Gdansk, Poland

Our decision to go to Poland was a little spontaneous...sort of, "Poland? why not!"  We stumbled upon Gdansk in our research of good Hiltons where we could spend some of Dan's points on summer city breaks and it looked beautiful!  We hadn't been to Poland yet so it was a great way to check another country off our list as well as a chance to venture back into Eastern Europe, which we were so impressed by when we visited Budapest.  Gdansk sits on the north coast of Poland, right on the Baltic Sea.  It is a popular tourist destination for Polish people and as we walked along the streets we were pleasantly surprised to hear almost nobody speaking English.  We'd finally made it to a town undiscovered by Americans!

After arriving by bus to the city center and finding our way to the Hilton, we ventured out into town.  The old town area of Gdansk is pretty small and can be covered by foot in about 20 minutes.  Our first stop was a pierogi place, Pierogarnia U Dzika, for lunch.  We had a great outdoor table and tried three different kinds of pierogis; traditional (pork), chicken with nuts and raisins, and mushroom.  They were delicious washed down with some Polish beer, Tyskie.

Mariacka Street:

After lunch we headed for the main drag, Ul Dluga.  Most of Gdansk was destroyed during WWII but has been beautifully restored.  The architecture and lay out of the city reminded me of Copenhagen, with a little small town Germany mixed in.  We walked down to the main square and checked out the Town Hall and the Neptune fountain.

  Town Hall:

Neptune Fountain:

From there, we made our way over to the waterfront.  The old town sits along the Motlawa river which runs inland from the Baltic Sea.  There is a beautiful row of buildings along the water and lots of cute restaurants.  The Zuraw, a 15th century crane, is located here.  It is the oldest surviving port crane in Europe and was built for unloading ships but also served as the gate to the city.

The Green Gate:

 The Zuraw:

After making a loop around the harbour, we headed for St. Mary's Church.  St. Mary's is the largest brick church in Europe, and one of the largest brick structures overall, including castles.  The inside was plain, whitewashed plaster walls, but the organ was very ornate and the vaulted ceilings were beautiful.  The views from the top of the bell tower were great.

After visiting the church we went back to our hotel to catch the last couple hours of sun on the roof terrace of the Hilton, which sits right on the water.

 view from the hotel:

That night, after attempting to go to the Trip Advisor recommended restaurant next door, Kubicki, which was full, we landed on a sushi place that was excellent, and so cheap!  Everything in Poland was inexpensive, which is always a plus when on a city break.  We probably spent less on a weekend away than we would have had we stayed in London.  We decided to make a reservation at Kubicki for the following night, and in doing so the host, surprised by our accents, asked where we were from and then instead of making the reservation under our name, he simply wrote down U.S.A.

The next morning we slept in and then got ready for a beach day.  We popped over to a stand for some waffles covered in strawberries and whipped cream before taking a taxi to Stogi beach.  Stogi is a huge, sandy beach.  There were tons of people but plenty of room and lots of places to buy snacks and ice cream.  The huge port nearby it a little unsightly but otherwise it was a great beach.  We spent the whole day sunbathing and swimming in the Baltic.

That night before dinner we took another stroll along the water and watched as people bungee jumped from a crane that was set up right next to the river.  We stopped for a beer at Brovarnia, supposedly the best beer in Poland, before making our way over to dinner at Kubicki.  It was delicious and well lived up to its rave reviews.

The next morning we had breakfast along the Ul Dluga before heading back to the airport for our flight home.  It was a great weekend; beautiful city, nice people, and good food.

Berlin

Another great visit to one of our favorite countries:)  Dan and I have been to Germany several times now but had yet to visit Berlin.  After hearing rave reviews from many friends, we booked a short city break there last weekend, and it lived up to the hype.  It was unlike any city we've visited so far and has such a dark but interesting history.  It is amazing to see what a dynamic city is has become after being practically closed off to the world for 20+ years.

After not landing at the airport we were scheduled to arrive at due to fog (although we landed at the one closer to the city center so in the end, it was actually a plus) we took a bus into the city and to our hotel.  The Hilton was located on the most beautiful square in the city, Gendermenmarkt.  Two almost identical cathedrals sit on this square, the French and the German Cathedral, as well as the concert hall.

currywurst lunch to start the trip:

 concert hall:

 German cathedral:

After lunch we headed up to museum island, which is located within a split in the river Spree and contains five of Berlin's most renown museums, as well as the Berlin Cathedral.

From there, we walked over to Alexanderplatz, another main square in the city and home to the Fernsehturm (TV Tower.)  It is the tallest structure in Germany and was built in the 60's under the DDR (East German Communist government) as a symbol of strength.

The views from the top of the TV Tower are supposed to be great so we bought tickets to go up, only to realize that the wait was much longer than we anticipated.  We had a couple hours before our scheduled bike tour but when we bought our ticket, our number was 1500 and they were only letting up tickets 1100-1200.  They are supposed to text you when you can enter so we figured we'd go check out the cathedral in the meantime and then hopefully be able to climb the tower just before our tour.

