Under the sunlit skies, in the city of Copernicus

It was raining from early morning. It was cold and nippy. We could have opted against the one-hour drive from Poznan to Torun. But my friend, Gerard and his partner Karolina, said we would still go. I asked my friend Ashik, who had come all the way from Prague to spend a few days in Poznan, if he was keen. He was game.

We drove out to wet streets, stopping by filling stations for a quick bite. Once we hit the highway, Gerard revved the engine, and the car sped through the thin ropes of rain.

By the time we drove into the city of Torun, the sky was overcast but there was some promise of sunlight.

There was something magical about stepping into a city where the past is so tangible that it feels like you can touch it. Toruń, a city in northern Poland, is one of those places—a charming medieval town steeped in history, with cobblestone streets winding through a landscape that seems frozen in time. Known for its striking architecture, rich cultural heritage, and most famously, its association with Nicolaus Copernicus, Toruń offers a journey through both history and science.

As we approached Toruń the landscape transformed from modern urban sprawl to something far more timeless. Medieval towers pierce the horizon first, then the unmistakable silhouette of Gothic spires, and I felt that familiar flutter of anticipation that comes with arriving somewhere that has weathered eight centuries with remarkable grace.

The air carried hints of wood smoke and something sweet—gingerbread, I realised, catching my first whiff of the scent that would follow us throughout the ancient Hanseatic city. The walk to the Old Town was a gentle pilgrimage through time, past communist-era apartment blocks that gradually gave way to older buildings, until suddenly we were standing before the medieval walls that have protected this UNESCO World Heritage site since the 13th century.

Into the Medieval Heart

The Old Town unfolded like a perfectly preserved manuscript, its brick Gothic architecture so complete and authentic that I expected merchants in pointed caps would just emerge from the shadows. The cobblestones beneath my feet were worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, and we walked slowly, savouring each turn that revealed another architectural marvel. The Town Hall rose before us in the Market Square like a red brick cathedral of civic pride, its tower reaching towards heaven with the confidence of a city that once controlled trade along the Vistula River.

Here, in the very square, I realised that I was walking where Nicolaus Copernicus himself once walked. The thought sent a shiver through me that had nothing to do with the chill in the air. It was not just history preserved behind glass in a museum—the city was a living history, where the cobblestones remembered the footsteps of the man who moved the Earth from the centre of the universe.

The House Where the Universe Changed

Finding Copernicus’s house on Kopernika Street felt like a pilgrimage to a shrine of human curiosity. The Gothic merchant’s house, with its steep-pitched roof and characteristic Toruń brick facade, appeared modest from the outside—just another well-preserved medieval building in a city full of them. But stepping through its doorway was like crossing a threshold between worlds: the world where Earth sat at the centre of all creation, and the world where we began to understand our true place among the stars.

The museum inside unfolded Copernicus’s story with reverent care. We moved through rooms where period furniture and astronomical instruments created an atmosphere of scholarly contemplation. The reconstructed study made me pause—here, or in a room very like this one, a young canon named Mikołaj Kopernik (as he was known in Polish) first began to question the accepted wisdom of his age. The astrolabe displayed in a glass case caught the afternoon light filtering through small windows, and I imagined him calculating, measuring, doubting what everyone else accepted as truth.

What struck me most powerfully was not the instruments or the manuscripts, but the ordinariness of the setting. Revolutionary ideas often germinate in quiet rooms, in the minds of people living seemingly conventional lives. Copernicus was not an eccentric hermit or wild-eyed radical—he was a church canon, a doctor, an administrator, a man deeply embedded in his community. Yet from this very house, he launched an intellectual revolution that would fundamentally alter humanity’s understanding of its place in the cosmos.

Standing in his house, I thought about the courage it must have taken to propose that the Earth moves around the Sun when such an idea challenged not just scientific orthodoxy, but religious doctrine itself. The weight of that decision seems to linger in these rooms, along with the spirit of careful observation and mathematical precision that made his revolution possible.

Wandering the Gothic Labyrinth

Leaving Copernicus’s house, we lost ourselves in Toruń’s medieval streets. The city revelaed itself slowly, like a complex piece of music that demanded careful listening. St. John’s Cathedral, where Copernicus may have prayed, rose in Gothic majesty, its twin towers creating a distinctive silhouette against the grey sky. Inside, the vaulted ceilings soared overhead, and light filtered through stained glass windows in jewelled patterns that seemed to dance with the movement of clouds outside.

