Europe

There simply is no way to tour Europe and not be awestruck by its scenic beauty, epic history and dazzling artistic and culinary diversity.

OLSZTYN

Next two nights we spent in Olsztyn (Allenstein), the capital city of Poland’s Warmia-Masuria Province, which is famous for being called the ‘Polish Lake District’. The Teutonic Knights built an imposing castle there in 1334 along Łyna River, and the settlement that grew around it...

OLSZTYNEK

Our first stop in Eastern Poland was The Folk Architecture Museum and Ethnographic Park in Olsztynek (entrance 17 PLN, parking 15 PLN). It was established in 1909 when the authorities of Königsberg (the present-day Kaliningrad) decided to establish a museum of rural architecture in the...

GDYNIA

Our next stop was seaport city Gdynia (parking 50 PLN), which lies on the coast of the Baltic Sea along the Gulf of Gdańsk, just northwest of Gdańsk city. First mentioned in 1253, Gdynia began as a fishing settlement. Major growth came only after World War I when Gdynia was returned from...

HEL

Cold weather and rain followed us to Hel – the sandbar peninsula in the Baltic Sea. The width of the peninsula varies from 100 meters to 3 kilometers. Since the peninsula was formed entirely of sand, it was in the past frequently turned into a chain of islands by winter storms. Nowadays a...

TORUŃ

We spent another two days in a historic and utterly charming spectacular medieval town Toruń (listed in UNESCO). A city located in Northern Poland is the birthplace of the famous Nicolaus Copernicus. In the Middle Ages Toruń was a prominent trade center as a member of the Hanseatic...

ŁÓDŹ

It took us 278 km (Toll fees 40 PLN, Diesel 4,59 PLN / l at Orlen) to get into Poland’s third-largest city Łódź. Although the settlement here received its town charter from King Ladislaus Jagiełłon all the way back in 1423, the town didn’t experience rapid development until just 200...