The Sights and Smells of Torun
Memoirist Frances Mayes samples freshly baked gingerbread while exploring Copernicus’ hometown on a trip through Poland
- By Frances Mayes
- Smithsonian.com, August 20, 2009, Subscribe
My husband, Ed, and I arrive at the super-modern Hotel Bulwar on the Vistula River in Torun after dark. White marble, white leather, white lights dazzle us; we could be awakening in limbo. Our compact, efficient room is neat and tight. We go straight to dinner, rumpled as we are, and the restaurant’s stark black and white décor deserves more glamorous people. “At least we’re in black,” I observe. “When you’re in black you can go anywhere.” We dine very happily on roasted duck and polish off a bottle of wine. In the narrow bed, I dream that I am swimming in the Vistula River. If I had, I probably would have come ashore here quicker than by car.
Because the drive from Krakow was so long, we only have a Sunday morning to wander around picturesque medieval Torun, before driving on to Gdansk. We set out early, walking first along the river and then into the historic center of this gorgeous brick town. Torun’s many intact medieval buildings have earned it a World Heritage site designation and make us feel transplanted back in time. The city was fortunate to have largely escaped the destruction of World War II that devastated so many other Polish cities.
Flower stalls are setting up, and people are pouring into the turreted, Gothic St. Mary’s church built in the 14th century. We go, too. The pews are jammed. Seeing the crowds in Polish churches makes me aware of how unpopulated Italian churches are in comparison. After mass, the Nicholas Copernicus Museum opens. Narrow and upright, with a decorative brick façade, the house where Copernicus was born to a prosperous merchant family in 1473 holds a small collection of memorabilia of the revolutionary astronomer who first saw the sun from these windows, and later pinned that sun to the center of his sky map.
We pass the town library, with sculptures of children reading perched on the windowsills. Many houses, as in Krakow, are decorated with lions, friezes or statues. I spot one of Bacchus, the Roman god of wine and merriment. The great Gothic Town Hall, with a history of being torched, sacked, rebuilt, anchors old town. Nearby, pigeons roost on the monument to Copernicus, which is inscribed in Latin with the slightly odd, “Nicholas Copernicus of Torun, moved the earth, stopped the sun and the sky.”
Torun was a prominent member of the Hanseatic League, an alliance of northern European cities that protected trade routes. During the 14th and 16th centuries, the river port town served as a major shipping center for grain, wood and salt. The Hanseatic influences, resulted in a riot of Flemish, Dutch, Baltic architecture. I love the cutout looking Mannerist and Baroque facades with scrolled tops, elaborate stucco trims, and the complicated patterned brickwork. I can almost see tall-hatted, bearded burghers stepping out of the doorways. Contributing to the illusion, a fair is in progress in the New Market Square: music, many people in costume acting in skits and wandering about looking jolly, and artisans with ceramics, needlework, cheeses and other wares for sale. We’ve stepped inside an Old Dutch Master painting.
Ah, a gingerbread baker! Torun must be the gingerbread center of the universe. All over town, it’s sold in decorative molded forms, both for ornaments and for eating. The baker at the fair launches into a long explanation, but when he realizes we don’t understand a word, just hands me a piece. We buy some of both kinds in the shapes of castles and local houses. I hate to bite the turrets but gingerbread is a favorite of mine for its old world taste, a flavor evocative of the spice trade that made this part of the world rich and its towns elegant.
So much more to see: the atmospheric 13th-century Church of St. John, the magnificent geometry of the granaries, the medieval gates leading to the Vistula, and the broad river itself, lending access to the Baltic and trade routes, of course, but also lending so much beauty. Torun is a gem, a place to revisit on nights of insomnia: a bonus of travel. I could walk these streets forever.
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Comments (6)
i am interested in finding out all about torun in poland as i believe my father kaziemiesz Duszynski was born in torun, i know that some of his family still live there and would like to contact them as now my father has passed away, my father kept his past to himself as when war broke out he was sent to work for the german army, and that disgraces his family,and never returned back to poland since 1943,i would love to know more information about his past and all about torun where he may have been brought up hoping to hear from this comment
liz shipley
Posted by Mrs EM Shipley on February 3,2010 | 04:37 PM
Dear Susana, they just don’t get it, do they! Let the truth be told:
Hitler was Polish, and Nazi Germans were very friendly while the Poles not so wonderful as you rightly put it, went nuts in Torun and sent every non-Pole via Pony Express to Alaska or some other nasty place were the grizzlies eat people…right? Right. So Adolph, nice man to say the least, got very upset and shot himself in a leg…and built a Canyon Ranch in Auschwitz because he needed a quiet place to heel himself and his Jewish friends…and the rest is history!
