Malbork is all about the castle, yet a few hundred metres from the Teutonic walls stands the town's other medieval landmark: a Gothic town hall dating from around 1380. It is one of only a handful of buildings from the old town that surviv…
The Beka Nature Reserve (Rezerwat Beka, roughly "BEH-kah") protects rare coastal salt meadows on Puck Bay, at the old mouth of the Reda River, about 15 km (9 miles) north of Gdynia. Its caretakers at OTOP, the Polish BirdLife partner, call…
Between Rewa and Mechelinki, right on the Bay of Puck, stretches a belt of wet meadows, reed beds and low dunes. This is the Mechelińskie Łąki reserve – more than 113 hectares protected since 2000 as a refuge for water and marsh birds. In…
Rowokół (say "ro-VO-koow") is a forested glacial hill beside the village of Smołdzino on Poland's central Baltic coast. At about 115 m above sea level it is the highest point of the Słowiński coastal plain and for centuries served sailors…
The moving dunes of Słowiński National Park, near the Baltic resort of Łeba ("WEH-bah") in northern Poland, are the closest thing Europe has to a desert by the sea. Walls of pale sand up to about 40 meters high creep inland every year, bur…
In a pine wood on the western bank of the Łeba river stands a lone fragment of brick wall. It is all that remains above ground of a medieval town – Old Łeba, destroyed by storms and buried by sand. Słowiński National Park calls the ruins o…
The BHP Hall of the Gdańsk Shipyard (Sala BHP, pronounced "SAH-lah beh-hah-PEH") is a modest brick building inside the former shipyard where, on August 31, 1980, striking workers and the communist government signed the August Agreements –…
Kościuszko Square (Skwer Kościuszki, roughly "kosh-CHOOSH-ko") is Gdynia's grand promenade, running from the main shopping street, Świętojańska, straight to the sea and the South Pier. This is where the city celebrates, strolls and takes p…
The Seven Lakes Stream (Struga Siedmiu Jezior, roughly "STROO-gah SHYED-myoo YEH-zhor") is a short, winding waterway in Bory Tucholskie National Park in northern Poland. Over 13.9 km it strings seven glacial lakes together like beads befor…
In the design she had a graceful tail and a slender figure, but once cast in bronze – as the sculptor himself complained – she was holding not a salmon but "a dead carp". Despite its stormy beginnings, the Ustka Mermaid (Syrenka Ustecka) s…
The Gothic Castles Trail is a driving route of around 640 km linking the brick strongholds of the former Teutonic Order state and of the Warmian and Pomesanian bishoprics. It takes in twelve castles across Pomerania, Warmia and Masuria – f…
Poland's largest musical theatre is not in Warsaw or Kraków but on Grunwaldzki Square in Gdynia. The Danuta Baduszkowa Musical Theatre has three stages seating more than 1,580 people in total, and in terms of capacity only the Grand Theatr…
About 300 m off the beach at Babie Doły in Gdynia, a concrete ruin rises from the waters of the Gulf of Gdańsk like a ship run aground. This is the torpedo building – a torpedo assembly and test hall built by the Germans during the Second…
Tricity Landscape Park (Trójmiejski Park Krajobrazowy, roughly "troy-MYAY-skee PAHRK krah-yo-brah-ZOH-vee") is a green belt of forests above Gdańsk, Sopot and Gdynia on Poland's Baltic coast, where ravines, beech woods and pine forest lie…
Wisłoujście Fortress (Twierdza Wisłoujście, roughly "TVYER-dzah vee-swo-OO-ish-cheh") in Gdańsk is one of Europe's most remarkable surviving fortifications: a 15th-century brick lighthouse tower ringed by the four-bastion Fort Carré and a…
At the western end of the beach in Dębki the Piaśnica river cuts through the sand and flows into the Baltic. A wooden footbridge and cycle bridge crosses the river mouth, and all around there is nothing but dunes, forest and a wide beach.…
Long Street (ulica Długa) and the Long Market (Długi Targ) form the main axis of Gdańsk's Main Town and the heart of the Royal Route. The unofficial name recalls the ceremonial entries of Polish kings, a tradition begun in 1457 by Casimir…
Wdzydze Landscape Park (Wdzydzki Park Krajobrazowy, roughly "vdzih-DZEH-skee PAHRK krah-yo-brah-ZOH-vee") is a Kashubian lake and forest park in northern Poland, built around Lake Wdzydze. Pine woods, peat bogs, the Wda River and wide open…
Westerplatte (pronounced "VES-ter-plah-teh") in Gdańsk is where World War II began in Europe. At dawn on September 1, 1939, a German battleship opened fire on a small Polish military depot on this peninsula at the mouth of the port, and it…
Even at the design stage, Malbork's 1905 water tower was meant to echo the medieval architecture of the Teutonic Knights' town. This Gothic Revival brick tower on Słowiański Square is about 30 m tall. Since its restoration it has been a fr…
Please note (as of October 2026): the Sopot Museum in Claaszen Villa is being renovated. Work is due to finish at the end of 2026, and until then the collections are not on display – events and outdoor exhibitions take place elsewhere in t…
The Rocket Launch Site at Rąbka ("ROMP-kah"), just west of the Baltic resort of Łeba in northern Poland, is a small open-air museum on the grounds of a secret German rocket test range from World War II. Hidden in the pine forest of Słowińs…
Sobieszewo Island was created in a single night and given its final shape by workers with shovels and barges of stone. Gdańsk's largest and easternmost district is a strip of coastal forest and dunes between two mouths of the Vistula, with…
Granary Island in Gdańsk (Wyspa Spichrzów, roughly "VIS-pah SPEEKH-zhoov") sits between the Motława River and its man-made channel, the New Motława, directly across from the Main Town waterfront. For centuries it held hundreds of grain war…