Malbork Castle and Westerplatte Tour with Lunch

Najlepszy przewodnik, z jakim mieliśmy okazję współpracować. Pan Łukasz świetnie łączy fakty historyczne z ciekawostkami, dbając o dobrą atmosferę w grupie przez cały dzień.

The Malbork Castle and Westerplatte tour is a must for activity while in Gdansk. Our guide - Bozena, was absolutely outstanding. We spent the entire day with her. She was professional, knowledgeable, and very passionate about Gdansk. Shes an excellent ambassador for Gdansk and all of Poland. I highly recommend her for tours - she’s incredible!

The trip was great! We were personally picked up by our driver and tour guide at the hotel. He took care of everything, no queue at Malborg Castle. The tour of the castle was great with audio guide. Afterwards we went to a nice authentic restaurant for dinner and then to the Westerplate. There he was able to tell us a lot of exciting stories about the story. We can highly recommend the trip!

Wonderful tour! Marek was a great guide, very knowledgeable and fun. The Malbrock audio guide that is included is excellent. The audio tour is very well organized and took about 3 hours to tour the castle. The restaurant stop was delicious, and a tour of Westerplatte was a great way to end the day, highly recommend.

Bożena Was a wonderful guide. Full of information and tidbits of information. She was very patient with us as we liked to read the details of exhibits at Marlboro castle. She picked a most amazing place for lunch with delicious pierogi, Better than even our Babcia’s.

Sebastian is an excellent tour guide with a great command of the English language. As a retired history teacher, I can tell you that his knowledge of Malbork and Polish history is first rate. He manages to hit the sweet spot between being informative and saturating you with too much information. For people who are not familiar with Polish history and culture, he helps you to see Malbork and Westerplatte within the larger context of Polish history and culture. When we visited Westerplatte, he not only knew the history well, but he also helped us to understand why this place is so important to Polish people. I left with a much deeper understanding of Polish history and culture and I am sure you will too. I am also a guide of historic walking tours so I really appreciate the find job Sebastian did.

Not much needs to be said about the deep impression that a three-hour tour of the castle complex makes. Rather about its historical classification through a knowledgeable, empathetic and eloquent LOCAL, which gradually brings a Polish perspective to neighbouring German, including modern Poland: We thank Sebastian Mayszczyk from the bottom of our hearts. His almost friendly tour stays with us for a long time and can be considered a recommendation. Z poważaniem - Monika&Jochen (on 21.5.2025)

I really enjoyed touring the castle and learning the history. Boz’ena was a very knowledgeable and enthusiastic guide who kept me riveted as she shared the story of the gallant soldiers at Westerplatte. I loved the dumplings and the warm red wine. I ‘m also particularly fond of Boz’ena’s warmth. She shared Polish dumpling recipes and a funny video reciting Baz Luhrmann’s essay on Sunscreen! It was a memorable tour.

We would highly recommend this tour from 'Poland by Locals' but before I explain why it's worth pointing out that this is a very small, passionate local family business so if you do intend to book, do so directly with them. The trip is based around 3 locations, first you visit Malbork Castle, then a beautiful restored Mennonite House (Maly Holender) in a stunning rural area and then onto Westerplatte where World War 2 began and thus the horrors that followed. The trip takes a whole day and your guide will collect you around 9am from your accommodation, drop you back around 5pm and you will be given an authentic Polish lunch as part of the trip as well as offers of bottled water. All entrance fees and admissions are covered in the price and there are no further additional costs. There are toilets throughout the tour but depending on when you visit Westerplatte they may or may not be open there so relieve yourself when leaving the Mennonite House. This is very much a Gdansk-region history trip and our guide Bożena's passion and knowledge of her country and region not only fulfilled this prerequisite it also turned it into a political, social, cultural and even (at times) gastronomic tour of the area as well. Bożena herself is funny, engaging and charming but her kindness and welcoming nature coupled with her excellent English speaking skills made this a really authentic trip and at the end of it, my partner and I were both hugged and wished well - lovely. The trip was on our last day in Gdansk and it was an incredible end to the trip, the fact that we visited a castle on Halloween also had a nice symmetry to it. After you are collected from your accommodation there is an approximate 45 minute drive to Malbork where you guide will talk to you about Poland's geography, its history, its wildlife and start to introduce the castle and its surroundings. Upon arrival at the castle you will be taken in, set up on the walking tour (which is somewhat free-roaming and you can do in your own way) and then you are collected 2-3 hours later which is just the right amount of time to see the castle grounds and the high castle cathedral area. I won't write a spoiler-laden review and suggest you just visit and enjoy all there is to offer, we have visited many European Castles of different eras and this is definitely worth visiting. If you like History, Art, Architecture, Weaponry, Landscapes or just whimsical stories you will enjoy all it has to offer. Upon leaving the castle you walk across the impressive Nogat River across a foot bridge and get to see the scale and sprawl of the castle against the river which is a great opportunity to take more photos at the unlimited envy of all your friends left working back at home! You get back into the large and comfortable SUV/4x4 vehicle and then onwards to the Mennonite House to learn about their order and the contributions to the area including a particularly local and famous liqueur which the city of Gdansk will have great pleasure introducing you to. I won't spoil what the lunch on offer is but I can tell you it was the best version I had of it on my trip to Gdansk and if you are good to your guide you may even get to leave with a recipe card on how you can make your own versions at home. If you get Bożena as your guide do ask her about them and she will tell you about her family's relationship to this great polish food! You can also enjoy a delicious drink from a Polish brewery on the tour and it was interesting to hear about Poland's brewing history and how it was hijacked by the Russian occupation. The final place on the tour is Westerplatte and the start, the initiating battle, of the Second World War. As with many of these European monuments to war it is sombre, harrowing and reflective throughout but unlike other trips on this subject it is not German or Hitler-centric in how the war began and is a Polish story in Poland. Continuing the theme of this review and not spoiling the trip, if you are planning to do this in advance of your arrival do not plan this on your last day and leave enough time to visit the Museum of the Second World War and the European Solidarity Centre afterwards which we regret not having time to do and which no doubt continue on and further fill out what we learned on the day. In closing we would highly recommend this trip and it was good value for money. In the spirit of honesty and sharing with travellers we nearly didn't book this trip. It was more expensive than others and we were worried on a private tour that all the attention would be on us, we would have to engage with someone all day even if we weren't in the mood and we had a bit of 'holiday fatigue' by the end of our time there. If you feel the same please ignore this instinct, all the similar tours offer the same places but the personal, local and passionate touch really matters. When you factor in lunch, travel, pick-ups, admissions and authenticity the 'extra' is a bargain. We had the benefit that Bożena was approximately our age and at a similar phase of her life and had we lived locally would have tried to add her to our friend group. Thank you.

Rozena is the best tour guide. She is timely, friendly and very well educated. Her knowledge of Poland is second to none. She took us to a family owned restaurant that had excellent dumplings (pierogi). We would never have found this gem on our own. I would highly recommend her.