Visiting Gdansk? This complete guide to Gdansk will help whether you’re spending 48 hours in Gdansk or have longer in the city
Gdansk, on the Baltic coast in Northern Poland, is a Polish city often overlooked by British tourists, although it’s still one of the most visited cities in the country. Visiting Gdansk shouldn’t be discounted when you’re thinking about Poland, though.
The city is steeped in history, it’s the city where World War 2 started and it’s also the birthplace of the Solidarity movement, with plenty to see and learn about both across Gdansk. Gdansk is also part of a ‘tricity’ with nearby Sopot and Gdynia, both of which are easy day trips from Gdansk. Add that to the fact it’s an easy to navigate, fairly compact, pretty city, and fairly cheap to exist in, why would you not want to visit Gdansk?
Spending 48 hours in the city is a great way to get a taster, and if you have even longer to explore, I hope you find this complete guide to Gdansk useful.
Flying from the UK to Gdansk is pretty easy, with direct flights from most UK airports taking just a couple of hours, and if you’re adding Gdansk onto a multi city trip there’s easy, cheap and frequent transport from other major cities in both Poland and nearby countries. Visiting Gdansk really is a no brainer, in my opinion.

If you’re planning on visiting Gdansk, and you really should, this complete guide to Gdansk will give you the information you need to make the most of your time in the city, whether you’re there for a short 48 hour trip (my specialty usually) or a longer visit like we had. Happy reading and enjoy visiting Gdansk, do let me know how you get on in the comments.

Solidarity, the Polish trade union who ultimately helped to bring down communism in the country, was founded at the Gdansk shipyards. You can visit the Solidarity Museum, also on the shipyards, to find out all about Solidarity’s history, and I’d really recommend you do. I’ve talked more about this museum later in this complete guide to Gdansk post.
Visiting Gdansk essentials-currency, language and public transport
No complete guide to Gdansk would be, well, complete, without the useful information in this section!
Poland uses the zloty as their currency. We drew out some cash at the airport but it turned out we could use cards absolutely everywhere other than on the bus to Stuttgart. I’d recommend keeping £50 or so worth of emergency cash on you if you’re planning on using buses.
Gdansk is obviously a Polish city and so the main language spoke is Polish, but we were able to communicate in English everywhere we needed to. We shouldn’t expect other countries to speak English to us, of course, but it’s always really appreciated when they do.
Tipping isn’t expected but is appreciated, rounding taxi fares up to the nearest 10%, adding a couple of zloty onto your bar bill and up to 20% on a food bill for good service is a good idea.
We got a taxi from the airport using the FreeNow app, which cost under £10. We could have chosen to get a bus instead but as we landed late in the evening, we felt a taxi was easier. Gdansk uses Uber and Bolt as well as FreeNow as it’s taxi apps and we found all three to be quick and reliable.
We only used the public buses once but we saw them around all the time, and when we did use them we were impressed.
Where to stay in Gdansk
Air b n b and hotels are both popular options in Gdansk. We always use booking.com for hotel bookings as I find their selection of hotels, and their filters, the most useful, especially if you’re searching for hotels closest to a certain location or hotels with facilities like a gym.
After a few bad experiences I can’t recommend hotels.com, but they do also have Gdansk hotels if hotels.com is your preference.
We chose to stay centrally in Gdansk, staying just along the road from the Amber Museum. We knew we wanted an air b n b as J would need to do some freelance work, so a separate room as a workspace was a must for us on this trip. Being able to travel light and wash clothes was also useful.
Gdansk is a really compact city for the most part, so the majority of things we wanted to see took less than half an hour to get to from our accommodation. Staying outside of the city centre would have been fine, but if you’re trying to cut costs or don’t have a lot of time in the city, a central location is recommended.
We went back to our apartment a few times each day as J was poorly and it was very cold, so being central worked best for us on this trip. Even now I’ve researched and written this complete guide to Gdansk post, I’d make the same decision about where to stay.
Only have a short time visiting Gdansk? Do these things
If you only have a day or two in the city when you’re visiting Gdansk you’ll definitely not be able to see everything it has to offer. You won’t be able to make the most of this complete guide to Gdansk but that’s okay, you can always come back in the future after you fall a little bit in love with the city. On your first visit you’re going to want to do three things;
1) Eat Pierogi
2) Visit a museum, I’d recommend the Solidarity museum over the war museum simply because the Solidarity movement is more Gdansk specific, and there’s a lot of war museums across all of Europe. Gdansk’s is good though, so if you’ve time for both, do both
3) Climb to the top of St Mary’s Church tower (slowly!) to take in the city from above. Beautiful views from up there make the tough climb worth it. It’s cold up there so do wear a coat!
How much will I spend in Gdansk?
We spent a week in Gdansk, staying in a central location, so we walked to the majority of places. We also made the most of free days at some of the museums, you can find out which day a museum is free on their website. We ate out for most meals, choosing food from a bakery or similar for the meals we ate at our apartment. We went out for a drink twice, we got trains to Sopot and Gdynia and taxis to and from the Zoo. We also ate a lot of desserts. Overall, we spent £400, and we didn’t scrimp on spending. For two people, for a week, I’d recommend budgeting £500 so you don’t need to keep an eye on what you’re paying for, and if you want to eat out or go for drinks more maybe add another £100 to that. For a 48 hour trip, £250 should be more than enough for two people, and a solo traveler should be fine with £150. Hopefully this complete guide to Gdansk will help keep costs down when visiting Gdansk too, helping you to plan your week (or your 48 hours in Gdansk) and prioritise the things you really want to do.

