Our ship docked in Gdynia, not Gdańsk proper—a detail I'd missed in my planning. But this turned out to be a gift. Gdynia is part of Trójmiasto, the "Tri-city," strung along the Baltic coast like amber beads: industrial Gdynia where we berthed, resort Sopot in the middle, and historic Gdańsk at the southern end. The three cities flow together seamlessly, connected by commuter trains that run every fifteen minutes. I bought a ticket at the station and settled in for the thirty-five-minute journey south, watching apartment blocks give way to church spires as we rolled toward the Old Town.

The train deposited me near the Golden Gate, that magnificent 17th-century Dutch Renaissance archway that marks the beginning of the Royal Route. I passed beneath its weathered stone and stepped onto Długi Targ—the Long Market—and my breath caught. The merchants' houses lining the cobblestones glowed in shades of rose, saffron, and mint, their ornate facades crowned with stepped gables. They looked as though they'd been standing since the Hanseatic League's golden age. But I knew the truth: nearly every building I was seeing had been rubble in 1945. Ninety-five percent of the Old Town was obliterated. What I was walking through was one of history's most painstaking reconstructions, each façade rebuilt from old photographs and engravings, each detail an act of memory and defiance.

At the heart of the Long Market stands Neptune—a bronze god rising from his fountain, trident in hand, presiding over centuries of commerce and conversation. Cast in the 17th century, he's Gdańsk's guardian and symbol of its maritime soul. There's a local legend I love: Neptune once grew so angry at the revelry in the square that he struck the cobblestones with his trident, shattering gold coins and sending golden flakes swirling into the vodka. Thus was born Goldwasser, the shimmering liqueur still sold in shops around the square, tiny flecks of real gold leaf dancing in every bottle.

I wandered into one of those shops—then another, then another—because Gdańsk calls itself the "World Capital of Amber," and it's no idle boast. Baltic gold gleams in every window: honey-colored teardrops, deep cognac cabochons, pieces with fossilized insects suspended mid-flight for forty million years. I bought a small pendant, warm in my palm, a piece of ancient sunlight to carry home.

The Royal Route led me onward, past St. Mary's Church—one of the world's largest brick churches, its tower a 408-step climb I'll save for next time—and down to the Green Gate, the 16th-century waterfront palace that closes the ceremonial path. But the gate I needed to find was elsewhere. I asked directions to the European Solidarity Centre.

The museum is built beside the Lenin Shipyard, on the very ground where history pivoted. In August 1980, electrician Lech Wałęsa climbed the shipyard fence and joined striking workers demanding rights and dignity. The Solidarity movement they forged became the first independent trade union in the Soviet Bloc. It grew into something larger than labor—a moral force that helped topple Communist rule in Poland and sent tremors through the Iron Curtain. Within a decade, the Berlin Wall had fallen. The Centre's exhibits trace that improbable arc: grainy photographs of men with mustaches and worn hands, homemade banners, the enormous monument to fallen workers rusting gently in the Baltic air.

I stood there a long time, trying to hold the weight of it. This wasn't ancient history in a textbook. This was 1980—people my age, scared and stubborn, betting everything on the hope that the world could change. And it did.

Back in the Old Town, I found a milk bar for a late lunch—pierogi ruskie and żurek soup served in a hollowed rye bread bowl, the kind of meal that tastes like a grandmother's hug. The waitress barely spoke English, but her smile needed no translation. I thought about the other history marker I'd passed earlier: a plaque near Westerplatte, where the first shots of World War II were fired on September 1, 1939. German forces attacked the Polish garrison there, and the world caught fire. Six years later, Gdańsk was ash and broken stone.

Yet here I sat, warm soup in hand, surrounded by one of the richest complexes of architectural relics in Poland. Not relics, really—reconstructions. Every colorful gable, every carved doorway, every cobblestone was an argument against forgetting. The phoenix city had risen, and it was more beautiful than I'd imagined.