The Historic city of Torun

Covers from the historical city of Toruń , Poland 🇵🇱 with stamps related to Toruń , and cachets of the Copernicus house and museum ! 

Toruń is one of the oldest cities in Poland, with the first settlement dated back to the 8th century and later having been expanded in 1233 by the Teutonic Knights. It’s also called the City of Angels , Gingerbread city , and Copernicus Town. 

Believed to be one of the most beautiful cities in Europe, Toruń is renowned for the Museum of Gingerbread, whose baking tradition dates back nearly a millennium, and its large Cathedral. Toruń is noted for its very high standard of living and quality of life. Toruń is the birthplace of astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus. 

A brochure of Toruń showing the map of the medieval part of the city 

In 1997 the medieval part of the city was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Toruń has many monuments of architecture dating back to the Middle Ages. The city is famous for having preserved almost intact its medieval spatial layout and many Gothic buildings, all built from brick, including monumental churches, the Town Hall and many burgher houses. Toruń, unlike many other historic cities in Poland, escaped substantial destruction in World War II. Particularly left intact was the Old Town, all of whose important architectural monuments are originals, not reconstructions.

A postcard showing the statue of Nicolaus Copernicus 

Nicolaus Copernicus was a Renaissance-era mathematician and astronomer who formulated a model of the universe that placed the Sun rather than the Earth at the center of the universe

Stamps on Nicolaus Copernicus from Poland 

Brochures of the Copernicus house and the museum 

Toruń is home to a planetarium (located downtown) and an astronomical observatory(located in nearby community of Piwnice). The latter boasts the largest radio telescope in Central Europe with a diameter of 32 m (104.99 ft), second only to the Effelsberg 100 m (328.08 ft) radio telescope.

Postcard showing the various types of Toruń gingerbread 

Toruń is well known for Toruń gingerbread, a type of piernik often made in elaborate molds. Muzeum Piernika in Toruń is Europe's only museum dedicated to gingerbread. A considerable factor behind the development of gingerbread-making in Toruń was its excellent location. Situated on high-quality soil, the area provided fine wheat for flour, while nearby villages provided honey. The necessary spices were brought from remote countries, mainly India, via a route through the Black Sea and Lwów to the Holy Roman Empire, where the spices were transported by north-German trade companies.

I shall update the details of the stamps on the covers soon ! 

Thanks Wojtek for the two beautiful envelopes , postcards and stamps ! They all took me on a virtual tour of Toruń :) thanks so so much !