Gdansk must try foods
A big part of a trip for us is eating good food and visiting Gdansk was no exception. When in Poland you must try Pierogi, and we’d researched the best place to go to try it. J had found Pierogarnia Mandu, and we had a delicious meal there, trying three or four different flavours of pierogi, some fried and some baked, and a lovely couple of sweet pierogi flavours for dessert. The portions of three or five pierogi sounded small to us but weren’t, so if you’re ordering lots, bear this in mind. They’d probably box up any leftovers for you to take back to your accommodation if you asked them nicely, the staff were really friendly.


We like street food and I’m a fussy eater, so we love a good food hall, which generally means I have some sort of chip or potato based dish and J can have something more interesting. Gdansk has a few food halls and the two we visited we can recommend, Slony Spichlerz and Montownia Food Hall. Across the two we had pasta, pizza, pierogi, chicken as well as a few other things, AND some really good cocktails. The atmosphere at both was fantastic. One even let people bring their dogs, a real positive for us as we love dogs.


I’m a sucker for a dessert, and we like to go to somewhere really highly rated in each city we’re in. As well as the ice cream tour we did, we went to Eklerownia as we’d read that their eclairs were amazing. We were not disappointed.
There were far too many delicious sounding choices for us to pick just one each, so we went for a tasting platter which gave us six mini eclairs. We took four home in a takeout box and ate them later in the day so we could enjoy them more, and they were just as good when we ate the last one the next morning.
My favourite was the lavender, I really like lavender flavour anything, and the pistachio and salted caramel were also special enough to be worth a mention. Every eclair we tried was nice, I would eat them all again for sure. Definitely head to Eklerownia if you fancy a coffee and a sweet treat, but be aware it’s quite small so you may not be able to sit inside if they’re busy. They’ll happily box up any eclairs or other treats for you to take away, so if you can’t choose just one, you can have the joy of something delicious later in the day too.

Visiting Gdansk-the best aerial views
If you enjoy getting up high in a city for those amazing views, visiting Gdansk will not disappoint. The solidarity museum has a brilliant view from their top floor including an outside rooftop, which is very very cold in November but still worth seeing. The Gdansk wheel, the Ambersky, offers beautiful views over the river and across the city, although if you’re wanting to take photographs be aware that the glass casing is sometimes scratched and a bit grubby. You can find the wheel on Granary Island and tickets for the 15 minute trip are 35 zloty per person, around £7.

