would have been the case, but for the fact my phone couldn't figure out which side of the busy street we should have been on. It took us about 15 minutes walking in the maze of the station to finally work out where our hotel actually was..

Our home for the next few nights was the Craft Beer Hotel, a hotel with a brewery in the basement; it was Iain's dream hotel! We checked in, dropped our luggage then wandered to the old town. First stop was an alcoholic drink, second stop was ice cream (or in Iain's case, a milkshake!), then it was time for the walking tour.

We met our guide on the west side of the Golden Gate, and started off on the walking tour of the main city. Gdansk is a beautiful city and has been shaped by the wealthy merchants who lived here; it is perfectly located at the very end of Vistula River by the Baltic coast. It used to be one of the most important trading centres in Central Europe and exported grain around Europe as well as "Polish Gold" or as we know it, Amber.

The tour took us to all the main sites including St. Mary's Basilica, the largest brick church in the world, Europe's largest medieval crane, Neptune's Fountain, the Fahrenheit Thermometer and Long Street, the longest avenue in Gdansk, which was home to the market place and was the original Royal route.

The tour ended at the Memorial to the Defenders of the Polish Post Office; the defence of the Post Office was one of the first acts of WWII. The Germans hoped to capture the Post Office quickly, and then take full control of the city. Instead of a quick surrender, 57 workers from the post office fought back and miraculously held the attackers at bay for 15 hours, before finally surrendering. After their surrender, the workers were court martialled by the Germans and executed as illegal combatants. The memorial is an interesting and thought-provoking reminder of one of the forgotten battles of the war.

The tour lasted 2.5 hours so we were starving and knackered; we headed back to Long street to find a restaurant for some food and beer. Gdansk is an interesting place, particularly market square. There were various artists, football tricksters and even a guy with a snake.

After dinner, we thought we would wander back to the hotel and to the brewery, Brower PG4, in the basement. Both of us were astonished by the size of it, and decided to try a flight. We didn't quite realise there would be matching nibbles, but we really enjoyed it. 

Iain decided to have a nightcap of Jopenbier, a 10.1% thick beer syrup, which has been brewed on the Motlawa River at least since 1449. 

I can't say I particularly enjoyed it, but Iain seemed to; he was also starting to talk rubbish by the end of it which was the signal for bed.