The Baroque Church of the Holy Spirit (Kościoł św Ducha) in the Old Market
Square was built in the mid-18th century for the Protestant community of
Toruń. It was begun by Andreas Adam Bähr, and completed by Ephraim
Schroeger.

These two Gothic town houses from the 15th century are outstanding examples
of Hanseatic merchants’ houses. The painted façades and fine carving of the
arched gables bear witness to the city’s former wealth. The house at No. 17
was that of Mikołaj Kopernik, a merchant and the father of the boy who was
to become the famous astronomer. The house, although it may not be the one
in which the younger Mikołaj was born, is now a museum.

The Crooked Tower is one of Toruń’s greatest attractions. It is part of the
town’s old fortifications system, and was probably built in the first half
of the 14th century. Although it leans significantly from the perpendicular,
the floors that were added later are perfectly level – so that beer glasses
in the pub that it now houses can be set down on the tables without danger
of sliding off.

The most remarkable of the many Gothic granaries still standing in Toruń is
that on the corner of Ulica Piekary and Ulica Rabiańska. Although the
granary was rebuilt in the 19th century, it retains its towering ornamental
gable with fine pointed arches.

The palace was built by the Bishop Stanisław Dąmbski in 1693. In the 19th
century it was converted into a hotel and then into a mess for military
officers. Subsequent restoration work undid the damage inflicted by these
conversions and returned the building to its former elegance. It is now the
Academy of Fine Arts.

The origins of the Cathedral of Saints John the Baptist and John the
Evangelist (Kościoł śś Janów) go back to 1250. The oldest surviving part of
the cathedral is the presbytery. The nave, with its numerous side chapels,
was completed by Hans Gotland in about 1500, long after the tower had been
finished in 1433. The interior is a treasury of art. The presbytery contains
some fine 16th-century mural paintings. There are also altars, chandeliers,
stained-glass windows, sculpture and many paintings. In one of the side
chapels in the south aisle is the Gothic font where Nicolaus Copernicus was
baptized and a memorial to him of about 1580. He was buried in Frombork Cathedral.

Little more than ruins remain of the castle that the Teutonic Knights built
in Toruń. Before the castle at Malbork was built, Toruń was the knights’
capital.

The castle was built in the 13th century and extended in the 14th. However,
it was destroyed in 1454 when the people of Toruń rose up in rebellion
against the knights. Only the latrine tower – a tower overhanging a stream
that acted as a sewer – were left standing, although part of the cellars and
cloisters survive. The late Gothic house that was built on the site in 1489,
probably with materials scavenged from the castle, was the meeting house of
the Brotherhood of St George.

The new town emerged as a separate civic entity in 1264. Although it does not
have as many historic buildings as the old town, there is a good deal of
interest here. In summer the square is filled with fruit and vegetable
stalls.

In the centre, where the town hall once stood, is a former Protestant church,
built in 1824, probably by the German architect Karl Friedrich Schinkel. It
has been converted into a gallery of contemporary art. Fine houses, some
with ornate façades like that of the Baroque house at No. 17, surround the
square.

On the corner of Ulica Królowej Jadwigi and the square is the Golden Lion
pharmacy, a brick-built house originating in the 15th century.

The Gothic Church of St James (Kościoł św Jakuba) was built in the first half
of the 14th century as the new town’s parish church. It was first used by
Cistercian monks, and then by Benedictines. It contains wall paintings of
the second half of the 14th century. In the south aisle is a late
14th-century Gothic Crucifix in the form of the Tree of Life, in which the
figure of Christ is nailed to the branches of a tree containing the figures
of the prophets. Above the rood beam is a rare depiction of the Passion of
about 1480–90, consisting of 22 scenes of the Stations of the Cross.

The museum contains fishing tools and folk art. There is also a skansen , in which wooden houses from the region of Kujawy,
Pomerania and Ziemia Dobrzyńska are displayed.