Poland
A Hanseatic port where the Solidarity movement was born, then Europe's last lowland primeval forest, refuge of the continent's largest land mammal
Poland
A journey far from Kraków and the Tatras: Gdańsk, a Hanseatic port on the Baltic whose shipyards saw the birth in 1980 of the Solidarity trade union, a workers' movement that would precipitate the fall of communism in Eastern Europe, then Białowieża Forest, Europe's last surviving lowland primeval forest, UNESCO World Heritage listed and home to around six hundred European bison reintroduced in the 20th century after their total extinction in the wild in 1919.
When
May to Sept
Price
From 2 000€ excl. flights
(based on 2 people sharing)
How long
5 nights
Ideal length
Days 1-2
The first chapter unfolds in Gdańsk, a Hanseatic port on the Baltic whose millennium-long history of maritime trade intersected in 1980 with one of the major turning points of 20th-century Europe: the birth, in the city's Lenin Shipyard, of the independent Solidarity trade union, the first free union in a Soviet bloc country, whose strikes led by a young electrician named Lech Wałęsa would precipitate the fall of the Polish communist regime within less than a decade. The old town, rebuilt to its original appearance after near-total destruction in 1945, today retains colourful Hanseatic facades that recall the city's commercial golden age.
Day 1
In the footsteps of Solidarity
A visit to the former Lenin Shipyard, birthplace of the Solidarity trade union, and the museum tracing the birth of the movement that precipitated the fall of communism.
Day 2
The Hanseatic old town
A stroll through Gdańsk's old town, rebuilt to its original appearance after 1945, between colourful Hanseatic facades and medieval cranes along the Motława riverbanks.
Days 1-2
The road to Białowieża Forest, Europe's last surviving lowland primeval forest, UNESCO World Heritage listed and shared across the border with Belarus, whose centuries-old trees, never industrially logged, form an ecosystem of unique biological richness on the continent. The forest remains the principal refuge of the European bison, the continent's largest land mammal, whose entire wild population went extinct in 1919 before being reconstituted from a few dozen surviving captive individuals, a conservation effort that today counts around six hundred bison in Polish territory alone.
Day 1
In search of the European bison
A guided hike through Białowieża Forest in search of the European bison, the continent's largest land mammal, reintroduced after its 1919 extinction.
Day 2
The centuries-old trees of the primeval forest
A walk among the centuries-old, never industrially logged trees of Białowieża, Europe's last surviving lowland primeval forest.
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