The Church of St. Mary, partially ruined but somehow more beautiful for its incompleteness, told the story of a city that has survived wars, occupations, and the simple erosion of time. Grass grew between the stones of its walls, and birds nested in its empty windows—nature reclaiming what human hands built, creating something unexpectedly poetic in the process.

Walking along the medieval city walls, we could trace the boundaries that once defined and protected this important trading centre. The walls were remarkably intact, punctuated by gates and towers that speak of a time when a city’s survival depended on its fortifications. The Crooked Tower—Krzywa Wieża—leant at such an improbable angle that it seems to defy gravity, a medieval engineering accident that has become one of Toruń’s most beloved landmarks.

 The Scent of Centuries

No visit to Toruń would be complete without surrendering to the city’s most famous culinary tradition. The smell of gingerbread—pierniki—permeated the Old Town like an aromatic ghost of medieval kitchens. We decided to follow our noses to one of the traditional bakeries, where bakers still used recipes that date back centuries. The art of Toruń gingerbread-making is so revered here that it is protected by the European Union as a regional specialty. Once we tasted it, we understood it why.

The gingerbread was nothing like the simple cookies I expected. These were complex confections, some filled with marmalade or covered in chocolate, others shaped into intricate designs that reflect the same Gothic aesthetic as the city’s architecture. The spices—cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, cloves—created flavours that were both warming and mysterious, tastes that seem to carry the essence of medieval trade routes and exotic markets.

At the Living Museum of Gingerbread, we watched bakers demonstrate techniques that have been passed down through generations. The ritual of mixing, rolling, cutting, and baking becomes almost meditative, and I thought about how this tradition connects modern Toruń to its medieval past in the most visceral way possible—through taste and smell, the senses that trigger our deepest memories.

The ginger beer I sampled alongside the pierniki was equally traditional, a fermented drink with a complexity that modern commercial versions can’t match. It was slightly effervescent, with a warming burn from the ginger and a depth of flavour that speaks of patience and craftsmanship. Sitting in a café near the Market Square, sipping the ancient brew while watching tourists and locals mingle in the space where merchants once conducted business worth fortunes, we felt connected to centuries of human commerce, creativity, and community.

Along the Vistula

The Vistula River forms Toruń’s northern boundary, and walking along its banks provided a different perspective on the city. From here, the medieval skyline rose like a fairytale illustration, all spires and towers reflected in the slow-moving water. The river that once brought wealth to this Hanseatic trading centre now provides a peaceful promenade where joggers and dog-walkers follow paths that were once busy with merchants and stevedores.

The river path goes out of the city centre, where urban development gives way to wetlands and forests. The landscape here is quintessentially Polish—flat, green, crossed by smaller tributaries and dotted with small villages that seem unchanged since Copernicus’s time. Herons stood motionless in the shallows, and the only sounds were the whisper of wind through reeds and the distant bell of a village church.

The natural setting helped me understand something about Copernicus that the museum couldn’t quite convey. He wasn’t just a scholar working with abstract mathematical concepts—he was a careful observer of the natural world, someone who studied the movements of celestial bodies with the same attention that a farmer might give to the seasonal changes of crops or the migration patterns of birds. The rhythm of the natural world, so evident along these riverbanks, would have been part of his daily experience.

 The Planetarium

We walked towards the planetarium on Franciszkańska Street. We found the building tucked between residential blocks, its modern facade a quiet statement against the backdrop of Gothic spires. The entrance hall was sparse, functional. A few display cases held models of satellites and spacecraft, their metal surfaces catching the fluorescent light. Children pressed their faces against the glass while their parents studied ticket prices on a board mounted near the reception desk.

The woman behind the counter spoke in careful English, explaining the schedule. The next show would begin in twenty minutes. We bought our tickets and waited on a bench that faced a timeline of astronomical discoveries. Copernicus appeared at regular intervals along the display, his portrait watching over visitors with the same steady gaze I had seen cast in bronze throughout the old town.

When they called us into the dome, we climbed a narrow staircase that curved upward like the inside of a shell. The planetarium theatre had seats arranged in concentric circles beneath a white dome that stretched overhead like an inverted bowl. The chairs tilted back at sharp angles, forcing visitors to crane their necks toward the artificial sky.

The lights dimmed. Stars appeared one by one against the dome’s surface, projected by a machine that sat in the centre of the room like a mechanical spider. The narrator spoke in Polish, her voice steady and practised, but the images needed no translation. Constellations wheeled overhead, planets traced their ancient paths, and galaxies spiralled through space with the patience of geological time.

