Our first stop in Poland was Gdansk which sits in the north of the country on the Baltic coast. Gdansk is a beautiful city with tall colourful buildings.

The city and it’s building were rebuilt after WW2 as most of the city was bombed.

We also loved the gargoyles and in Mariacka Street you could see these up close.

We stayed in an outer suburb of Gdansk called Owila. The beautiful old park Oliwski Park was just a few minutes walk from our apartment where we could escape on very hot days. Park Oliwski is a historic park dating back to the 12th century. It was then, in 1186, that the Cistercians came to Oliwa. The monks settled on the Oliwski Stream, transforming the forested areas for their own use.

Opposite the park, there was a cemetery set in a forest that we would walk past every day. We loved that many of the graves had seats at the end for visitors to sit on.

We drove to a popular beach area of Rewa, north of Gdynia. It just makes you appreciate the beautiful beaches of Australia. It was a hot day so it was busy.

Poland has the largest castles (by land area) in Europe and also the largest red brick castle. The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork. The castle was founded in 1274 by the Teutonic Knights who used it as their headquarters to help defeat Polish enemies and rule their own northern Baltic territories. We visited for the day, even under the threat of thunderstorms, and were pleased we did as it was a very different and unique castle.

Our plan was to return home via Westerplatte, which is a former military area and the site of the first World War II invasion. But the skies eventually opened and we decided since the WW2 memorial was all outside we would give it a miss.

Our next stop was the small city of Kielce which would be our base. It was a very peaceful walkable city with lots of parks and restaurants. From here we visited Krakow and Warsaw.

Krakow was a walled city which I did not know. Only a small section is still standing. The city now has a wonderful park that circles the city.

The day we planned to visit Warsaw it was meant to rain but we decided to still go. We did not end up seeing as much as we wanted but it was still good to visit and get an idea of the city.

We set out on one of our days to visit the village of Zalipie with its painted houses. We did not get to see much as it was surrounded by road works which made it very difficult to enter. Anyway, we had a little glimpse!

Something we loved about Poland was the green rooves of many of the churches and buildings. (from the tin/copper roofing that has tarnished we believe).