For everybody else, why don’t you follow the link below: it’s free and not written by the Poles like myself or maybe it is?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Poland
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_Germany
Posted by Mark from Brooklyn on October 30,2009 | 08:47 PM
Regarding dark days in Poland...there were many for Jews.. and Christians alike. Almost as many Christians were murdered during the Second World War as there were Jews. The pain was felt by many families regardless of religion. There was anti-semintism and anti-Christian attitudes in Nazi philosophy, let alone Bolshevism. My neighbor was a seminarian who witnessed 27 priests executed by the Nazi's. He was fortunately sent to Sachhausen. After the war he was an interpretor for the allies. He listened to stories from prisoners of many different nationalities who were tortured and starved in Auschwitz. There were many Poles who had their families murdered by the Nazi's too. To make a comment about Jews being murdered with a "little help from good Polish people" is a dig that stereo-types an entire nation and hurts people such as my neighbor and his wife who as Catholics were kept in concentration camps,and suffered tremendously do not deserve. To put it this way there were close to three million non-Jewish deaths and millions of Catholics who were sent to concentration camps, including Siberia. Of the non-jews who turned in Jews what percentage did so under the threat of death to their entire families? And what percentage were truly collaborators, the research shows collaborators were a small percentage of the population, but could do great damage over all. People who chose to save their own lives as well as their families lives cannot be called collaborators. Are we all so morally strong? It is fact that more rescuers of Jews came from Poland than from any other country. I am sorry for Jewish and Christian sufferring that occurred in Poland, my own father was a survivor who was traumatized by his memories. Jews and Christians were both good "Polish People" who were wronged terribly. Compassion and understanding are what is needed now to heal the world.
Respectfully,
Denise Coughlin
Posted by Denise Coughlin on September 25,2009 | 09:23 PM
Fantastic, such a great leap from beauty of Torun to the Holocaust. You don't even mention the beauty of German nature and culture that is also undeniable, despite of what happened during the reign of Hitler. Yes, many Poles were and some of them unfortunately still are antisemitic. Many Poles indeed played role in reporting Polish Jews to German authorities, mainly through Gestapo channels. Many of them on the other hand were hiding and sawing them. Let's try not to revise history here. Antisemitism was widespread in the entire Europe and beyond at that time, remember what happened in France for example, but Poland had the largest Jewish population and yes, most of Polish Jews perished. Poles were also considered subhuman by Germans by the way.I'm Polish, I don't have any Jewish ancestry, my father was in Buchenwald, my mother in the German labor camp and Jewish history in general and history of Jews in Poland (and that includes the nature of Polish pogroms of Jews before the war) are one of my passions. The Holocaust is without doubt one of the biggest, if not the biggest, scars on the face of humanity. I condemn the Holocaust probably as much as you do but I can not accept slanted view of history; that is very dangerous and may lead to other atrocities. How about people that deny the Holocaust entirely at the present time? You are angry and I understand that, perhaps your family history goes back to those dark days in Poland, but suggesting that "wonderful Polish people" somehow were almost on the same plateau as Germans ("with a little help of my friends", correct!)is plainly wrong. You don't have to mention German murderous behavior every time you go to Germany either. One has to remember of course and pass the message onto the younger generations - historically true message that is. Travel to Poland and enjoy.
Posted by Apolinary Galecki on September 8,2009 | 05:55 PM
When you write about the polish nature and culture,the beauty of it, I think you have to mention something about the three million polish Jews that perished during the second world war with a "litle help" of the wonderful polish people.
Posted by Susana Ralsky de Cimet on September 5,2009 | 12:56 PM
Thanks for the wonderful articles about Poland, Francis Mayes and Smithsonian! It's about time someone showed how truly beautiful Poland is. I've been to Poland three times and am in love with the country. I get excited everytime I think about going there...of course I have reason to be very proud of my ancestors. Next time don't forget to mention Henrk Sienkiewicz in your articles...a very big part of Polish culture and an inspiration to the Polish people with his romantic novels of chivalry that earned him the Nobel Prize. I am actually related to both the poet Adam Mickiewicz who looks down over the square in Krakow and Henryk Sienkiewicz through my grandmother Emilia Mickiewicz and Uncle Boleslaw Sienkiewicz. I have family living in Poland so I am rather biased to the country, but Smithsonian should know how much Sienkiewicz loved America! France's Article is wonderful!
Thanks,
Denise Coughlin
denisecoughlin.com
Posted by Denise Coughlin on August 26,2009 | 02:34 PM