My favourite Gdansk viewpoint was the top of the tower at St Mary’s Church, which costs 8 Zloty, £1.50, to climb. There are A LOT of steps, most of them narrow, and at the top I genuinely needed my inhaler, but the views were worth the workout. There’s a different staircase to get back down so you don’t have to try and pass people climbing tiny steps, but you should still take it steady climbing up. Definitely allow fifteen minutes to have a look around the church too, it’s absolutely spectacular.

Other Gdansk viewpoints not tried and tested by us are the Prison Tower at the Amber Museum, Panorama Restaurant, City Hall and St Catherine’s Church Clock Tower Museum and the Archeological Museum. With more time or energy we would’ve tried more of them out for this complete guide to Gdansk but for now, please let me know if you visit any of these viewpoints.
The best day trips when you’re visiting Gdansk
Whilst visiting Gdansk you’ll find a lot to do in the city, but if you have more time or fancy something different there are a few easy day trips you can take from Gdansk. Sopot and Gdynia, both part of the Tricity, are a 30 minute or 45 minute train away, costing less than 10 zloty each way, about £2, for a ticket. These trains are regular and on time. I’ve written posts about spending a day in Sopot and spending a day in Gdynia and we enjoyed both, but I’d suggest Sopot over Gdynia if you’re short on time as it felt like there was more to do there. Neither of them felt like a difficult trip as day trips often can, so I’d recommend both of them if you’re visiting Gdansk for long enough.

An interesting, but definitely hard hitting day trip from Gdansk is to Stutthof, a concentration camp about an hour and a half out of the city by bus. The buses aren’t that regular so make sure you check out times online before you set off on the trip, and you have to pay in cash on the bus, although you can buy a ticket for the outbound journey at Gdansk station if you prefer. Stuffhof is free to visit but you need to pay for an audioguide if you want one. There’s also a twenty minute film, played once an hour, at the museum, which you need to pay for if you’d like to see it. Tickets can sometimes be bought from the cinema room but when we were there we weren’t able to do that, and we missed the last showing because we’d not bought tickets from the main visitors centre, so I would recommend getting your tickets from there instead. I’ve written about our experience visiting Stuffhof, so you can find out more and decide whether a visit is for you.

Visiting Gdansk – best for shopping
If you’re staying in an air b n b in Gdansk and planning to cook sometimes, be aware that we didn’t see many supermarkets around. We did use an Aldi, along the road from the Amber Museum, but we didn’t find any other options for a decent sized shop. Small corner shops were easier to find so I could stock up on Cheese flavoured Lays (Lays are my holiday essential) and things like juice and snacks.
Gdansk has a ridiculous sweet shop right in the centre, Sweet Factory, with pick and mix across most of it’s walls. As an ADHDer who loves the dopamine hit of a pick and mix I was in heaven, so if you love sweets too don’t miss a visit there. Forum, a large shopping centre, had a wide selection of shops and a decent sized food court so I spent a couple of hours there buying some clothes from brands I wouldn’t see at home, and a gorgeous jumper as a Christmas present for J. Forum also had a good sized supermarket on the bottom floor, which I wish I’d found before our last full day in the city.

Unlike some cities, Gdansk wasn’t chock full of shops but I liked that about the city. You can shop if you want to, at Forum, but the town centre was less about shopping, more about eating places and beautiful cobbled streets. A real win for me.
The best places in Gdansk for history
Gdansk is well known for being the city where World War Two started and chances are if you’re visiting Gdansk, it’s at least partly down to the history of the city. There’s so many different museums covering something for everyone but if you have a big interest in history, there’s a few museums you shouldn’t miss.
1) Westerplatte
Westerplatte is the site where the German Warship Schleswig-Holstein began shelling Poland at 4:48 am on 1st September 1939 and this battle lasted for seven days. Westerplatte now has a memorial, Guardhouse Number 1, you can go and see. Boats will take you along the river to get there, you can use a taxi or public transport too but the boat is, I’m told, the better way to get there.

