Alsguth Travel Blog

Hello. I will tell you a bit about Warsaw but first a glimpse into the scary way my mind works. Imagine you are in the Royal Palace in Warsaw, beauty all around - this magnificent fireplace mantel with carvings, etc. What does this immediately bring to mind??? Obviously Steven Tyler of Aerosmith! Of course! LOL Anyway ... best get back to Warsaw. We started with a free tour again but this one was not the best honestly.  Dude was a linguistics professor at the University of Warsaw and certainly had plenty of knowledge, it was just too much.  Too much information about his wife, too much lamenting the poor showing of the Polish football team, just too much. Warsaw, the capital of Poland, is a much larger city than Gdansk.  The old town, conversely, is much smaller. Some sights in old town. The main square. The mermaid protects the city - not sure what she was doing so far from the coast ?!?!?! This is part of the old city wall. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of the Nazi ...

Hello again! I am writing to you while riding the train from Gdansk to Warsaw.... backwards, that is... my seat faces backwards. So, let's look back at our time in G'Dansk. We met up with Falk and Svenni at the Hamburg airport for our flight to Gdansk. It is quick, easy and cheap! Finding our apartment was no problem, groceries acquired and we are ready to explore! We started our first full day with a free Walkative! tour of the old city including a history lesson beginning in 997AD with a visit by a bishop (the first time Gdansk was mentioned as a town) and ending in 1939 when WW2 started. Gdansk is sometimes called the "city of beginnings". World War II started here in September 1939 and the Solidarity movement in 1980 which was the beginning of the end of the Iron Curtain and the USSR. This is the Armory (where they kept their guns, etc) St. Mary's Basilica. 409 steps to the viewing platform - the views were well worth the climb  We also saw the interior. One o...