Recent reviews Gdańsk
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] The second-smallest administrative district of Gdansk, Strzyza is named after the stream flowing nearby and lies between Wrzeszcz and Oliwa next to the main Gdansk-Gdynia transport artery. It's a residential district of mixed housing, with comfortable villas, pleasant apartment blocks and decent tenements. For a visitor, it has nothing special to offer.
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Neither large, nor populous district between Oliwa and Wrzeszcz, VII Dwor consists largely of the wooded hills of the Tri-city Landscape Park (Trojmiejski Park Krajobrazowy) as well as some residential areas. The district is located near the main campus of the University of Gdansk and thus might offer a possibility of budget accommodation, especially in the summer months. The only building of note is the Tri-city mosque, one of the only four mosques in Poland and apparently the only one with a minaret. It caters to the small Muslim community of Polish Tartars, whose group settled in Gdansk aft
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] West of Wrzeszcz and south of Oliwa, Bretowo is a varied, fairly large administrative district situated on the post-glacial hills of Oliwa Hills.
The housing ranges from the concrete high-rises of Niedzwiednik to the individual houses of Matemblewo and everything in between. Quite a large part of the district is, in fact, covered by the woodlands of the Tri-city Landscape Park (Trojmiejski Park Krajobrazowy) and even has a nature reserve within its remit.
Apart from the woods, a visitor to Bretowo can find remains of disused railway lines, old trench lines and a woodland-surrounded Sanktua
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] This district lies south-west of the railway line and forms the very heart of Wrzeszcz. It has long been the main shopping and commercial area of Gdansk, which, despite having a lovely Old Town doesn't really have a defined 'town centre' with various functions spread out along the city's spine and even in the outlying branches.
Upper (Gorny) Wrzeszcz focuses on the Grunwaldzka street, a busy street full of traffic, people, shops and offices.
Anybody intending to do some serious shopping in Gdansk will sooner or later find themselves in Wrzeszcz. Two major modern Gdansk shopping centres are
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Located between the coastal district of Brzezno and the railway, Lower Wrzeszcz is an old residential district with some industry (like the old brewery for example) and some post-war housing estates thrown in. The streets are lined with tenement houses, there are some small green spaces, parks and squares, and in many of the streets one can find the echoes and reminders of the old Gdansk. For the casual leisure visitor, this district is of little value and one is unlikely to come here unless passing through.
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Or, to give it the full name, Orunia, Sw Wojciech and Lipce, is the southernmost district of Gdansk with a long history. Initially developed along the Radunia Canal, dug in order to provide water to Gdansk, Orunia prospered as the entry point to the city, with mills and locks. Among the most illustrious residents are the Polish king Jan Sobieski who had his summer residence here, as well as the author of the Polish national anthem Jozef Wybicki and the parents of the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer who was in fact born in Orunia.
Modern Orunia has less illustrious connotations, being
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Literally 'Little Angels', Aniolki sit between Wrzeszcz (to the north) and Srodmiescie (to the south), separated by the railway from the shipbuilding area of Mlyniska. The district's housing comprises apartment blocks, some interesting old tenements and villas as well as more modern individual houses, but a visitor to the city is most likely to visit this area when travelling from Srodmiescie to Wrzeszcz, participating in an event that takes place on the open-air stage and fair area called Plac Zebran Ludowych, risking life and limb at one of Lechia Gdansk football matches or hopefully least
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Chelm is by far the most populous district of Gdansk, housing close to 10% of the city's population. It is also a fairly extensive district, stretching south and south west of the centre of the city between Siedlce and Lostowice in the west and Orunia in the east, all the way to the Tri-city ring road. Chelm is situated on the hilly upper terrace of Gdansk and has a fairly long history going back to the 15th century. In the 18th century, following the 1st partition of Poland, the area boasted a town of 10,000 people that competed with Gdansk. This was completely burned down during the Napoleon
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] This a relatively small district located along the Kartuska (Kartuzy Road), a street that extends west out of the centre of Gdansk towards Kashubia region. Siedlce have a fairly long history, but the pre-war buildings (predominantly wooden) mostly burned down in the last stages of the WW2. Most of Siedlce now consists of 1950s tenements along the main drag of Kartuska as well as some later communist era prefab concrete blocks. It's historically and currently a working-class area of no particular interest for visitors, though those hunting the relics of the old Gdansk will find some old tenem
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Located to the east of Piecki-Migowo, Suchanino is another part of the inner ring (not quite a full ring, but still) of communist era blocks that sit between the older residential and industrial districts of central Gdansk and the newly developed outlying areas that used to be countryside villages only thirty years ago.
