Walking. Gossip. Travel.

Tag: Elbląg

  • Elbląg – Baker who Saved the City

    Elbląg – Baker who Saved the City

    This is the statue which commemorates the brave young baker who is said to have saved the city from attack during the Polish-Teutonic War in March 1521. It’s said that he used his baker’s wooden shovel (or whatever it’s called) to cut the rope to allow the defensive metal grate to fall in the market gate which stopped the attackers from gaining entry. It’s also said that the wooden shovel was left in the tower for 250 years as a reminder of how the city was saved.

    This statue was designed by Waldemar Grabowiecki and was unveiled in September 2006. It’s clear that locals are rubbing the statue’s nose for good luck and it’s a light-hearted design.

  • Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (Coat of Arms Epitaph from Blessed Virgin Mary Church)

    Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (Coat of Arms Epitaph from Blessed Virgin Mary Church)

    This epitaph comes from the Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Elbląg which is now an art gallery, but is now on display at the Museum of Archaeology and History in the city.  It’s carved out of wood with polychrome decoration and it dates from the seventeenth century. The museum doesn’t give information on who it commemorated or why it’s here and not still in the church. I know little about heraldry, but that’s the Prussian Eagle since it’s black, rather than the white Polish Eagle.

    I mention this just because I like to see things that survive when a building is so badly destroyed, which the church was during the Second World War when there was a large fire. It seems unlikely that it was removed before the church was damaged, so this is perhaps one of the few items that avoided destruction. I’m guessing it was given to the museum at this stage to preserve it, which is why it never made its way back to the church.

    And one thing I didn’t realise when writing about the museum is that although it was founded in 1954 in its current form, it has collections which date back to the original museum which was founded in 1864. They were fortunate to discover that the collections of that municipal museum had been moved by the Germans to a basement in Raków for safekeeping, so they didn’t have to start entirely from scratch with finding new exhibits.

  • Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (Elbinger Zeitung)

    Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (Elbinger Zeitung)

    This sign is on display at the Museum of Archaeology and History in Elbląg

    Posts like this one are just my never ending supply of random material which is of peripheral interest at best, but it’s something that I think is intriguing about the history of a city. The sign in the photo was used at a location which supplied the Elbinger Zeitung or collected material for it, which was the German newspaper of the time about Elbing (or what is now Elbląg).

    There are two reasons why this sign interested me, partly because it’s the end of a newspaper, suddenly brought to an end with a changing population, a changing country and a changing language. I’m assuming that the editorial staff would have all moved to Germany as part of the forced repatriation when Polish citizens were moved in, and that must have been a challenge for them given their entire careers had been writing about a city where they had to move away from.

    Also, it’s one of thousands of signs in Elbląg that must have been torn down as they were replaced with Polish signage in the late 1940s. I’d quite like to know what happened to this sign, whether it was acquired soon after for a museum collection, whether it was found recently or whether an individual took it as a memento. So many questions…..

  • PKP – Elbląg to Malbork

    PKP – Elbląg to Malbork

    Back to Elbląg railway station, this time for the twenty minute journey into Malbork, which is another new town for me.

    I didn’t look too much at this before, but it’s the grand hall at Elbląg railway station. There’s a little shop and waiting area to the left, with the ticket office on the right. I don’t buy tickets at the railway stations, it’s easier for me to do that on-line and just have the ticket on my phone.

    Mine was the 11:17 train, but there were fewer trains than I expected leaving from the station, roughly one per hour.

    Looking back at the station’s main hall from platform 2.

    And on time, my train pulls into the station, with something like 12 carriages. It was busier than I expected, but it’s an Intercity service rather than a regional train. An elderly Polish lady barged me and two other passengers out of the way, before realising that her large bag was too big to fit by her seat, so she caused a queue of people to wait whilst she shuffled back along the carriage with her excessive luggage. That sort of behaviour is unusual in Poland, but I’d have waited for her to board anyway, I was unsure of her desperate rush.

    The seat reservation system on Intercity trains has always been respected when I’ve been on Polish trains, something that the British system fails to achieve. The carriage was fairly full, but my seat was available without an issue. My ticket wasn’t checked, but there wasn’t much time for the staff to perform those checks given the short length of the journey. The view was mostly just countryside, this is a rural part of Poland, and unlike the regional trains, this Intercity train didn’t stop at the smaller railway stations en route.

