Plenty of good stories start with a boat ride—including this one. The small, unpretty tourist vessel, perhaps a repurposed 1980s passenger ferry, cast lines and pushed back from the wharf. I sat on the breezy, open upper deck on a sunny, early-summer day, the fun of the Dlugie Pobrzeze (Long Embankment) along the Motlawa River in full swing.
Dating back to the 14th century, this was once a hardworking place. Part of the Hanseatic League, a network of international traders, it was here that goods bought and sold across Europe flowed in and out of Gdansk, Poland. But today, it was all tourists and happy locals walking the cobblestones of Old Town, eating and drinking at restaurants and cafes that were once warehouses, marveling at the Great Crane (once the largest port crane in the world), and riding the carousel and AmberSky Ferris wheel.
