Gingerbread Town

November was a busy month! I've been working a few Saturdays for a test prep class at my school, I've done a little substitute teaching, and I've gotten two new students for separate tutoring sessions, so I've been in high demand at work. Even though I'm new to full-time teaching and by no means an expert yet, being one of the native English speakers at the school automatically makes me really useful, which is a nice thing to be! I'm catching up on the last few trips I took over the past month, so stay tuned!

I've gotten pretty comfortable here in Elblag, and now that I know my way around public transportation, I'm starting to venture out a little farther from town on the weekends. For my first trip, I visited Toruń, a town about 4 hours south of Elblag. Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland. It was the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus as well as a former hangout of the Teutonic Knights who built Malbork. It survived most of the destruction of World War II, so much of the architecture in the Old Town dates back to the medieval times. There are three huge Gothic churches, St. John's, St. Mary's, and St. James', the Old Town Hall in the city's main square which dates back to 1274, and the ruins of another castle used by the Teutonic knights in the city.

Unfortunately the weather was pretty foggy the day I went, but I still managed to find all the major sights. Along with the old churches and buildings in Old Town, Toruń has a famous leaning tower which was built in the 14th century. When it started leaning in the Middle Ages thanks to the unstable ground, no one bothered to do anything about it. Luckily, it's been stable ever since. The tradition is to lean against the wall with the back of your feet touching the bottom of the tower and try to keep your balance. It's actually really hard!

Torun's leaning tower

Yep, definitely leaning

Stare Miasto - Old Town

A church choir practicing with Copernicus

Some miniature Teutonic Knights

Old Town Hall

I spotted these funny figures on top of one of the old walls

St. Mary's Church

I also wandered into the other castle built by the Teutonic knights. Toruń's castle was much smaller than the one in Malbork, but I climbed around on the ruins and looked at the exhibits for a little while. I went into the basement of the castle to look at some exhibits, and as I was wandering through the rooms, I walked right into the most terrifying mannequins I'd ever seen. It turns out that the castle hosts a haunted house every year around Halloween, and they had yet to take the decorations down! I laughed about it, but only after I ran out of there!

Besides its historical sights, Toruń also happens to be famous for 'pierniki' known as gingerbread in English. There's a museum dedicated solely to the making of gingerbread in the town. It's quite an art form. Apparently when the composer Frederic Chopin was visiting Toruń back in the 1820s, he said something like, 'All these famous historical sights in Toruń are cool, but it's the gingerbread that's impressed me the most!' You can get really elaborate gingerbread designs from the bakeries in Toruń. I went into a bakery to buy some gingerbread, and was overwhelmed by the selection. I ended up asking for one of each type of gingerbread cookie to try (each one had a different filling like marmalade inside). It was my souvenier!