    The train arrived into Malbork two minutes early.

    Rather wide platforms I thought…. The train fare to get here was £2 and everything ran as expected this time, unlike my journey to get to Elbląg.

    It’s a cold day in Malbork, it’s something of a temperature shock to go from the warmth of the train to the cold surroundings of Poland in January. The very Germanic looking building was constructed in 1891 and it survived the Second World War, but only because the Polish authorities were able to save it from an arson attack led by the Red Army.

    As an aside, the town (then known as Marienburg) voted in 1920 to join Eastern Prussia rather than Poland, so this was a German run railway station until the end of the Second World War. Although railway stations in Ireland were once operated by Great Britain before the country gained independence, this concept of places changing their names and being in different territories is still one that fascinates me, as it isn’t something I’ve needed to think about when in England for example.

  • Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (15th Century Glasses)

    Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History (15th Century Glasses)

    These glasses with green lenses date from the early fifteenth century and are amongst the displays at the Museum of Archaeology and History in Elbląg. I use the phrase “a remarkable survival” relatively regularly, and given the history of the city, it’s something of a surprise that they have survived the last 600 years or so. They were found in an archaeological dig in the city, and unsurprisingly, they were the only undamaged pair of glasses that were found. Even more exciting (excitement is relative I admit, but I’m sure that the archaeologists were thrilled) they suspect they know who the owner of the glasses was, likely Nicholas Vilelype, a wealthy merchant and politician who lived in Elbląg.

    The reason that I found these glasses of particular interest are that they wouldn’t be entirely unfashionable today, the green adds a certain depth to the design and they’re a little John Lennon as well. It’s a look back in time though to think that these glasses were once an important, and expensive, item that an individual living 600 years ago was wearing in the city.

  • Elbląg – Hotel Atrium

    Elbląg – Hotel Atrium

    There are no chain hotels in Elbląg, but the Hotel Atrium in the heart of the city was well reviewed and not particularly expensive. I checked in at 15:00 and the usual receptionist wasn’t there, but I was given my key and went back down to deal with the other administrative issues later on in the day. The welcome was friendly and everything in the hotel was clean and orderly, so my first impressions were positive.

    I had only paid for a single room, but they gave me a twin room as they seemed to have a low occupancy. Internal noise wasn’t a problem, but there was a lack of sound insulation generally from inside the hotel. The owners also have a dog which made itself heard quite a lot, but not to a degree that became annoying. Externally, I could hear the cathedral bells ringing, but I like noise like that, it’s part of the heritage of the city and the building has been for 800 years or so.

    This is the view from my window and the reason that I could hear the cathedral bells so easily.

    The breakfast area downstairs in the cellar. Although the hotel has space to offer evening meals as this room has seven or so tables, they don’t do that, not least perhaps as there are so many nearby restaurants for guests to choose from. There were some takeaway menus in the drawer of the desk in the room as well, and it might be allowable for guests to get them delivered and eat them downstairs (the food that was delivered, I don’t mean to eat the takeaway menus themselves).

    There is a cooked breakfast option included, in addition to the cold buffet selection.

    I did struggle a little with this, due to my picky nature that I can’t eat bacon that has uncooked fat on it and the eggs were way too oily, so I felt quite guilty that this remained mostly uneaten.

    The cold buffet selection, all nicely presented and regularly restocked.

    On the second morning I limited myself just to the cold buffet options, and they were delicious, with decent rolls, cheese that had some taste to it and some cold meats alongside the coffee, tea and orange juice. I’m never really in need of cooked options, but it’s useful that the option is there.

    The reviews for the hotel were broadly very positive, and the only negative one on Google was an angry guest who got charged for towels the hotel said that he’d pinched. Other than that, the hotel seems to have kept its guests very happy over the last few years, the reviews are complimentary about the cleanliness and the quality of the breakfast.

    This was a pleasant enough stay and the hotel staff were friendly, it feels something of a family managed arrangement. I’m not sure they’re making much money given the limited number of guests at the moment, but I can imagine this is a bustling environment during the summer months. I’m not sure that I have a need to revisit Elbląg in the near future, but I’d willingly stay here again if I need to return.

    There’s more information about the hotel here.

