Gdańsk doesn't spring to mind as a postcard-perfect European city, or one that's central to much of recent European history. But it's both beautiful and important. Its inlet at Westerplatte was the location of the starting gun for the destruction of World War II. Fifty years later Gdańsk's port was the starting gate in the destruction of the Soviet Union, a movement that was constructed in a shipyard, by an electrician who lit up a revolution.