London £1 rooms
A NEW Hoxton hotel is opening in Southwark in South London – and if you are lucky you can stay for a quid. The 192-bed property, its third in the capital, will typically have rooms from £209 but is running a competition, with 192 prizes.
To enter, visit thehoxton.com and pay £1 – cash raised will go to the chain’s Good Neighbours charity, which helps local projects. POLAND’S port town of Gdansk is roaring up the league table of weekend breaks. This Polish Amsterdam is a brilliant blend of history and waterside life, plus a nearby beach resort.
Brief briefing Historically significant
There are three main reasons why Gdansk stands out and why it looks as it does.
Firstly, it was a key member of the
Hanseatic League, a sort of medieval EU for northern Europe. That is why it became rich and why its waterfront is lined with old granaries and its streets with merchant’s houses and gothic churches.
Secondly, for many years it was a self-governing free city called Danzig, mostly German speaking but with all kinds of different communities, which is why it still has such a cosmopolitan outlook.
And finally its shipyards were the birthplace of the Solidarity movement – the workers’ union that was the first to stand up for people’s rights, in defiance of Poland’s Soviet-backed communist government, back in the 1970s.
Solidarity triggered a whole series of lookalike movements in other countries which eventually led to the end of the Iron Curtain and the reuniting of Europe.
Hansa parade On the waterfront
The river that runs through the heart of the old town was once a place of great trade from the Hanseatic era.
These days the waterfront on the town side has a long cobbled promenade where the former warehouses have been turned into restaurants between arched water gates that allow access to the main thoroughfares.
Halfway along looms the Crane, a towering 15th-century construction that looks like a hooded executioner.
Passenger boats depart this waterfront for Sopot and for a cruise out to Westerplatte, the peninsula where the first shots of the Second World War were fired.
The other side of the water – reachable via bridges or a little ferry – is an island world with a glitzy marina, fancy hotels partly based on original warehouse buildings, and the unmistakeable silhouette of the Soldek, the first steamship built in Gdansk after the Second World War.
There is also a giant ferris wheel fronted by inexpensive food trucks and an excellent chillout stretch of riverbank with beanbags and deckchairs.
Key streets Royal route
A watergate at the end of the main river bridge leads into Ulica Dluga, otherwise known as the royal route, a broad cobbled boulevard lined with frescoed facades of gable-topped houses.
Halfway up is the tall spire of the 15th-century brick-built City Hall. Beside it stands the imposing 14th-century Artus Court, which was originally a kind of lavish gentleman’s club for merchants.
Further inland the boulevard is lined with cafes and throngs with people but it is mostly a postwar reconstruction.
A more authentic period street actually runs parallel a couple of streets north. This is Mariacka, restored with statues, railings and gargoyles from all over the city.
Today it is a mix of hipster brew-cafes and amber workshops.
It ends at St Mary’s, the largest brick-built cathedral in the world, a bit underwhelming Climb to any rooftop in Gdansk and you will instantly see the shipyard cranes on the skyline. Shipbuilding was always a big deal here, with some 20,000 employees in the yards during the communist period.
Working conditions were tough, and it was a government-imposed rise in the price of bread in 1971 that prompted the first shipworker demos. A leader called Lech Walesa emerged, and gradually the power of the people grew.
Communism collapsed and Walesa became president of the newly democratic country.
He is still in Gdansk, and has an office in the Solidarity Centre, between the town and the docks, a striking building that echoes shipyards