The City of Nicholas Copernicus

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Torun is a city in northern Poland, on the Vistula River. The medieval old town of Toruń is the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus. It was inscribed onto the World Heritage List of UNESCO as a World Heritage Site in 1997. Torun is one of the few Polish cities which were not destroyed in World War II. The buildings you see here are as old as they look. Everybody knows the story of the rat catcher of Hameln, where the man lured the rats from the city with his flute-music. In Torun there was a frog plague, and a fiddler. The story was never as famous as the one of Hameln, because here the man was properly paid and he left the children alone. Another, more famous inhabitant of Torun, is Copernicus. He found that the sun doesn't circle the earth, but the earth circles the sun.

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Photos

Behind Copernicus is the Ratusz Staromiejski - the Old Town Hall
One of the most outstanding achievements of medieval Gothic architecture in Europe dating from 13th century, rebuilt in renaissance style in early 17th. It is the former administrative centre and nowadays it houses the District Museum in Torun.

Palac Eskenow - Esken's Palace
Renaissance residence of a merchant family of Eskens from around 1590, in the 19th century rebuilt into a granary. Currently together with three other neighbouring granaries it is a unit of the District Museum.

Statuetka Flisaka i Dwor Artusa
Raftsman Statue and Artus Court.

Maciej i mama Nina with the Rafter of Torun
The monument refers to a legend, which tells of a rafter who, with his beautiful fiddle playing, enchanted frogs residing in the town and led them outside the town walls into the suburbs of Toruń.

Maciej i Polita with the Rafter of Torun
According to legend, a raftsman playing the violin managed to lead thousands of frogs away from the city during a calamity of these amphibians. In honour of this hero a monument of the raftsman was erected in Toruń in 1914. Today the fountain–monument of the raftsman of Toruń surrounded by a herd of frogs stands near the south-west corner of the Old Town Hall.

Kamienica pod Gwiazda
Star House

Kamienica pod Gwiazda
Star House

Behold Nicholas Copernicus
Unveiled in 1853. It depicts Nicolaus Copernicus in a professor's gown holding an astrolabium in his left hand while pointing to the sky with his right.