I watched galaxies expand across the dome until their spiral arms filled my peripheral vision. The projection made it seem close enough to touch, though I knew they were racing at speeds that rendered human comprehension meaningless. A child in the row ahead of me reached towards the dome as if to pluck a star from its fixed position.

The show lasted forty-five minutes. When the lights returned, the transition back to the ordinary world felt abrupt. The dome became white plaster again, the stars reduced to memory. We filed out with the other visitors, past the same display cases, through the same functional lobby, back onto the street where the sodden afternoon sun cast weak shadows between buildings.

Walking back towards the market square, we passed a statue of Copernicus standing in a small park. He held an astrolabe in his bronze hands, his eyes turned upward towards a sky that showed no stars in the daylight. The planetarium had offered a controlled glimpse of the cosmos, packaged for public consumption, but something in the astronomer weathered features suggested he had seen farther into the dark than any projection could show.

The Living City

What makes Toruń remarkable is not just its architectural preservation, but the way medieval spaces continue to serve modern purposes. University students hurried across cobblestone squares with laptops in their backpacks, their presence breathing contemporary life into ancient stones. The Nicolaus Copernicus University, established in 1945, has made Toruń a vibrant college town, and the energy of young people learning and questioning creates an atmosphere that Copernicus himself would probably recognise and appreciate.

In the evening, we joined locals at traditional restaurants where pierogi and other Polish specialties were served in rooms with vaulted ceilings and exposed brick walls. The conversations around us blended Polish with English, German, and other languages—a reminder that Toruń has always been a cosmopolitan place where different cultures meet and mingle. Copernicus himself spoke Latin, German, and Polish, studied in Italy, and corresponded with scholars across Europe. His intellectual horizons were as broad as his city’s commercial ones.

At a jazz club housed in a medieval cellar, we listened to musicians who blend traditional Polish melodies with contemporary improvisation, creating something new while honouring what came before. The music echoed off stone walls that have absorbed centuries of human expression, and I thought about how creativity and innovation have always found ways to flourish in this city, from Copernicus’s revolutionary astronomy to tonight’s experimental jazz.

People and Traditions

The people of Toruń carry their history lightly but proudly. Shop owners in the Old Town will tell you stories about their buildings, pointing out architectural details and sharing local legends with the enthusiasm of natural historians. A woman selling pierniki at the market explains the difference between various recipes with the precision of a scholar, her pride in the tradition evident in every word.

We climbed the Town Hall tower for a panoramic view of the city. From the height, Toruń spread out below us like a medieval manuscript illuminated in brick and tile. The modern additions—the university buildings, the newer neighbourhoods—blended surprisingly well with the ancient core, suggesting a community that knows how to honour its past while embracing its future.

Looking out over the city where Copernicus was born and raised, I think about the relationship between place and inspiration. Would his revolutionary ideas have emerged if he had grown up somewhere else? There’s something about Toruń—its position at the crossroads of trade routes, its blend of cultures, its tradition of careful craftsmanship, its respect for learning—that seems conducive to the kind of thinking that questions accepted wisdom and reaches for new understanding.

The Gothic churches, the merchant houses, the defensive walls—all represent a civilization confident in its ability to create lasting beauty and meaning. Perhaps that confidence, absorbed from childhood, gave Copernicus the courage to propose ideas that would outlast even these magnificent buildings. His heliocentric theory has survived while empires have risen and fallen, proving that some human achievements transcend the material circumstances of their creation.

This city taught me something about the relationship between continuity and change, between honouring tradition and embracing innovation. Copernicus didn’t reject his medieval world—he used its tools of logic, observation, and mathematical precision to revolutionise human understanding. In the same way, modern Toruń doesn’t abandon its Gothic past but finds ways to make it relevant to contemporary life.

We go to places like Toruń not just to see beautiful buildings or taste famous food, but to touch something essential about human persistence and creativity. In a world that often seems obsessed with the new and the immediate, these medieval streets reminded us that some achievements transcend their time, that some questions are worth asking even when the answers challenge everything we think we know, and that the greatest revolutions often begin in the quietest places, in the minds of people deeply rooted in their communities yet brave enough to imagine the world differently.

The Gothic spires of Toruń faded into the Polish countryside, but their lesson remained: that human beings, given enough time, enough curiosity, and enough courage, can move not just the Earth from the centre of the universe, but the entire universe of human possibility into new configurations of meaning and wonder.

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