Day 16 - Friday, August 5 - Gdansk, Poland

August 06, 2022

We left Bornholm about 4 hours late due to some electrical system problem that caused all the fire doors to close and emergency lights to go on but the captain was able to speed up and we made it to Gdansk almost on time. The weather is again sunny and beautiful. The ship had to be turned around and backed up over a mile in order to line up with the dock on the starboard side.

We headed off on a bus ride through the countryside to Malbork castle, a 13th century Teutonic castle about an hour away. We passed by many farms growing corn, wheat, flax and rapeseed. Part of the area is below sea level and Dutch technology was used to manage this. There were also many wind turbines and quite a few houses had solar panels on the roof. One of the small towns was famous for the storks and we could see the large birds sitting on huge nests atop chimneys and specially constructed poles.

The Teutonic knights were part of the Crusades and retreated from Israel after defeat by the Muslims, going to Venice and then on to Prussia to conquer the tribes there.

The castle is the largest brick fortress in Europe. It is made of brick due to the lack of stone in the area. 50% of the castle was damaged in WWII and amazing major restoration work as been done, in part due to its recognition as a UNESCO World Heritage site. Our tour guide had us "conquer" the castle with a very brisk walk through the main parts. There is an amazing amber museum describing the history and importance of amber with an amazing collection of items made from amber, not just jewelry, but reliquaries and other religious objects.

On the way back, we stopped in the old part of Gdansk to do a little sightseeing. We stopped at a cafe outside the main Green Gate to the city at a bridge over the small river leading to the island with the oldest part. We enjoyed dark Polish beer, beef salad and tasty goulash soup. It was a great spot for people watching. We crossed through the gate and were lucky to see a parade of people, mostly women, in colorful traditional dress - one woman gave us little flags but we don't know the significance. It was unusually hot in Gadansk, about 93 degrees.