Elblag (Poland)

During my trip to Poland, I passed through Elblag and I was completely unsettled by this small, charmless city, which was unfortunately completely destroyed during the Second World War and whose historic centre was entirely rebuilt in an absolutely monstrous and abominably kitsch style. Despite its size of approximately 120,000 inhabitants, the city seems sleepy and lifeless.

So, Elblag has very limited interest for tourists (indeed none), besides the canal which can be navigated by a small boat and the lagoon around Krynica Morska, which offers beautiful beaches of white sand in summer, just at the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Unless you're interested in striking examples of failed reconstructions, I wouldn't advise going to Elblag, choosing instead other cities in the former East Prussia, such as Gdansk and Gdynia.