Rick Steves Poland

In this one-hour special, we get to know Poland — where a hard history has created a proud, strong, and soulful culture. In Kraków, we linger on one of Europe's most crowd-pleasing squares, marvel at past glories in art galleries and at historic Wawel Castle, visit neighborhood churches, and savor Polish cuisine — including a lesson in making pierogi by hand. Nearby, the communist-planned town of Nowa Huta offers a nostalgic spin through the Cold War days, while the sobering concentration camp memorial of Auschwitz-Birkenau honors more than one million victims of the Nazis. Then it's off to Warsaw, the heartbeat of contemporary Poland — gilded with a grand palace, bristling with skyscrapers, packed with thoughtful museums, home to a hard-fought 20th-century history, and busy with Chopin concerts both grand and intimate. After a stop at the gingerbread bakeries in Copernicus' red-brick hometown, Toruń, we ogle the massive Teutonic Knight fortress of Malbork. Finishing in maritime Gdańsk, on the Baltic coast, we experience handsome Hanseatic townhouses, dazzling amber jewelry, lavish old halls, and the stirring Solidarity story of how shipyard workers toppled the communist regime.