Hey blog, it’s been a minute but it is finally time to finish our trip.
Day 3 was a very busy day. We woke up at 1 am to head to the bus and train station to catch an overnight Flixbus to Gdansk. We slept as best as we could (which wasn’t well) throughout the drive and woke up in Gdansk around 10 am. At the last minute, we joined a walking tour called Gdansk Shipyard Uncovered. This tour, about the Solidarity Movement, is so crucial to Poland’s history that it seemed like the right tour to book. We met at 11 am at Plac Solidarnosci, the Solidarity Square with the the Monument of the Fallen Shipyard Workers. Our tour guide combined the history of 1970 and 1980 to help us understand what had happened in Gdansk.
In 1980, during communist regime in Poland, shipyard workers started protesting the increased prices of food and poor working conditions and labor rights. The workers created a list of demands called 21 Points. These points included the right to form free trade unions, the right to strike and security if they do, compliance with freedom of speech, pay increases, and 17 other ideas to increase their rights. Additionally, the 1980 shipyard workers wanted a memorial to be made in honor of the victims from the 1970s protestors. This monument was a big deal because the 44+ killed and 1,000+ injured were the communist regime’s own victims. The 1970s victims were protesting food shortages and price increases.
The 1980 shipyard workers protested until the government leaders agreed to their 21 Points. Lech Wałęsa and a few others created Solidarność to be a labor union under their new labor rights. The movement wasn’t only a trade union, but also a social movement against the communist regime. Soon, the Soviet Union started to feel threatened by Solidarność and declared martial law to silence the Solidarity movement. The Solidarity movement was quiet until Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union and reorganized the Soviet Union with the attempt to fix the poor economic and social issues. Gorbachev’s changes did not make life better for the Poles, so the Solidarity movement got louder. The Solidarity movement wanted to start a revolution against the Soviet Union and it gained a great momentum when it legally won the majority of seats in the Senate. In summary, the Solidarity movement started as a way for shipyard workers to have better labor rights but it later grew into a social movement to end the Soviet Union’s reign in Poland.
We saw a copy of the 21 Points, where the shipyard workers worked, buildings that housed tools to make and repair ships, and the European Solidarity Center. This part of the city is very industrial and so different than the Old Town of Krakow. This tour was really cool because it covered a part of history neither of us learned about in high school or college. Something that stuck out to me is that the Solidarity movement is very recent history; our guide was born at the start of the 1980s protests. If my parents had grown up in Poland, they would have experienced the protests first hand. It’s crazy to think how recently the communist regime ended in Poland.
After our walking tour, we walked to McDonald’s to see what new fun foods we could try that aren’t offered in Michigan. We ate at a McDonald’s in a huge mall that had a stream running through it and many other food options.
Following our meal, we used our Rick Steve’s guide book to do the walking tour of Gdansk. We started at the Upland Gate, Torture Chamber, and Prison Tower. We saw the Golden Gate and admired the statues of women at the top who represent the values of Gdansk. We walked ulica Długa and saw houses, stores, and restaurants. Inside the Long Market, we saw the statue of Neptune and the thermometer and barometer of Daniel Fahrenheit, a Polish native. We saw the Green Gate, Lech Wałęsa’s office, and the Motława River. We window-shopped for amber jewelry on our way to St. Mary’s Church. As you can assume, we checked out the beautiful church and hiked 409 stairs to the top to get a wonderful 360 view of the city. St. Mary’s Church was originally a Catholic church but spent some time as a Lutheran church in the 1500s and switched back to being a Catholic church. When it became a Lutheran church, the Lutherans painted over all the frescoed walls with white paint. This made the church feel plain compared to all of the other churches we walked into in Poland. St. Mary’s also had a beautiful astronomical clock that is said to be the largest wooden clock in the world. We briefly checked out the Gdansk Armory before heading to St. Nicholas Church. St. Nicholas Church is the only church that survived the Soviet army’s orders to burn all churches because St. Nicholas is Russia’s patron saint. We took a quick stroll through Market Hall before stopping to look inside St. Catherine’s Church. Next was St. Bridget’s Church. St. Bridget’s Church was Lech Wałęsa’s home church and has an altar made completely out of amber. The altar is only 60% complete still. The altar is incredible. As we finished our church tour, we saw the Great Mill which used to provide water and then was turned into a mall. Next on the walking tour was the shipyard which we had already seen, so we opted to grab dinner.
We headed back in the direction of the bus station and found a cute restaurant with all sorts of pierogi options and other meal items. We split zurek soup. I got spicy chicken pierogi. We enjoyed sitting in the AC and our yummy meal. We walked the rest of the way to the bus station and hopped back on a Flixbus to take us back to Krakow. Once again, we slept the best we could on the bus home and immediately took a short nap once we made it back to the Airbnb in Krakow at 6 am.
I really enjoyed our short trip to Gdansk. If we had more time there, I would have loved to visit a museum or two and have a drink outside in the main part of the square to take in all the sights and sounds of the city. It was really fun to explore a new city together, since I didn’t visit Gdansk while I was abroad. And it was a beautiful day to be outside and walking around. I would definitely go back to Gdansk!
Helene's Poland Adventure 