Big thanks to Katy at The Lilac Scrapbook for the Westerplatte photo, we didn’t manage to make it there on this trip-she confirmed we missed out and you definitely should make the trip.
2) The Shipyards and the Solidarity Museum
A ten to fifteen minute walk along the Motlawa river from the old town will take you to Gdansk’s shipyards, famous for being the place the Polish trade union Solidarity was formed in 1980. There are plaques all around explaining why different buildings are important, in both Polish and English, but if you want to know more about Solidarity and how they contributed to communism being abolished Eastern Europe, the Solidarity Museum is at the entrance to the shipyards. Entry is £6 per adult and the museum is closed on Tuesdays. A big chunk of my career history is working for trade unions and so I loved the museum, I would highly recommend you visit, and you’ll want to give yourself two or three hours to see the museum properly.


Our visit to the Shipyards, on a drizzly, rainy and later snowy day, was as part of a tour and our guide pointed out the WL4 Art Space, an art gallery near to the entrance, the many robots created by a local sculptor and a number of bars dotted around the shipyard, which is an area that’s being developed into a place people want to come and spend time, not just a working area. We ended our visit with coffee and juice at Plenum, a fantastic cafe and co-working space with brilliant views over the shipyards. Whilst we were there in November, a visit to the shipyards in the summer is bound to be a different experience, and I’d still recommend going even in bad weather. Visiting the shipyards will show you a different side of Gdansk for sure.
3) War Museum
Gdansk’s war museum isn’t fun, obviously, but it’s really interesting finding out how the war impacted Gdansk, especially as in the UK we only really learn about how it impacted us. We spent about three hours exploring the museum, with the help of their audio guide and it was well worth the time. Entrance is free on Tuesdays, or 29 Zloty, around £6, the rest of the time. The museum is closed on Mondays.

4) Post Office Museum
The museum tells the story of how heroic postal workers defended their building from the German invasion on 1st September 1939. You can find out about what happened and how brave they were by visiting, and even if you don’t have time to go inside, you should see the memorial sculpture outside.

Nights out when you’re visiting Gdansk
Gdansk isn’t known as a party city and you’re not going to find a huge choice of pubs and clubs with late opening to dance the night away here, but you can head out for a few drinks if you want to. People who’d like a proper night out would be best going to Sopot, which is known in the local area as the place for a good night out. Visiting Gdansk doesn’t have to mean being in bed for 9pm though, there are a few places for drinks in the city.
We weren’t well when we were in Gdansk so didn’t do a big night out, but highly recommended bars are Bunkier, a club with 6 different floors, Flisak K for good cocktails and the well known Josef K for it’s quirky interior and huge selection of drinks. We also really enjoyed having a couple of cocktails and playing games at Game Over.
As you can tell, I really enjoyed Gdansk, and I hope this post covers most of the things you’ll need to know before visiting Gdansk. I’ve written a separate post about street art in Gdansk, too-it’s not something the city is really known for, but there’s still plenty to be found if that’s your thing.

Whether you’re there for a week and need this complete guide to Gdansk or you’re just spending 48 hours in Gdansk, I know you’ll have a brilliant time. Please do let me know if my post has helped with your planning and I can’t wait to hear what you got up to on your trip.
I thought your guide on Gdansk was brilliant, I found out so much that I didn’t know. I was looking at going to the Christmas Market and then went to do some research on the City and found your guide, which was so helpful and informative and now I want to go more than ever as the sights look great and there is so much to do for a short hop.
Thank you for your insight, so helpful and and a great read.
Happy travelling!