The Berlin cathedral was completed in 1905 and is a Lutheran church.  It has a beautiful, very open feel, as it has no long central nave but is more square shaped.  We climbed the dome to the top, for some great views of the whole city.

 there was tons of construction going on in Berlin, you can see all the cranes in this picture:

After the cathedral, we went back over to Alexanderplatz.  Since it was almost time for our bike tour and we had yet to be texted about entry to the TV Tower, we realized we wouldn't be able to use our tickets.  We were able to find some girls in line to sell our tickets to though, so it wasn't a total loss.

We booked our bike tour through Fat Tire and our guide was a cute British girl named Sophie, who did a great job.  Our first stop was Bebelplatz, site of the May 10, 1933 Nazi book burnings, and home to Humboldt University, one of Europe's most renowned universities.

 This plaque translates as "Where they have burned books, they will in the end, burn people":

We then rode over to Gendermenmarkt again, and from there over to Checkpoint Charlie.  Checkpoint Charlie is a tourist exhibit set up around what used to be the crossing point from East to West Berlin.  There is not much to see there but they do have an exhibit of pictures set up detailing some of the history of the checkpoint and the Berlin Wall.

We then made our way over to the last standing section of the wall.  It is about 200 yards long and on first glance looks pretty unimpressive.  It is not very high and doesn't seem that intimidating. However, what really kept people from crossing was the guards that patrolled the wall at all hours and were authorized to shoot.

 the wall is marked by this double row of cobblestones throughout the city:

one of the remaining watchtowers:

After getting a closer look at one of the guard towers, we made our way by Potsdamer Platz, a big commercial square in the center of the city, and then over to the site of Hitler's bunker.  The site is marked by a small information sign but other than that it is not acknowledged in any way.  In fact, it sits under what is now a car park surrounded by communist-era apartment blocks, which seems a fitting snub to the Nazi dictator.  After some interesting history on the events that took place in the bunker, including Hiltler's suicide and subsequent burning in an attempt to hide his remains, we biked over to the Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe.  This memorial is made up of 2711 concrete slabs of various sizes laid out over a large square.  It opened in 2005 to mixed reactions.  I actually thought it was well done and because of its simplicity, lets everyone take their own interpretation from it.

We spent some time walking around the memorial and then took a long bike ride through the Tiergarten, a huge park in western Berlin.  We stopped in a beer garden there for some pretzels and pints and a chance to get to know some of the other people on our tour.  We met a nice Australian family who was in Europe for several weeks traveling all over.

After a couple beers we were back on our bikes for a ride along the river Spree over to the Reichstag building.  The Reichstag is where the German parliament meets and was also the site of many historic protests and rallies during the Cold War years.  It was almost completely destroyed during WWII but was rebuilt, along with a new, modern glass dome in the nineties.

From there, it was a short trip over to the Brandenburg gate to check out one of Berlin's best known landmarks in the last light of the day.

Our last stop on the bike tour was museum island and a lovely nighttime view of the Berlin Cathedral that we had visited earlier in the day.  The tour ended up going over 5 hours but it was so informative and a great way to see the city.

the green man from the city traffic lights has become a symbol of Berlin:

That night we had a late dinner at a delicious Italian restaurant right on Gendarmenmarkt square.  After waking up at 3:30 on Saturday and having a big day of sightseeing, we slept in the next day and took our time getting out of the hotel.  Our first stop was a scheduled visit to the dome of the Reichstag building.  The Reichstag reconstruction, including the glass dome, was completed in 1999 and the current Bundestag (parliament) met there for the first time that year.  The dome has a central shaft covered in mirrors and lets natural light into the parliament meeting room below.  You can climb to the top of the dome for great views of the city and a look at the oculus at the top.  The dome is open to the air and is not air conditioned so on this 90+ day it was quite hot inside.  However, it was fascinating to see and learn about the history of the building over the years, starting from its initial construction in 1894.

After our Reichstag tour we grabbed some lunch and took it into the Tiergarten park to eat in the cool of the shade.  We then went for a long stroll through the park over to the Cafe am Neuen See beer garden for a couple of beers on the lake.

Unter den Linden Avenue:

 Berlin Victory column:

 Neuen See:

That night we decided to take the U-bahn out to a neighborhood outside the city center to see where real Berliners live.  We took the metro to Wittenbergplatz, walked around a little and went to a great little Vietnamese restaurant called Lieu.

Brandenburg gate window stickers on the U-bahn:

The next morning we went back to the wall to check out the exhibit set up right next door, Topography of Terror, which described the devastating effects the Nazi regime and the SS had on minority groups in Europe during WWII.

how times have changed; a touristy curry wurst shop seen through a break in the wall in what was East Berlin:

After the Topography of Terror exhibit, we made our way over to the DDR museum, which was highly recommended by our bike tour guide.  It was a really interesting and interactive museum showing what life was like for people of East Germany under the German Democratic Republic.  It was amazing to see how restrictive and controlled life was during those Cold War years.

After the DDR musuem, we had a leisurely lunch along the river just across from the Berlin Cathedral.  We had then planned to visit the Pergamom museum, which is supposed to be one of the best in Berlin, but the wait to get in was over 2 hours.  Instead, we ventured into the Deutsches Historical Museum, which ended up being pretty interesting.  The museum was laid out chronologically and followed the history of Germany through the years.  It also contained the oldest known globe, from 1492.

We then made our way to the airport, only to be delayed over 2 hours so that we didn't land in London until after midnight.  An annoying end to an otherwise great weekend trip.