30-07-2025
We Should All Be Biking Along the Beach
On a recent Sunday morning, I awoke jetlagged in Gdansk, a Polish seaport of 477,000 renowned for its Dutch architecture, amber trade and memorials commemorating the first shots fired of World War II.
My hotel offered a few bicycles for its guests, so I grabbed one and pedaled my way along the Old Town's cobblestone streets. I admired the towering Great Armory, constructed 400 years ago to repel a potential Swedish invasion, and passed the former Lenin Shipyard, birthplace of the Solidarity movement that toppled Polish communism in the 1980s. The apartment buildings surrounding me were gradually replaced by grassy dunes, and I soon slowed to a halt. Before me, the Baltic Sea shimmered in the morning sun.
