Poland: Torun

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Tuesday 20th June

A stifling hot day and we are on the move again, this time to the historic city of Torun. Torun, another Unesco World Heritage Site is the best preserved gothic town in Poland as it suffered very little damage during the war. We found our accommodation, a bungalow in the local campsite, very quickly as it's almost next to the station. This kind of accommodation is so popular in Poland and is incredibly cheap. We were soaked with sweat as the temperatures and humidity were unreal today. We cooled down with a beer, a new brand, and discovered the alcohol content was a whopping 7.5%. Pretty high for beer. After only half I wanted to sleep, so I did - whilst David went to watch Poland's last attempt in the soccer world cup! Later in the evening I joined him and 2 locals in the campsite, who had rigged up a TV outside their bungalow, to watch England and Sweden play! Crazy what people do for the soccer. It was a fantastic night as these 2 Polish guys went totally out of their way, in fact insisted, that we eat the food from their barbeque and drink their beer. Their hospitality knows no bounds once they decide they enjoy your company. Amazing.

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Wed 21st June

Gothic Torun. Yet another fascinating ancient 13th/14th century town on the Vistula River. We followed a walking tour route [independantly], which wound it's way past leaning towers, the old graneries, monastery gates, the Cathedral, palances, city gates, remnants of city walls, ruins of castles and churches. Everything in this place has been left almost untouched for 700 to 800 years. A large part of the town is totally preserved from way back when and there is an air of going back in time in certain sections, as you wander amongst the ruins and through the old city gates. As is the norm for many European old towns, tourism has hit hard, so unfortunately you have to duck and dive tour groups. Fortunately Torun is not too bad [yet] in this respect as it's not [yet] on the main tourist trail. It's fairly easy at the moment to find a quiet and magical part of town where you can soak up the atmosphere and allow your imaginatin to dream up images of horses hooves on cobbled pavements. Of armoured soldiers up in the battlements and of women and children going about their daily chores in and around the narrow streets. Torun is an incredibly ancient and mystical town to visit and shouldn't be missed. We returned to the campsite and experienced an amazing thunderstorm which managed to blow down numerous trees in the camp! At least it cooled down a bit.

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Thursday 22nd June

Chillout, relax and recoup day. Really necessary on a trip like this when it's " go, go, go.." all the time. We found a short walk through the forest next to the river which then took us back into the old town where we just sat, people watched and drank Polish beer!! A good day. Returned to the campsite for another barbeque with our Polish neighbours.