The Old and the New Town in Toruń, with the Teutonic Castle, were entered on the UNESCO list of the most important historic sites of world cultural heritage in 1997.

The Town of Many Nations

The town established in 1233, by the knights of the Teutonic Order, through eight centuries of rich history, has been the home of people of different nations and religions: the capital of the Teutonic State, one of the most modern cultural formations in Medieval Europe; then, in times of economic prosperity and poverty, Toruń belonged to the Polish Crown, and to Prussia and the II Reich since the beginning of the 19th century. From 1918 it became again a part of Poland. The town, with its original Medieval architectonic structure, enriched through ages with Gothic, Baroque and Secession edifices, is an encyclopedia of culture.

• Check accommodation in Toruń

The Vistula – a river of golden wheat

During hundreds of years Toruń was the center of the European wheat trade, which was shipped down the River Vistula from fields in the eastern borderlands of Poland to the port of Gdańsk. There was no merchant nation in those days which did not send trade representatives to visit Toruń. The Vistula raftsmen, known as flisacy, are commemorated with an original monument next to the old-town Town-Hall – a fountain with the statue of the raftsmen giving a violin recital for ... for the frogs. In the years 1264 – 1411 Toruń belonged to the Hanzeatic Union and until the 17th century it was a town amongst the elite of trading towns. It was from the wheat trade that some of the merchant families of Toruń acquired their wealth and power: the Esken family (there is a section of the District Museum in their granary – The Esken House), the Kruger family, the ven der Linden family, the Koyen family – who have left a genealogy book, illustrated with the coats of arms of Torunian families, and the Stroband family – the founders of the gymnasium, a school of great merit for the culture of the town. The traces of this mercantile past can be encountered at every step taken in Toruń: the sumptuous decorations on the building facades and numerous granaries recall those past times, when golden wheat was floated on the Vistula River ...with the resulting river of gold into the coffers of the merchants of Toruń.

The Town of Copernicus

Nicolaus Copernicus, the scientist who led his contemporaries to the boundaries of modern science and the philosophy of the Cosmos, was born in Toruń on February 19, 1473. His work is called the 'Copernican Revolution' – the victory of the mind. In the museum, which is located in his home (on Copernicus Street) the oldest editions of his scientific work and the astronomical equipment with which he studied the Cosmos can be seen. In the nearby St John's Cathedral, there is the font, where he was baptised and in the Old Town Market there is a 2,6 meter high bronze statue of Copernicus, on a granite plinth on which is engraved in Latin: 'Nicolaus Copernicus Thorunensis Terrae motor, Solis Caelique stator' (Nicolaus Copernicus, born in Toruń, moved the Earth and stopped the Sun and the Skies).

The Town of Scientists
The work of Copernicus has been continued by such world-famous figures as Aleksander Wolszczan who is counted among the most prominent contemporary astronomists. The Nicolaus Copernicus University has 40,000 students in the fields of humanities, mathematics and natural sciences. The Toruń school of astronomy and paper conservation, which teaches specialists hired by museums and archives, is known worldwide. In April, Toruń hosts the Science and Arts Festival organised by the University during which the mysteries of the laboratories are disclosed and members of the public can participate in the observations of the sky in the astronomical center. A planetarium functions at Franciszkańska Street where films about the solar system are screened on a dome 15 meters in diameter.