  • Elbląg – St. Nicholas Cathedral

    Elbląg – St. Nicholas Cathedral

    Starting off as a Catholic church, before becoming Lutheran, and then becoming Catholic again, this has been in the centre of the old town since 1247. It was damaged by a fire in the late eighteenth century, but worse was to come during the Second World War when it was nearly entirely destroyed, so much of what is here now has been reconstructed recently.

    I find cathedrals can very often be quite confusing to get in, but these side doors are the entrance. As an aside, I used to think it was just me who got confused easily at things like this, that was until watching other people faffing about, which made me feel better……

    Pope John Paul II is very important to the Polish people and he visited the cathedral on Sunday 6 June 1999 and the Vatican have a copy of his homily.

    This photo doesn’t really show just how dark the cathedral was internally, but it was quite difficult to see because of the lack of lighting. I used my phone’s night mode and have brightened it, which makes things much more visible now than they were to me when I was inside the building. To all intents and purposes, I took this photo in the dark.

    The beautiful stained glass.

    The destruction of the church in January 1945 could have marked the end for this building, as there was no guarantee of it being reconstructed. The city’s population was much reduced, there were limited funds and so much to rebuild across the country. However, the priests were dedicated to the rebuilding project and work started removing the rubble in 1948. Disaster hit in 1955 when a storm damaged the building again, but by 1965, the reconstruction efforts had been completed.

    The aisle of the cathedral and there’s more about the architecture of the building at https://medievalheritage.eu/en/main-page/heritage/poland/elblag-st-nicholas-cathedral/.

    The interior is relatively plain and simple, with most of the furnishings having come from other churches.

    Ignoring the plastic around parts of it, this is I think a Gothic bronze baptismal font dating back to 1387, very much the pride of the cathedral. There was only one other person in the cathedral when I was there and he praying near to this, so I didn’t go and disturb his private thoughts.

    This cathedral has gone very much full circle, back to the Catholic church which it was first constructed as, although the building itself has been wrecked on multiple occasions and little remains of what there once was. It was a determined effort to ensure that the reconstruction took place at all, a credit to the local parish and individuals who were so keen to rebuild.

  • Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History

    Elbląg – Museum of Archaeology and History

    I accept that the problem of establishing how long to stay in a museum is hardly one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today, but this one at first gave me that challenge. There are two buildings and all of the reviews recommended getting a joint ticket to see both as it’s nearly the same price and there’s plenty to see in both. The staff member who welcomed me on entry was helpful and friendly, and now that I can understand the words for “upstairs”, “first floor”, “left” and “right”, I was able to at least ascertain where to go.

    There was a slight problem that the first building, in the above photo, didn’t really take long to go around. There are some interesting exhibits within it, of which I may or may not ever get around to writing about separately, but I wasn’t sure whether to linger in case I was going to be in and out with undue haste. This part of the museum also only had descriptions in Polish, although they’re working to add QR codes which link to English versions. These weren’t always entirely clear, so I didn’t spend an excessive amount of time trying to understand everything.

    The start of the museum tour in the first building.

    There was plenty of weaponry and porcelain displays, neither of which I’m that engaged with.

    I liked the old stove though and there were some old religious icons that were of note.

    Downstairs in the museum was a temporary exhibition about items dragged out of the river during dredging work.

    That’s quite an engine. But back to my visit, that was the end of the first building and I think I’d managed to only spend thirty minutes here, and I had expected a visit to be at least a couple of hours, so I was unsure whether I was missing something, or whether this would be a much shorter experience that I had anticipated.

    Over in the second building, it was apparent that there was much more to see and this did take about 90 minutes to navigate around. There was a video display that lasted seven minutes which shows buildings in the city before the Second World War, and then a photo from a similar location taken in the post-war period. I was aware of the level of destruction in Elbląg, but this was the first time that I had seen such imagery of the damage. This was also the time that the city went from being in Germany to being moved into Poland, so not only did the buildings have to be constructed after the end of the Second World War, the majority of the residents living here also changed, making it a very different city in a matter of just a few years.

    Some of the items found on archaeological digs in the city. This section of the museum has a cellar, but it also then has tunnels shooting off from it. These were well lit, but I wondered where I was going as they seemed to be stretching for some distance, but I think these are likely to be from the castle on this site which is now mostly lost. I’d add that I was the only visitor in the museum that I noticed, with felt a little out of proportion to the six staff members. Fortunately, I think I kept on the visitor route, although wandering down these tunnels felt a little odd.

