In its complex city history, Danzig was under Polish, Prussian and German rule, often interrupted by autonomy and periods as a free city-state. In the early Middle Ages, Gdansk was part of the Polish crown.
In the interwar period, not least because of its multi-ethnic composition and history, Gdansk was claimed by Germany and Poland, which caused tensions due to its location in the so-called Polish Corridor.
Together with the port city of Gdynia (Gdynia) and the seaside resort Sopot (Sopot) Danzig forms the so-called Trójmiasto (Tricity) with more than 740,000 inhabitants. More than 1.2 million people live in the entire urban Gdansk agglomeration (Aglomeracja gdańska).
The early stories of Nobel Prize winner Günter Grass, who was born in Langühr in 1927, are set in the city. In the novel “The Tin Drum” he summarized the history of Danzig as follows: “First came the Rugians, then came the Goths and Gepids, then the Kashubians, from whom Oskar is a direct descendant. Soon afterwards the Poles sent Adalbert of Prague. He came with the cross and was killed with an ax by Kashubians or Pruzzes. […] This happened in a fishing village and the village was called Gyddanyzc. Gydannyzc became Danczik, Danczik became Dantzig, which later became Danzig, and today Danzig is called Gdańsk.”
The culture of remembrance is shaped by museums. Their disunity is reflected, among other things, in the museum concepts of the Muzeum II Wojny Światowej and the Westerplatte Museum for the commemoration of the Second World War, which started in Gdansk, and are based on different political currents and historical teachings. Against the backdrop of the Polish Corridor, Donald Tusk considers his hometown of Danzig to be the central problem in German-Polish relations.
Gdansk is the starting point of the EuroVelo 9 cycle route (Baltic Sea-Adriatic Route or Amber Route, Polish Szlak bursztynowy), which leads from Gdansk through Poland, the Czech Republic, Austria and Slovenia to Pula in Croatia. The EuroVelo 10 (Baltic Sea Cycle Path or Hanseatic Route, Polish Obwód Hanzeatycki), which is built around the Baltic Sea, also runs through Gdansk.
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.