St. Mary’s Church, Gdańsk

St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk tickets: which one to buy

Saint Mary's Basilica stands in the heart of Gdansk's Main Town, near the Long Market and the Neptune Fountain, and it is one of the largest brick churches in the world. Entry to the church is by a small fee for tourists outside service times, and climbing the tower costs extra; the climb of about four hundred steps leads to a viewing platform with views over the old town, the Motlawa river and the shipyards.

Walking tours of Gdansk combine the church with the Long Market, Artus Court, the Crane on the river, Mariacka Street with its amber shops, and the European Solidarity Centre. Gdansk is the gateway to the Baltic coast and the nearby cities of Sopot and Gdynia. The church is active, and visiting pauses during masses. The tower climb is steep and narrow. Tickets for the church and tower are sold at the entrance, and the tower has a limit on visitors at a time.

Visiting St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk: what to see

The church was built over more than a century and a half, from 1343 to 1502, in the Brick Gothic style, and it can hold about twenty-five thousand people. Its massive tower is about seventy-eight metres high. Inside, the white walls and tall vaults create a bright, spacious interior. The church's treasures include a fifteenth-century astronomical clock by Hans Duringer, showing the phases of the moon, the zodiac and a calendar of saints, with figures of Adam and Eve that strike the hours; a Gothic altarpiece; the Beautiful Madonna of Gdansk, a stone sculpture from around 1410; and a copy of Hans Memling's Last Judgement, whose original is in the National Museum in Gdansk.

The church was severely damaged in 1945 and rebuilt after the war. It is Lutheran-built and Catholic today. The church holds many chapels, each with altars and epitaphs of Gdansk merchant families. The main altar is a carved Gothic altarpiece of the Coronation of the Virgin, from the early sixteenth century. The organ is used for summer concerts. The church's floor is covered with gravestones. The bells include the Gratia Dei bell, one of the largest in Poland. A crucifix, known as the Cross of Suffering, stands in one of the chapels. The church's walls are pierced by tall Gothic windows that fill the interior with light.

St. Mary's Church, Gdańsk opening hours and the best time to go

The church is open daily, with limited visiting during masses; the tower is open most of the year, closing in bad weather. Gdansk is busiest in summer, especially during the Saint Dominic's Fair in late July and August, one of the largest open-air trade fairs in Europe, when the old town is crowded. Winter is cold, with a Christmas market. Mornings are the best time for the tower climb. Allow about half an hour for the church and forty minutes for the tower, and walk down Mariacka Street to the river. The European Solidarity Centre, at the Gdansk Shipyard, is about twenty minutes' walk and tells the story of the Solidarity movement.