    There was a large exhibition about Truso, which I hadn’t been aware of before visiting the museum, but it was a large trading town which isn’t far from the city. It’s one of the earliest known trading towns in the Baltic, not least because of the writings of Wulfstan of Hedeby, a merchant travelling on behalf of King Alfred the Great.

    There’s a lot about the destruction that has gone on in Elbląg, it has been battered about over the centuries.

    A map of the old trading routes, as Elbląg was a Hanseatic city.

    More of the quite vivid displays around the museum, there were a fair number along this theme.

    I’ve again managed to take hundreds of photos and there were some particularly interesting exhibits, which hopefully I’ll get time to come back to and mention individually. I liked the museum, although the cost of entry of over £4 seemed a little high for Poland. It inevitably felt odd being the only visitor, but that situation has arisen numerous times before, and the staff didn’t come faffing about to annoy me which made things much easier. The staff were though keen to ensure that I didn’t miss anything, which is particularly useful when museums have a slightly complex layout.

    All in all, definitely a recommended location to visit. They are adding English translations to the new exhibits and displays, and I imagine that the entire museum will be translated over the next few years, a handy boost for travellers with Polish reading skills similar to mine. Everything was clean and ordered, and I suspect that children would enjoy their visit given the number of interactive and visual elements around the museum. I stayed for over two hours in the end, which was as I expected, but the majority of the displays are in the second building and a joint ticket for both is definitely advisable.

  • Elbląg – Kawiarnia Amarena

    Elbląg – Kawiarnia Amarena

    There was a cold wind blowing through Elbląg and since the craft beer bar wasn’t yet open, this cafe was suitably tempting. The city isn’t busy at the moment, which at least has the advantage that just about every cafe has seats available.

    I dithered for perhaps longer than was reasonable in choosing a cake, although I noticed other customers equally perplexed about which option to go for. The options all looked tempting and they were neatly displayed, with the prices clearly indicating the cost per slice or the cost by weight. The service was welcoming and personable, I liked the informality of this cafe.

    The cafe is also well reviewed on-line, although I did agree with the individual who commented that there were a lack of individual cakes such as eclairs. I could have done with an eclair and there’s no Cukiernia Sowa nearby to satiate that craving.

    I’ve now decided that every latte should come with a little meringue on it, which is something that Pret should definitely pick up on. Perfectly decent coffee and yet another fruit cake, which is endlessly healthy of me. All nicely presented and the atmosphere in the cafe was inviting and peaceful. There were a few other customers around, but the cafe was never overly busy, but I can imagine this is a bustling environment during the summer months when the tourists are meandering about around the area.

  • Elbląg – Wielokran Absztyfikant

    Elbląg – Wielokran Absztyfikant

    One of my go to web-sites for craft beer in Poland is https://ontap.pl/, which lists the various beers that venues have and links to their Untappd scores and it has numerous other features. There’s only one location listed in Elbląg, which meant that it would feel amiss if I didn’t visit it. It’s also very well reviewed and I get the impression it dominates the craft beer scene in the city.

    It was empty of customers when I came into the bar, but it got busier later on. The atmosphere was inviting, the staff member was helpful and there were eight different beers available across a range of beer styles. The beers are chalked up on boards behind the bar and there are also samples of each visible which helps identify the type of beer it is.

    In the photo is the Portermass Cocoa Nibs, Vanilla and Cinnamon from Browar PINTA and I’ve had several from that brewery over the years, but this is the best. Although we’re a bit part the Christmas period now, the mixture of chocolate and cinnamon on top of a rich imperial Baltic stout is a decadent treat. It’s 11%, but it was smooth given that alcoholic volume, a very drinkable beer.

    I also ordered the Juicilicious from Piwne Podziemie and then realised on Untappd that I’d had this before a few months ago in Warsaw. When I order a beer again without checking if I’ve had it before, I just have to hope that I liked it last time, and in this case, I very much did. It’s a decent hazy IPA with a citrus and hoppy taste.

    This venue doesn’t do food other than some crisps and nuts, and I could have done with a pizza or the like to go with the beer. The environment was welcoming, so it’s a venue to linger at, and I liked the beer options available, nicely curated. The prices were reasonable and as they’ve been going for a couple of years and are still trading, it seems like they’re doing well, so hopefully they’ll be trading for many years to come. I was pleased that I came here, an on-trend and well managed bar.