The Long Market is Gdansk's historic heart, the rectangle where Hanseatic merchants displayed their wealth in townhouses whose facades competed for attention. The market that World War II destroyed completely and that Poland reconstructed faithfully, the Neptune Fountain that anchors the space, the Artus Court where merchants gathered.

The Long Market demonstrates what reconstruction can achieve when records survive, the rebuilding that took decades and that tourists now assume is original. The market is statement of Polish determination; the determination was what reconstruction required.

Solidarity began in Gdansk's Lenin Shipyard in 1980, the strike that became movement that became the beginning of communism's end in Europe. The shipyard where Lech Walesa led workers, the gates where crowds gathered, the monument that commemorates the workers killed in 1970 - Solidarity is what makes Gdansk historically significant beyond architecture.

Solidarity changed European history, the first crack in the Iron Curtain that ten years later disappeared entirely. Solidarity is why Gdansk matters politically, the movement that Polish courage created.

World War II began at Gdansk's Westerplatte, the peninsula where Polish soldiers resisted German attack on September 1, 1939. The war that destroyed the Danzig that Germans had built, that killed millions in the city and beyond, that ended with Polish Gdansk replacing German Danzig - the war is presence that the rebuilt city cannot escape.

The war created the Gdansk that exists - the reconstructed buildings, the Polish population that replaced the expelled Germans, the memory that monuments maintain. The war is what makes Gdansk's beauty poignant.

Gdansk has traded amber for centuries, the Baltic gold that washes up on beaches and that craftsmen turn into jewelry and art. The amber that made Gdansk wealthy when it was the trade's center, the amber that tourists now buy in shops along every tourist street.

The amber trade connects Gdansk to prehistoric commerce, the mineral that trapped insects and that humans have valued since Bronze Age. The amber is Gdansk's commodity; the trade is continuing.

The Motlawa River is Gdansk's waterway, the channel where the Crane that was medieval Europe's largest still stands and where tour boats now float past reconstructed facades. The river that connected Gdansk to the Baltic, that trade required, that the city still displays.

The river provides the views that Gdansk photographs show, the water that reflects the facades that fire destroyed and determination rebuilt. The river is where Gdansk displays itself best.