Day 8: Toruń

When we woke up in Poznan this morning I was relieved to see that it did indeed look a bit less wet than it had on Friday. Our train to Toruń wasn't until 10.30, so we had time for a lie in and a leisurely breakfast before setting off. It took just over 90 minutes to reach Toruń, so it was after midday by the time we stepped outside the main station.

Toruń wasn't a place I'd ever heard of before I started researching scenic day-trips from Poznan, but it's a really interesting place. Its medieval centre is a World Heritage Site and this sign also informed us that it's one of the seven wonders of Poland!

Toruń is located on the river Vistula, an enormous river which didn't have as much water in it as I expected after all the rain of this week.

The main station is on the opposite side of the river to the town centre which meant we had quite a long walk ahead of us. But it also meant that we had a great view of the town from a distance.

Our route took us on a large bridge across the river.

From here we could see that the river almost had a beach.

Once we'd crossed we walked along the opposite riverbank for a bit, outside of the town walls.

From here we were able to admire some of the gates into the old town.

Although it wasn't the sunniest of days, it was still a really pleasant place for a stroll.

Eventually we entered the town via one of the gates.

We found ourselves outside a hotel which had funny little sculptures in each of its windows

As we walked around we could see that the whole of the town centre was really pretty.

It didn't take long for us to track down the main square.

Here we found the first of many impressive brick buildings.

These towers belonged to the church of St James the Greater.

When you got up close, the decorations on the outside of it were really unusual.

This other red brick church nearby was the Assumption of Mary church.

And this particularly impressive building was the town hall.

Outside the town hall there is a statue of Nicolaus Copernicus, who was born in Toruń in 1473.

The whole town centre was really beautiful.

This huge building is apparently the central post office, though it looks like it should be something grander.

Our train back to Poznan was booked for 4pm, so we needed to find somewhere to get a late lunch. We eventually went into a bar where we shared a pizza...

...and had ice-cream inside frozen fruit  Mine was lemon ice-cream inside a frozen lemon, while Tim's was inside a coconut.

Then it was time to start the long walk back across the bridge towards the main train station. Toruń is a really pretty town with lots of history - it would be nice to visit again one day in better weather