Szczecin, Poland’s seventh largest city (population 406,000) and the capital of West Pomeranian Province, is a charming maritime city worthy of a day trip. The city is only a two-hour train ride from Berlin, and is also accessible from Warsaw and smaller cities in Germany’s Mecklenburg-Vorpommern. Due to its small size, the entire city can be explored […]
[ Royal entrance : Beauty to discover ] The Royal Castle, Old Town, Warsaw, Poland Warsaw is Poland’s largest city and capital and is located on the Vistula River. The city has the unfavorable reputation of being a dull, gloomy city with unappealing architecture, and to some extent this reputation is deserved. Unfortunately, Warsaw was […]
[ Royal entrance : Beauty to discover ] The Royal Castle, Old Town, Warsaw, Poland Poland is becoming a major tourist destination and has attracted visitors in increasing numbers since its severance from the Soviet Union in the late 1980s. It is at the heart of Europe and carries with it characteristics of both Western […]
Gdansk is a gothic, seaside city with everything painted grey and gilded with gold. A former fishing village, it is now a major seaport of almost half a million inhabitants located on the Baltic Sea.
Though the Wieliczka Salt Mine is visited by millions every year, I likely wouldn’t have known about it if my Polish friends hadn’t taken me to it. Naturally gray in color, the mine is composed of salt rock, some of which has been polished to a clear, glass-like transparency. This glass-like effect encompasses the entire cave, […]
Striking not only for its spectacular location in the foothills of the Tatra Mountains, (part of the Carpathian Mountain range), but for the traditions that its townspeople keep alive, Zakopane, Poland is a trip back in time as well as back to nature.
When I first visited Krakow, I didn’t know what to expect. I knew that the city is one of the few Polish cities not destroyed during WWII and that the beautiful architecture of its buildings is some of the oldest in Poland. I also knew that Krakow has the largest medieval town square in all […]
Why would anyone do it, is perhaps the first question. The idea of visiting a concentration camp does not sound like a pleasant experience, never mind something you would want to do on your vacation to Europe. Perhaps this is why one of the saddest parts of human history is being slowly put away, and […]
I went to Masuria just a few years after the Wall fell, maybe 1993. Trips since then have had varying degrees of influence over my psyche, but this trip was early on in my ongoing career as a traveler, so I will remember Masuria forever. Masuria is in northeastern Poland, just west of Russia and […]
… The capital of Poland until 1609, Krakow (or Cracow) remains one of the intellectual centers of the country and one of Europe's most beautiful historic cities. In Krakow the charm of a medieval town blends with the bustle of the 20th century. The royal castle of Wawel, located on a hill overlooking the Vistula, […]