LucyH

Malbork is big: the courtyards, the banquet halls, the meeting rooms, even the flat open country around it. There are a few narrow passages for sure, but you'll have no trouble keeping to wide, bright areas.

- Lucy

Its setting on the river:

Between the upper and lower castles:

One of the first photos of it, a century ago (already six centuries after it was founded)

I'm just back from the Polish coast. I went there on a freighter so I can't answer for cruise tours, and it was out of season, so there were no queues.

What I can say was that Malbork was the highspot of the visit. I've never seen such a vast castle and the history of the place, as detailed by my guide, was fascinating. Forget Indiana Jones: the Teutonic Knights were really something.

Gdansk was pretty in parts, but it loses something when you realize that unlike, say, Tallinn, this is not the original town, which was pretty well flattened in WW2, but a very skilled reconstruction. Bits of Malbork have been renovated, too, but the sense of history is much greater.

The setting on the river was nice, although the countryside here is completely flat and generally dull. I went by road, but there's a station at Malbork and I was told I could have come by train from Gdansk in under an hour.

- Lucy

Here is the Helsinki metropolitan cycling and outdoor map.

To be fair, I'd have to say that Helsinki is not good to cyclists and certainly not in the same league as Stockholm. Many of the downtown cycle tracks are far too narrow and not properly separated from the roadway or sidewalk.

On shared tracks, drivers are generally far from considerate and pedestrians easily get upset, understandably so when someone unexpectedly goes hurtling past a few inches away.

The rentabike system (insert a coin and get it back when you return) is cheaper than Stockholm, which is probably why the bikes are vandalised and stolen so much. Don't rely on anything rideable being available.