Trip to Poland: visiting Warsaw and Gdansk

Summer escape: going to the North

On this holiday, with my boyfriend, we visited two famous, but very different cities in Poland. We flew to Warsaw, and after exploring the capital city for three full days, we headed to the North to visit a beautiful town near the Baltic Sea, Gdansk.

We had hoped to be able to escape from the heat of the summer in Hungary, but it was only partly true. We experienced very different weather conditions during our one-week trip. First, it was hot and humid in Warsaw, then the rain came and it cooled down, so we could enjoy very pleasant weather on our last day in the capital city. Then, just as we had expected, there were cooler temperatures near the Baltic Sea, but it was still warm during the day when it was sunny. But then, I even felt cold in the evening as it got cooler, and I needed my jacket and jeans. It was quite terrible to get back to the heatwave of 39 degrees Celsius in Budapest.

Warsaw: a historical place

Anyway, let me write about our travel experience in Warsaw and Gdansk. While the previous one is a big European city, the latter one is a true touristic place with a beautiful downtown. Although Warsaw is not such a popular and spectacular city, we were there when the people celebrated the National Day of Remembrance of the Warsaw Uprising (Second World War). We hadn’t known about it before, but we checked on the internet what was happening there, because there were many events, people dressed up as soldiers and were showing old gadgets as well as weapons to those passing by. There were also some concerts and other events, but the highlight of the day happened while we were sitting in a café near the main square. Inside the café, the music was suddenly turned off, and the young staff went out of the café, all of them! I saw big smoke coming up from the square and big noise like the sound of a cannon. And then everything and everyone got quiet. I realized that it was a commemoration of the war, of the fall of the city and of the many people who died in the war. It was incredible to experience it right there, in the middle of local people who poured out into the street. Then, after like one minute or two, the staff came back to the café, the music was switched on again, and the tourists came to have a drink or eat something after staying out in the crowd. Life went back to normal, but it was a touching experience for me.

Sights in the capital city

There are many museums and historic landmarks in Warsaw, and we visited quite a lot of them. On the first day, while walking in the downtown area, we visited some churches, also just to escape a little bit from the heat that was outside. After having lunch in a restaurant in the main street, we headed to the Polin Museum where we had bought tickets before the trip. We had known that it would be big and we would need plenty of time there, because upon the purchase of the tickets online, you can read the information that visiting the museum takes a minimum of two hours. Well, it was perfect for us in that hot weather. The exhibition was indeed quite huge and spectacular. It was interesting as it showed us the whole history of the Polish Jews. It was not just about the Second World War and its consequences, but we got a wider picture of this population and their history. We spent about two hours inside, and we could have stayed longer, if it had not been so cold in the building (I was only wearing a summer dress and was almost freezing…)

On the second day, after walking again downtown and seeing the events of the Memorial Day, we went into the Castle where we had also bought tickets for an individual visit with audio guide. Both in the Polin Museum and in the Castle, the audio guide was very useful and interesting. You can choose between some languages, we chose the English audio guide, and it explained a lot of things about the museum. It was an informative round tour, and we took some nice photos of the beautiful castle interior. Then, we continued our walk in the city center, went through a famous, big park, and also went into a big shopping mall where we could eat in the evening. It’s always a good option, I think, if you don’t want to sit in a fancy restaurant all the time during your trip.

On our third and last day in Warsaw, we enjoyed the pleasant, bit cooler weather, which was perfect for longer walks and for staying outside the whole day. First, we walked across a bridge over the Vistula River and walked a bit along the river. It’s considered to be a popular place among the locals who want to enjoy the riverside not far from the city center. I had also read something about a rooftop garden which is on the top of a university building, right there next to the riverside. We had enough time to visit this place, and it was much bigger than I had expected! We went around a little bit in the park and went up to the upper part where there was a nice view of the city. Then, in the afternoon, we visited a famous and huge park, with the Palace on the Isle. It was a beautiful sunny afternoon and a lot of people walked around in the park. We didn’t use public transportation to get there but since it was a big walk through the city, we decided to get on a tram on the way back to downtown. We walked a lot on that day, but it was worth it, because we could see some beautiful places in Warsaw. I think that my favorite was this park with the Palace in the middle of it, right on the lake. We enjoyed our last evening and then packed everything for the next day, to go to our second destination.

