Bulwar Torun

... no money in the pocket, the forest my chosen nightly home...

Convinced of the rightiously of my chosen life style I leave the Imbiss cycling back down the road, back to that small forest I discovered a few kilometer before reaching Torun, back to that small lake where the forest frogs were huge and bold, their loud frog communication will be the music to my weary ears that I heard last night while drinking beer with ...

... also got a Leaning Tower, like the one in Piza. The difference is mostly in the size (the one in Toruń is obviously smaller) and the style: the Leaning Tower of Toruń is a simple Roman tower that started to lean immediately after its construction due to the instable ground on which it had been erected.

You can take a boat cruise on the Vistula, or go for a walk along its banks The asphalt terraces that step into the river serve as an excellent place ...

... lights up. I search for a non-smoking cabin (train is moderately full and my 2 backpacks take up lots of overhead space). Even in non-smoking cabins, people smoke. They just have to leave the cabin (these are couchettes? Which are individual cabins with 8 seats but can only fit 4 – 6 comfortably.). Smoking is in bars, clubs … I can't escape it.

Torun is a striking Gothic town. Unlike Gdansk and much of Poland, Torun was not devastated by bombing in ...

... a pariah but of course he proved his theory and is now considered to be a genius. They are quite proud of Copernicus in Torun and you see his likeness everywhere. You can even buy gingerbread men in the shape of him (well its supposed to look like him but to me it mostly looks like blob of gingerbread with a head on it to make it look like a human). Gingerbread is the other thing Torun is known for. You see a lot of gingerbread shops in the Old ...

The night I get to the ecclesiastic main town of Polan: Toruń. It has a medieval centre recognized by the UNESCO, and a huge Rynek with a nice town hall in the middle. This was the native town of Copernic, and lived for 7 years in one its houses. There is some teutonic castle in ruins and some protection walls. The river walk is also very ...

Back in the car we go and it's off to Lipno we go. We get there and get to the cemntary. Lines of cars and people everywhere. We survey the 2 sites and buy flowers and candles. We get to the the first stop and pay our respects. We than go to our 2nd stop and notice that someone has placed all these flowers on the grave (they were not there before). I'm pretty sure Dad and I were thinking the same thing. Who are these jack ass's placing all ...

... soup at a little local cafe one lunchtime. Very filling - i would love to take some polish cooking classes as i love paprika flavoured food. yum yum Torun is a very small town with an old town that you could walk around in 1/2 day but i took my time and enjoyed the sights and smells! Went up the town hall tower (just when the bells were tolling - oh my eardrums) and into the regional museum, more like a ...

My god, I can't believe it has taken me this long to finally discover the wonder that is free wireless internet. I've been staying with my family for the 2 days since I've gotten back from Germany and I realized the monumental amount of work I had piled up so I decided to go for a wee trip to the Internet Cafe in Lipno. But given the fact the stupid ******* was closed (I mean come on, if you can't manage to open by the time I drag myself out of bed, there's something wrong) and the ...

Anywho, we made it to Torun and i was extra pleased cause i got to see my girlfriend Milena. We met up with our Polish pals and hit the town to a nice bar called 'Beka' where i bought a huge round of 10 beers that came to just over a tenner, gotta love Polish prices, get there quick people, with the introduction of the Euro jus round the corner it's guaranteed to increase in price. 04/01/06 We went for a wonder ...

... pionniers though it, too, is made of red bricks. In other news, I'm pleased to report that the Adapto-matic 2004 is working fine, allowing my widdle brain to process the fact that while yes, in some countries "bar" means "alcohol", in other places it can mean "a plateful of pierogi for less than a dollar seventy-five". To give you an idea how cheap things are here, I'm paying less than 10 dollars for my dorm bed and soft lemon ice-cream is about 50 cents.