Suchanino is no different from other estates of this sort like Morena (Piecki-Migowo) or new Chelm and has little to offer to a tourist. Its claim to fame is being the location of the legendary Burdl, (The Brothel), an indie rock music venue where a lot of bands loosely belon
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Migowo forms the southern half of the official administrative district of Piecki-Migowo, known more popularly among Gdansk inhabitants as Morena (the whole area is located on the upper terrace, about 100m above the sea level). It has been developed in the 1970s and 1980s as a gigantic area of housing estates (then filled with communist-style concrete blocks) and new estates (slightly prettier but still of soulless apartment blocks) are still raising. There is nothing for a tourist or a casual visitor to Gdansk here.
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Piecki form the northern half of the official administrative district of Piecki-Migowo, known more popularly among Gdansk inhabitants as Morena (the whole area is located on the upper terrace, about 100m above the sea level). It has been developed in the 1970s and 1980s as a gigantic area of housing estates (then filled with communist-style concrete blocks) and new estates (slightly prettier but still of soulless apartment blocks) are still raising. There is nothing for a tourist or a casual visitor to Gdansk here.
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] It's a pontoon bridge over Martwa Wisla and the quickest way onto Wyspa Sobieszewska from Gdansk. If you have never seen a pontoon (floating) bridge, here is the chance: not particular;y riveting sign but mildly entertaining, especially if it opens to get some watercraft past.
[magdadh, 18/11/2011] A charming lock in peaceful, seemingly boring but subtly enchanting countryside of Zulawy lowland / depression, this is not perhaps a destination of its own, but if you are travelling this way (it's one of the ways to reach Wyspa Sobieszewska, and the only one if the ferry in Swibno and the pontoon bridge in Sobieszewo are out of action) it's worth a stop to walk by the lock basin and peer down. In the summer you'll see pleasure boats going through and the lock in operation, sometimes even sailors hanging bravely from the boom to tilt the mast of bigger yachts and enable them to pass under the b
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] The truly easternmost district of Gdansk, and the largest, Wyspa Sobieszewska (Sobieszewo Island) doesn't feel like part of the city but rather a separate place of its own. The district is cut off from the rest of the city and the surrounding areas by the waterways of the Vistula Delta. In the north, it is bordered by the waters of the Bay of Gdansk, in the south the Martwa Wisla separates it from the Zulawy area, in the east Przekop Wisly divides it from Mikoszewo and in the west Wisla Smiala forms the border between the island and the district of Gorki Zachodnie.
I love Wyspa Sobieszewska a
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] This is the easternmost district of Gdansk before Wyspa Sobieszewska, but as that is separated from Wyspa Portowa on which Gorki Zachodnie sit by the wide expanse of the Wisla Smiala (you need to take a fairly round-about route to Sobieszewo), Gorki Zachodnie feel like the end of the town.
It's a very non-urban area, mostly covered by thin pine forest growing on the coastal sandy hills and is a location of several of the Gdansk yacht clubs as well as a small shipyard. I have a something of a sentimental attachment to Gorki Zachodnie as I used to come here both by land (a very long journey!)
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[magdadh, 18/11/2011] Krakowiec is a district of Gdansk located on the Port Island (Wyspa Portowa), between Stogi and Gorki Zachodnie. It is bordered by the Martwa Wisla branch of the Vistula delta but large parts of this stretch of the river are degraded by industrial development and thus the whole area has little to offer to a tourist. On the Wyspa Portowa better alternatives are Gorki Zachodnie for sailing and the beach and Stogi for the beach. Krakowiec has still many undeveloped semi-rural areas and will qute likely see more housing development in the future.
[magdadh, 17/11/2011] Extension of the Lostowice area, Ujescisko is an old village that has been swallowed by the progressing residential sprawl of Gdansk. Post-1989 housing estates of apartment blocks and individual houses offer reasonable accommodation but nothing in the way of tourist attractions.
[magdadh, 17/11/2011] As most of the residential suburbs that reach out from Gdansk west and south-west towards the uplands of the Kashubian lakelands, the Ujescisko and Lostowice districts consists mostly of new housing estates built since 1989 to a standard a tad higher that the old communist-era blocks, and usually not of concrete. These combine with detached, semi-detached and terraced individual houses to create a new layer of dormitory spread in what was fairly recently very much a countryside. The tourist doesn't have much to seek in these districts. The largest cemetery in Gdansk is located in Lostowice, bu
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[magdadh, 17/11/2011] Olszynka is a low-lying district located on the outskirts of Gdansk, adjacent to the industrial area of Rudniki and the Orunia district. Geographically, it belongs to the Zulawy lowland (some of it is even below sea level) and is largely situated on the floodplain which prevented any significant urban development. Although in itself Olszynka lacks in tourist attractions, covered in allotments and dotted with individual houses, its relative proximity to the areas of Gdansk most attractive to visitors (the lower reaches of the Old Town are just across the Motlawa river) means there is some reaso
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