Hotels near Westerplatte

Westerplatte is the narrow, wooded peninsula where the Second World War began at 04:45 on 1 September 1939, when the German battleship Schleswig-Holstein opened fire on the small Polish military transit depot stationed here. A garrison of 182 Polish soldiers under Major Henryk Sucharski held out for seven days against repeated bombardment and infantry assaults before finally surrendering. The stand became a founding myth of the Polish resistance and gave the country its rallying cry of "Westerplatte still fights".

The site today is a mix of memorial and ruin. The 25-metre Monument to the Coast Defenders on top of an artificial hill from 1966 dominates the peninsula. Walk the marked trail past the ruins of Guardhouse No. 1 (with bullet holes still visible in the concrete), the New Barracks foundations, and the small museum in a reconstructed guardhouse that opens seasonally from May to September. The whole loop takes about 90 minutes at a slow pace, and the Baltic sea breeze makes it a welcome break from the Old Town in high summer.

Pro Tip: Take the pirate-ship style Galeon Lew ferry from the Zielona Brama pier instead of the bus - the 45-minute ride down the Motlawa gives you a view of the shipyard and Nowy Port, and the return ticket runs about 90 PLN in summer. Ferries run roughly hourly between 09:30 and 17:30 from May to September.