Gdansk (Poland) June 2, 2001

We landed at the port of Gdnyia which was in the "Polish Corridor" from 1918 to 1938.  We then traveled to Gdansk which was an independent city during that period.  The entire area is often referred to as Danzig just to totally create confusion

Our first stop was at the Oliwa (pronounce the "W" as you would in German) Cathedral.  This church dates from the 13th century.  You may comment "it looks awful new", well that's because when the Russians took this back from the Germans, the entire area was pretty well decimated.  Keep that in mind as we look at all these pictures, almost everything is a reconstruction.

The real purpose for the visit was to hear a concert on the Rococo organ (built in the 2nd half of the 18th century).  As you can see, the church is very long and narrow (we're sitting just about in the middle), and all constructed of stucco faced brick, but in spite of the very hard surfaces, while live, the sound doesn't roll around for weeks after each note is played.  A very interesting concert and well worth the visit.

The church was a study in contrasts.  All the wood and furnishings are very dark while the walls are bright white.  This is a picture of the main alter (I'll play around with my good photo editor to see if I can improve the light portions without losing the dark ones, but that will have to wait till I get home, I forgot to load it on my laptop).

We had lunch at a modern Restaurant just 10 minutes from the cathedral and it was nice to eat "normal" food even though it also was authentic Polish.  Menu was soup, salad, Pork and Polish beer (they would substitute a Cola or Orange juice if you wanted, which Marnie did.

We then traveled to downtown Gdansk.  This was 80% destroyed in the last days of 1945, but they chose to restore it to it's original, not it's 1938 image.  This is a picture of their town hall, looks much like the one in Tallinn don't you think?

The architecture was heavily influenced by the Dutch style in the 13th century, so it will look very similar to those who know Stade (Germany).  Pardon the poor contrast, it was raining when I took this picture (and the one above, and the ones to follow).  Big difference from Stade is that the main street is pretty wide (but the side streets aren't)

The downtown highlight (according our guide) is the Basilica (St. Mary's church) which he claims is the largest church in the world (built of brick).  It seats some 25,000, and is enormous, but I do believe St. Peter's (for one) is bigger, but it's made of stone.  It was built in stages from 1350 to 1502.

Internally, it is a beautiful church.  Remember the comments about restoration, our guide estimated that because of their careful research, about 80% is original.  The rector of the church did take much of the art work out of the church before the Russian attack and hid that away in the neighborhood.  Not all of that was returned, but it still saved much of it.

Just behind the lamp post is a crane that is "the symbol of the city".  Gdansk was a major source of getting wheat and wood to the west and that's is real reason for being here and being as large as it was as early as it was.