Team Basil had a nice relaxing start to the day, today. The luxury of a whole day to explore just a small Polish town. Sarah eased herself into the day with a mere 3,000 step walk and I with a nice cup of tea!
Then we had a mini crisis. As part of our route we have to get a ferry from Estonia to Finland. The only alternative, a short journey through Russia, is a non-starter, mainly because of the difficulty of getting a Russian visa as we found out on our visit two years ago. While I was having my cup of tea I started getting quotes for the ferry. Much to my alarm, out of the three companies plying the route, one did not take dogs at this time of year; the second required the dogs to stay, on their own, in Basil for the three hour duration, which regular readers of this blog will realise is not a possibility; and the third would not do online quotes for pets.
When Sarah arrived I explained the dilemma and we agreed we needed to get this sorted before doing anything else, because if we could not get a ferry then our next turn needed to be west to get to Norway through Denmark and Sweden, rather than east which is our plan for tomorrow. I rang the ferry company and all went well until I mentioned the dogs. The salesperson then asked me to hold, which I had to do for 10 minutes or more before she came back on the line to tell me we could take the dogs on the ferry if we had a special dog friendly cabin. With all other options exhausted we agreed to the €280 price for a 3 hour ferry journey.
Crisis averted we headed into Torun. Torun is a UNESCO World Heritage site, largely I suspect because it managed, like Krackow, to avoid damage during the Second World War and therefore has a complete old town. It’s origins are interesting, but I will try to be brief. To begin at the beginning the Teutonic Knights were the military wing of a holy order formed in the 12th century to protect pilgrims travelling to Jerusalem during the crusades. In thanks they were given lands in Germany and were then employed by northern European monarchs to help defend their lands against islam and then to expand Christian lands around the Baltic and further afield. Torun was founded in 1233 as a town of the Teutonic Order until the Kings of Poland had had enough of them and eventually kicked them out. Torun then became an important trading city and part of the Hanseatic League of Baltic and North Sea trading towns. This gives an interesting, and tenuous, link to me. One of the few official Hanseatic League trading posts in Britain was my home town of Boston, Lincolnshire!
Torun old town from across the Vistula
Enough history. The result is that Torun has a beautiful and original old town, with many buildings dating from the 14th century and earlier.
Torun Market Square and Town Hall
Our walk into the town was longer than I had anticipated. Our campsite is situated on the banks of the Vistula river just opposite Torun’s old town. What I didn’t realise was how wide the Vistula is at this point. I took us 30 minutes to get to the market square.
Torun Town Hall
What immediately struck me was the similarity between the town square and parts of the old town and other towns of a similar age we have visited in Belgium, like Antwerp, Brussels, Bruges etc. I suppose this should be no surprise given the close trading links between the Baltic towns and those in the Netherlands (sorry Belgium).
Torun
Sarah was immediately impressed because the the whole market square was surrounded by small craft stalls which she was able to browse. Melek was even more delighted because people buying from the food stalls had dropped bits everywhere and his proximity to the ground seemed give him a head start in winkling out tit bits from between the cobbles!
Torun
Torun
The tourist office was supremely unhelpful when asked for suggestions for a walking route around their city. They simply gave me a map with numbered buildings and said follow the numbers, which were not in any particular order. So we made up our own route to take in all the numbered buildings.
Torun
We were mightily impressed. I would say Torun is an undiscovered gem of northern Europe and one worth a visit by anyone. We have now visited many of the famous old towns of northern Europe: Tallin, Riga, Krakow, Brussels, Ghent, Antwerp, Bruges and others and I would say that Torun deserves to be mentioned in the same breath as all of them. I don’t know if there are any cheap flights to Torun, but if there are it has the makings of a great long weekend. Beautiful architecture, many museums and a wide selection of restaurants and bars. This is one of our favourite discoveries of the trip so far.
Torun
When lunchtime came we decided we just wanted a sandwich. I was tempted by a stall in the marketplace selling pork dripping sandwiches, but they didn’t really suit Sarah. We tried several restaurants but they were all just selling large hot meals. So we eventually settled for a place specialising in savoury pancakes. These turned out to be absolutely delicious but enormous and after I had persuaded Sarah to share a gingerbread and plum liqueur sweet pancake we were both absolutely stuffed. We may have missed out on Shrove Tuesday as we made our way down through France but we certainly made up for it today!
Sarah and Mable with Melek hiding