Good places to visit in Gdansk and Tallinn ?

[Live the good life]

1) We will be visiting Gdansk for 5 hours in July (unfortunately not much time in this port!) What sites would you recommend us visiting and why? If you have visited Gdansk, Sopot, Oliwa Cathedral, Gdynia, please share your experience...Also, are there lots of taxis in town so one can get back to the ship on time (in case of a car breakdown)?

 

2) We will have a full day in Tallinn, and plan to take the ship's tour "Best of Tallinn with concert and lunch"...What sites did you enjoy in Tallinn?

 

Thanks, Kim

[Compass Rose Monica]

Tallinn is a very small port town, which you can see many sights on your own rather than the ship's tour (unless you are looking to go with a guide). See their web site: http://www.tallinn.ee/eng/kaart

Monica :)

[Andee]

We don't like ship's shore excursions, so in Tallinn, we did the self-guided walking tour from Rick Steve's guide book. Great day.

[dileep]

1) We will be visiting Gdansk for 5 hours in July (unfortunately not much time in this port!) What sites would you recommend us visiting and why? If you have visited Gdansk, Sopot, Oliwa Cathedral, Gdynia, please share your experience...Also, are there lots of taxis in town so one can get back to the ship on time (in case of a car breakdown)?

Thanks, Kim

 

I had about that much time last year and I spent it all walking around Old Town. We had a 2 hour guided tour where we went into some of the buildings and then walked around and shopped for Amber.

 

My pictures are at http://community.webshots.com/user/dileepann

[dileep]

http://www.gdansk.pl/en/

 

sights at http://www.gdansk.pl/en/article.php?category=454&article=937&history=

[celem]

We visited Gdansk and Tallin during our Scandinavia & Baltic Cruise on the Celebrity Constellation in July, 2004. Our journal entries are below:

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July 9, 2004 (Friday), Tallin, Estonia

$1 = 12.857 EEK

- Watched us sail into Tallin during breakfast. For once, we are docked right at the city, within walking distance - although a shuttle was provided. We docked at 8AM and departure is scheduled for 4PM.

- We took the 1st shuttle, which let us out at Viru Väljak, right at entrance to Old Town. We walked into what was a slowly awakening town and most everything wasn't open yet. We visited an Internet Café while waiting for the Tourist Information center to open at 9AM. After obtaining a better map and directions to such things as the super market and Botanical Garden (bus 34 or 38 to Vieu at the cornet of Estonia Pst and Kaubamaja).

- Old town consists of old 14th century buildings (about half original and the rest restored). It is quite scenic and medieval looking.

- We walked to the top of the hill, which is the main historical area. Tallin is quite small and the climb is no worse that going from the ship's deck 2 to deck 11. We walked along the old fortification walls and explored the King's Garden area before entering the Alekxander Nevski Cathedral. A service was in progress and the chanting was beautiful. My wife lit a candle for her mother.

- We also explored the less impressive Toomkrik (Cathedral of Saint Mary the Virgin), before walking to overlook at the end of Toom-Rüütli Street. My wife purchased some raspberries from a young boy, which she ate and, to my surprise, never made her ill.

- With lunchtime approaching, we descended to Rick Steve's lunch recommendation, the "Beer House" microbrewery on Dunkri, where we enjoyed two nice plates of sausages, a good size salad for two and two mugs of microbrew beer, all for $12US.

- After some shopping, we walked into the "new" part of town to go to a grocery at the corner of Narva Mnt and a. Lakmaa. The grocery was as modern and nice as anything in the USA. I exchanged my Estonian money back into dollars, as the time was now late and approaching the last shuttle time.

- After dinner (which lasted from 8:30 to 11PM because two ladies were late), we attended the Latin theme show - OK but not great, mostly because it went on too long.

 

July 11, 2004 (Sunday), Gdynia, Poland

$1 = 3.732 Zloty

- 7AM dock. Gdansk City Tour - our only ship tour for the entire cruise (because the time was so short and Gdansk was so distant from the port and we were warned that English was rare), which was scheduled to leave at 8:45. We went towards the theater and met people with stickers for our tour already headed for the busses. It appears that we should have left earlier - 30 minutes or more.

- The bus drove the 30 minutes from Gdynia to Gdansk with the guide talking the entire way, alerting us to sights on both sides. On the way back, she showed us Lec walenski’s house and we stopped for a photo opportunity at the shipyard where the Solidarity strike was held.

- The Gdansk City Tour is a walking tour, so we walked a few block in various directions with the guide explaining the historical importance. Most of Gdansk was destroyed at the end of the war and the old town was restored by tricking the Soviets. The Gdansk officials petitioned Moscow for funds to house workers, which were provided. Then the Gdansk officials used the money to restore the old town on the outside while the inside was housing for workers, as promised.

- The guide told us to shop for 45 minutes and gather again to visit the church. We decided to not rejoin and do our own exploring during the church time. We shopped at a grocery, various stores, at pastries, ice cream and visited the church. Many shops and even the church store were closed, as it was Sunday. We did manage to mail a postcard from Gdansk.

- On the way back to Gdynia we ate the smoked sausages that we purchased in the grocery from a sneering clerk.

- Gdansk is a lovely tourist town. If you just want the flavor of Poland and have seen enough "old Towns", Gdynia would be worth visiting but it is a long walk from the ship's berth at the "French Pier" at Nabrzeze Francuskie.

- After a bit of panic amber shopping on the pier, we went to the aft cafe for beer and German snacks (more sausages, etc.)

- Tonight is an informal night, meaning coats but no tie.

[Live the good life]

Monica Pillegi , as usual, you are a fountain of information! Are you planning to buy the Tallinn card? If so, will you buy ahead of time on line or at the ports during your port days? The Tallinn cards (about 20 dollars) include free sightseeing tours, walking tours, and admissions to places...but based on what we have read, cannot be purchased until we get to Stockholm or Helsinki...Have been to get a better description of these sightseeing tours, but the weblinks did not work very well!

 

Celem, thanks for sharing your experience on both destinations...Sounds like your experience was great and memorable! One more question about the Gdanks ship tour: approximately how many people were in your tour? We have taken ship tours before, some with 15-20 people (not bad), but some with 40-50 people, and had to wait for everybody else...We usually enjoy doing sites either by ourselves when there is plenty of time and a private tour when precious time is limited...

 

Andee, glad you had a great day in Tallinn! We are really looking forward to this cruise...

 

Dileep, we really enjoyed the very beautiful and special photographs! We especially enjoy the "Beautiful Asians"-The kids seem so adorable and their costumes so unique; Also very pleasantly surprised at the photos of Gdanks...My daughter and I also enjoy taking photographs of scenery, architecture, (and of course of us with these sights as a background) when we travel-It drives DH nuts that we take thousands of photos!... We always want to capture the moment with digital and videocameras (better yet with local music as the background sound). We also always try to capture sunset at different destinations....BTW, thanks for your e-mail address. We will e-mail you right after your Baltic trip so that we could get feedback from you about your Baltic trip (and tips on dos and donts)...

 

Thanks, Kim

[celem]

Dear "Live the Good Life",

Regarding your question "...approximately how many people were in your [Gdansk] tour?"

Answer: Celebrity used standard buses of about 40-50 people. We didn't have to wait for anyone. As my previous post stated, this was our "Only" ship's tour and we did so because of postings on this message board that indicated that the language barrier was worse here and the train commute a bit trickier than other places, such as Germany (where it is easy). Therefore, we decided to use the ship's tour as transportation for this one port. As I mentioned earlier, we abandoned the guide after a while and did our own thing.

[eileen & jay]

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