An original baroque altar
Black and gilded, seventeenth-century, in place ever since.
Krzysztof Rakowski — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Diego Delso — CC BY-SA 3.0 · Edgar El — CC BY 3.0 · Edgar El — CC BY 3.0
Very little in the old town. Around ninety per cent of the historic centre was destroyed in 1945, and what you see was rebuilt between the 1950s and 1980s from photographs, drawings and measurements. The reconstruction was selective: the Hanseatic Dutch character was chosen for the facades and what was then regarded as German was left out. The result is beautiful but it is not the same city.
St Mary's is the best known, one of the largest brick churches in the world, with a tower you can climb for the city view — but its interior was rebuilt and is white and nearly bare. St Bridget's is tied to the Solidarity movement. The three together explain the city from different angles.
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A thirteenth-century Dominican church north of the old town, and the only church in Gdańsk to survive the Second World War with its interior fully intact. That fact deserves a pause: Gdańsk was almost entirely destroyed in March 1945, its great churches burned and their roofs collapsed. St Nicholas's was untouched. The account commonly given is that a Dominican friar persuaded the Soviet officers that the church was dedicated to St Nicholas, among the most venerated saints in Russian Orthodoxy. The result is that what you see is original rather than reconstructed: a black and gilded baroque altar of the seventeenth century, and pews, organ, icons and paintings that have stood in place for centuries. That makes the visit qualitatively different from the rest of Gdańsk — the whole city is a meticulous reconstruction, and this is the one hall standing as it always did. It is a working place of worship and entry is normally free. The visit is short.
Black and gilded, seventeenth-century, in place ever since.
The account is that a friar convinced the Soviet officers of its dedication to St Nicholas.
The rest of Gdańsk is meticulous reconstruction — this is the one original hall.
Near the Great Market, north of the old town