The Hansa façades
Narrow, soaring, gilded centuries of rivalry.
Henryk Bielamowicz — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bybbisch94 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bybbisch94 — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Bybbisch94 — CC BY-SA 4.0
A deliberately world-blooded city: the Hansa port whose identity Germans, Poles and Dutch shared for centuries — twice a Free City in history — its architecture Flemish-Hanseatic, not Cracovian, its temper maritime and mercantile. And twice the twentieth century's spark: here World War II began, and here communism's fall began — a small city with a world's history.
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The Royal Way is Gdansk's golden theatre: from the Highland Gate through the Golden Gate, Długa street opens into the Long Market down to the Green Gate on the river — the Hanseatic merchants' narrow soaring façades in colour and gilt as centuries of architectural rivalry: the Baltic's richest street when Gdansk was its richest port. At its centre the bronze Neptune Fountain (1633) is the city's sea emblem — behind it Artus Court, the merchants' state hall with its giant tiled stove (old Europe's tallest) — and the Main Town Hall with its gilded tower as museum and climb. And truth be told: all this is resurrection too — the war destroyed 90% of the centre and Poland rebuilt it with Warsaw's own fidelity. Evening lights the façades gold and amber glitters in every shop window: the hour's walk that abbreviates a city.
Narrow, soaring, gilded centuries of rivalry.
The sea's emblem since 1633.
Highland, Golden, Green to the river.
Długi Targ, 80-828 Gdansk