In the early Middle Ages, tribes of the western Polans settled in parts of what is now national territory as part of the migration of peoples. The first documentary mention was made in 966 under the first historically attested Polish Duke Mieszko I, who opened the country to Christianity.
Having been deprived of its sovereignty by the neighboring states at the end of the 18th century, Poland regained its independence in 1918 with the Treaty of Versailles. The invasion of the German Reich and the Soviet Union at the beginning of the Second World War and their occupation rule cost the lives of millions of Polish citizens, especially Polish Jews.
The most popular travel destination in Poland is the former capital Krakow, which has numerous architectural monuments and works of art from the Polish Golden Age of late Gothic and Renaissance. Important tourist destinations are also the cities of Warsaw, Wroclaw, Gdańsk, Poznan, Stettin, Lublin, Thorn and Zakopane. Tourism also plays an important role for the municipalities of Krynica-Zdrój, Karpacz, Szklarska Poręba, Biecz, Zamość, Sandomierz, Kazimierz Dolny, Częstochowa, Gniezno, Frombork, Malbork, Gdynia, Sopot, Kołobrzeg, Świnoujście and Międzyzdroje. Many cities offer tourist services for families with children, for example Wroclaw with the Wroclaw Dwarves, Warsaw, Kielce, Gdansk and Szczecin. Some smaller towns in Poland are members of the Cittàslow Association, which focus on balanced tourism.
Visitor magnets are: the Wieliczka salt mine, the museum in the birthplace of Fryderyk Chopin in Żelazowa Wola near Sochaczew, the memorial site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp, the coast of the Baltic Sea, the large lakes in Greater Poland, Masuria, Kashubia and Suwalki as well as the Sudeten mountain ranges and Carpathians, especially the Tatras with the High Tatras and Western Tatras, in which the highest peak in Poland, Meeraugspitze, and the well-known Orla Perć mountain trail are located. Popular recreational areas are also the Świętokrzyskie Mountains, Beskids, Pieniny, Kraków-Częstochowa Jura and the Roztocze as well as Szczecin and Vistula Lagoon.
There are many waterways for kayaks, canoes, sailboats and houseboats on rivers and waterways, for example on the Pilica, the Krutynia or the Czarna Hańcza.
There are numerous ski resorts in the Carpathians and Sudetes, most of them in and around Zakopane in the Tatra Mountains and Szczyrk in the Silesian Beskydy Mountains and Karpacz in the Giant Mountains.
Spa holidays in the numerous spa towns such as Połczyn-Zdrój or Ciechocinek are also popular. Thermal baths, which have been opened in recent years, especially in the mountain region of Podhale near Zakopane, are often used for this purpose.
We were in Poland again for a family communion and, despite the late hour and rainy weather, we wanted to take a short trip to the city centre of Gdansk.
As a child of the coast, you are of course familiar with sailing ships of various categories and sizes, and we also reported on the three-masted Pomorza, which attracts so many visitors here in the port of Gdynia.
Our trip to Gdansk began with a family reunion at Oliva Park Adam Mickiewicz, formerly and therefore still well known as Oliwski Park, which, as was to be expected, was particularly busy on this Sunday.
Despite the freezing cold and after a very good meal at the port of Gedingen, a short digestive walk in the port area should allow us to enjoy the further course of the evening.
We've already been to Poland a few times and were mostly looking for accommodation in Gdynia that would allow a short trip to the centre and to see relatives living there.
A family celebration took us to Gedingen again, so it was clear that we were finally able to add two more days to this visit to Poland and were able to plan a trip to the old Hanseatic city of Danzig and a collecting center for amber back in Roman times.
Rewa and Beka are small villages on the Kashubian coast of Puck Bay. This part of the rural community of Gmina Kosakowo is located directly on the Polish Baltic Sea coast.
Anyone who has read the “Tin Drum” by the recently deceased writer Günter Grass or has seen the film of the same name will surely remember Anna Bronski, the Kashubian grandmother of the protagonist Oskar Matzerath, and her strange sounding language.
Even from a distance, the outlines of the towers and buildings of the Marienburg on the Nogat, an estuary of the Vistula, leave a first imposing impression of their size, thickness and importance, which must have once emanated from it.
Everywhere in Poland, where there are sailing centers, you can also do windsurfing or kite surfing as a holidaymaker, so the great Masurian Lakes are just as well known and popular as the western coast of the Baltic Sea.
The idyllic village Rewa is a Kashubian fishing village, which is first mentioned in documents in 1589, when the abbot of the Cistercians, who were subject to the coastal strip in this region for control, allowed the construction of small fishing sheds.
The infrastructure projects funded by the EU in recent years have not just provided Gdansk and the surrounding area with comprehensive road and cycle routes in recent years.
Today an imposing city on the Baltic Sea, Gdynia was a real village until 1918. Through the Treaty of Versailles, Poland was granted "access to the Baltic Sea" by the victorious powers through the so-called Polish Corridor, but it did not have a port of its own in the corridor.
Once a major landing place in trade and for fishing, the landing place of the former fishermen of Rewa is located on the beach at the side of the Putziger Wieks, the Polish Zatoka Pucka.
Wejherowo calls itself the spiritual capital of the Kashubians, so it has become an important destination of pilgrims to the Holy Portrait of Our Lady, whose image was blessed in 1999 by John Paul II.
Our first visit to Warsaw also brought us to the banks of the Vistula, the river that, over large parts of its length, also accompanies the course of one of the most important amber roads from the Roman Empire via the Moravian Gate and its mouth into the Baltic Sea.
As already described in the article "Off to the city centre of Warsaw", we first took public transport to the Palace of Culture and then walked along the so-called "Royal Route" to the old town.
In terms of local public transport, Warsaw not only has a really well-developed network of cycle paths, but also a good bus, tram and underground network.
May, with its first truly sunny days, is the perfect time to start the caravanning events season and meet industry representatives, rally travel planners and caravanning enthusiasts in search of new equipment and inspiration.
On the road again in Poland, we had been looking for accommodation in the vicinity of Legionowo for the night and found what we were looking for right on the banks of the Zegrze reservoir.