Gdansk keeps two histories in one street plan: a Hanseatic port that grew rich on Baltic amber and grain, and the shipyard city where 1980 broke the Eastern Bloc. These three days follow both, from Teutonic mills to rusted steel museums.
Gothic granary complex on Mariacka holding Pomeranian face-urns, Viking-age finds from the trading post of Truso and excavation layers from the 10th-century Gdansk stronghold. Open Tue–Sun 10:00–17:00.
The oldest parish church in the city, begun in 1227 for the Pomeranian dukes. Astronomer Johannes Hevelius lies buried beneath his 1780 epitaph, and the tower carries a 50-bell carillon plus the Tower Clock Museum.
The Teutonic Knights built this brick mill on the Radunia canal around 1350: eighteen waterwheels grinding some 200 tonnes of grain a day, the largest industrial building in medieval Europe. It now houses the Amber Museum.
The 1775 townhouse of city councillor Johann Uphagen, reconstructed from pre-war photographs and inventories after 1945. It is the only fully furnished patrician interior in Gdansk: rococo panelling, bird room, kitchen and counting office.
A weathering-steel block beside Gate No. 2 of the former Lenin Shipyard, where the August 1980 strike began. Seven halls run from the plywood board of 21 Postulates to the 1989 elections; Lech Wałęsa's office sits on the top floor.
Three 42-metre steel crosses hung with anchors, unveiled in December 1980 — the first monument to victims of a communist regime erected inside a communist state, conceded as a strike demand four months after the August accords.
A tilted red tower over 5,000 sq m of underground galleries telling the war from Polish and civilian ground level: a reconstructed Warsaw street, an Enigma machine, a Soviet T-34 and the occupation of Pomerania in detail.
The peninsula where 182 Polish soldiers held off the Wehrmacht for seven days from 1 September 1939. Ruined barracks, Guardhouse No. 1 and a 25-metre granite monument stand across open ground, free and accessible at any hour.
A 107-metre Cistercian basilica founded in 1186, the longest church in Poland, with a narrow brick Gothic nave behind a rococo west front. Its 1788 organ has some 7,800 pipes and carved angels that move during recitals.
A 15th-century brick lighthouse tower ringed by a Renaissance carré and later earth bastions, guarding the Vistula mouth where every ship entering Gdansk paid its toll. Reached on foot from Nowy Port; open seasonally.
On 1 September 1939 fifty-odd postal workers defended this building for fifteen hours, then were shot after a sham trial; their conviction was only quashed in 1998. The sorting hall, scarred walls and 1979 monument remain.
A hill of Prussian fort walls, a 1908 hostel and 1930s water towers above the Old Town, held by bishops from the 13th century and largely emptied after 1945. The terrace gives the widest sightline over the spires and shipyard cranes.