Next 2 days in Poland

We woke up today with very high winds, some light rain, and very stormy out to sea. We decided it was a perfect time to go see the Amber Museum. It is located in the one of the old towers and takes up 4 floors of the tower.

And now for the trek of those 4 flights of stairs. (by the way, they really mean 8 flights)

They say that the Amber found along the Baltic Sea of Poland can be 40 million years old and as old as 175 million years old. Amber is a fossilized tree sap, which turns into a hardened resin. Amber is very lovely and treasured by many people thru out the centuries. It has been carved, made into sculptures, jewelry boxes, lampshades, beads, cabochons, bangles, pendants, and jewelry of many different designs. We have even seen a full desk made using amber. Some amber has also been made into perfume, incense, candles and soap. Amber comes in many colors: ranging in  a nice honey color, butterscotch, red, and many lovely variations in these colors.

                        Replicas of what some of the older tools would look like to carve Amber.

And now what you have all been waiting for ~ Beads over many centuries have been made from Amber. And these are all very old beads.

and more beads, yet still old beads. 

Yes, there are some old stone and even some old glass beads mixed in with the Amber on these strands.

And then some buttons carved from Amber. 

And we need a place to place some of this beads, buttons and jewelry into:

Many things made with Amber.

After seeing the Amber museum, we decided to walk part of the town and look at buildings and there are many lovely ones to see.

and then, as if we could not get enough Amber, we saw so much more just booth after booth on several more streets.

Here is a little bit of history about Gdansk. It was previously known as Danzig, a German city, handed over to Poland after World War I, reclaimed by Hitler which started World War II and given back to Poland after World War II, and then the name was changed to Gdansk. Gdansk has a lot of other history for many 100's of years. You can read far more about it online on various websites.

In 1945 Danzig was bombed and many buildings were totally destroyed by the Allies.

In the left side of this photo below, you can see the clock tower and how badly it was destroyed.  

The city started rebuilding in the 1950's and 60's and is still working on many areas today.
In this photo you can see here the clock tower was rebuilt.

Now Gdansk is a huge tourist town and has a very large shipping port.

While walking around, we found a building with 4 levels of shopping. Two floors were clothing, one floor was services like banks, travel agencies, etc; but the best floor was basement. The basement was mainly stall after stall of meats, sausages, cheese, fish, pastas, fresh vegetables, candy and even a liquor store. There must have been over 400 stalls row after row. And they were all surrounding the edges of the old archeological dig under the foundations of the building, which dated back to the 8th century.

and some of the beads they found at the site:

                                         and now for all the various types of food stalls at the market.

                             Guy decided to wait in line here to buy some of these sausages.

We just had to buy some of this candy. Guy decided 1 kilos worth was enough to be able to share back at home. (well, some of it will not make it that far) 

                                                  Gdansk by night is very lovely indeed.

There happened to be several carnival rides in the middle of the town. while we were here.

                                     Some fun feathered streamers fluttering in the wind.

                         We ended the evening with only a desert as we had a full lunch.
                                       We had to choice just one each. So many to choice from.

After a long day,  to all Goodnight ~

Next day, we started with a early breakfast and began our drive back thru Poland to get to Czech Republic. But J-Me just had to make Guy stop so she could take this last photo in Gdansk of a very lovely door.