Train trip and downtown Gdansk

We took a train to go up to the Baltic Sea, but the problem was that we had to wait a long time at the station. It seemed like all the trains had a delay of about one hour. Anyway, we finally got on the train and arrived in Gdansk with a delay of about eighty minutes. Well, at least there was still a lot left from the day. It wasn’t easy to find a luggage storage with free capacity, but we could finally leave our staff at a restaurant. It was funny that by this time, we had already got into downtown. After a short walk and lunch, we went back for our luggage and headed towards our accommodation as it was already possible to check in. We stayed at a beautiful apartment building in a nice neighborhood, and although it was a longer walk to go into downtown, we enjoyed staying there. First, some rest was needed for us, but then we wanted to have dinner downtown, so we walked quite a lot, just like every day on our journey.

Regarding the food, it was challenging for us to find gluten-free options during our stay in Poland. In the capital city, there were plenty of options, for instance fast-food, and we also found a very good Italian place with gluten-free pizza, pasta and hamburger. Once, we even travelled a bit further away from the center to try a small restaurant with gluten-free pierogi, the famous and traditional Polish pasta dish. I just loved it! On the other hand, in Gdansk, it was challenging for us to find places where we could have a gluten-free lunch or dinner. It had happened several times that there were such options according to the internet, but when we asked there in person, we were told that they ran out of gluten-free pizza or pasta, or didn’t have these at all. I often had to stick with meat or fish, which is ok, but I would have preferred to have other kinds of meals, too. It was also a problem that the few gluten-free restaurants suggested by Chat GPT were located outside of downtown and we didn’t want to travel for almost an hour just to have lunch! Anyway, it’s just good to be prepared for that and be as flexible as possible when choosing the place for eating. We actually went back to the same Vietnamese place twice, as it was a variety to have some Asian food, not just the same basics.

Capital city vs. touristic town

Warsaw and Gdansk are two very different cities. The previous one is a European capital city with a variety of traditional and modern architecture, and with lots of parks and waters. There are a lot of wide roads and huge squares, the whole city is very spacy, and there aren’t too many tourists. Gdansk, on the other hand, is a very touristic place with a small downtown filled with people. When we got into the main street of the town, the word that first came into my mind was “overtourism”. The downtown of Gdansk is indeed beautiful, but it only consists of a few streets, and the other parts are quite ugly since it has always been an industrial city. The other disappointment for me was that I had thought the sea would be right next to the city, but it turned out that it was about fifty minutes by public transport to get to the sea from the center.

We only spent about one and a half days in Gdansk, but it was enough time, since you can walk around the whole downtown in a maximum of a couple of hours, even if you want to see everything. Since we were at the Baltic Sea, we wanted to see it once, so we decided to take the public transport and go there in the afternoon. Well, it was a disaster… We got on the bus, but it got stuck in a traffic jam because of the many trucks in the industrial area. After sitting for a long time on the bus, I told my boyfriend that we should take off and start walking, because the seaside was fifty minutes away, according to Google Maps. Although the driver was just smiling, we actually took off and got to the sea by walking. By that time, the weather got worse: it was cloudy and cooler, it was already too cold for me after the heat of the summer. Due to this – and because we got exhausted after a lot of walking – we didn’t stay long, just had a brief look at the sea (which wasn’t anything special there). We felt like it was a bit of a waste of time. We went back to our apartment by taxi (since it was cheap and fast), and then we walked into the center to enjoy our last evening in the spectacular old town.

My reflections

All in all, it was nice to visit two very different cities in Poland. Warsaw was interesting because of the historical viewpoint and the local people’s reflection on historical events. It is also amazing in Poland’s capital city how it was reconstructed after the Second World War: the combination of old and new, with lots of spacy public places. Gdansk, on the other hand, has a beautiful and cozy old town, but the surrounding areas are not nice at all. It must be nice to spend some days at the sea, but we still enjoyed this short time that we spent there in this town. At the end of our trip, it was surprising to see that the airport must have been built recently: a very nice, modern building where it was no problem for us to spend a few hours waiting for our flight. That day was already a warm one in Northern Poland, with a temperature of about 29 degrees Celsius. It was not so nice to hear on the plane that the current weather in Budapest is 39 degrees Celsius. I thought that it was very pleasant to spend a few days in the cooler North. No surprise that more and more people choose such a holiday destination in the middle of summer.