Copernicus, and a walk in the Lodz

The trains are not very frequent in Poland but they are reliable and comfortable. It's a two and a half hour journey to the city of Torun. It lies on a broad stretch of the Vistula (Wisla) which runs right through the middle of the country. It seems to have suffered little war damage so what we see now is a wealth of striking Gothic architecture, from the 15th to the 19th centuries. Torun is the birthplace of the great astronomer Copernicus, who concluded that the earth goes round the sun, not the other way round.

A couple of days later we are on to Lodz (which with the various accents in the Polish language is pronounced "Woodsh". It's decidedly off the tourist path; in the 19th century it became an important industrial metropolis, mainly in the textile business. What amazes us is that so much of the city seems to have survived not just the ravages of WWII but also any 1960s developers who laid waste to so much of Britain at the time. Hence the 3 km. long and mostly pedestrianised Piotrkowska is a living museum to Victorian-age pomp. Not forgetting the statues of Artur Rubinstein and of three prominent industrialists.Read more