Leaving Warsaw in the morning we headed to Torun, a 3-hour journey. The weather was dry but the wind was still very cold. It took a while to initially get out of the city on the main dual carriageways but then we were on the country lanes again and it was much nicer. We travelled through lots of fields, forests and small villages- seeing lots of stroke nests and even several in their nests. Apparently, Poland has 25% of the world's population of storks and in the spring they return back to Poland from spending winter in Africa. After an hour or so stopped at a small picnic spot on the edge of the river where there were lots of varieties of birds about. It was beautiful but bitter and unfortunately decided at that exact moment to tiny hailstorm on us. So after a quick stretch and a few snacks, we went back on the road, where thankfully it stopped quickly and we managed to outrun most of the other bad weather.
We did see more nature on the way too- with several deer flying across the road a few cars ahead. There were also lots of warning signs for moose/elk and for wild boar, things that I wouldn’t have necessarily associated with poland, we didn’t get to see any of these though. About an hour from Torun we filled up at a fuel station and grabbed a quick lunch, sharing a kilbasa in a roll- way nicer than it should have been and this helped warm us up for the last hour of the journey.
We arrived into Torun at 2ish, both very cold and were very grateful to have a hot shower in our Ibis budget hotel room. Torun was a good half way to break up our journey between Warsaw and Gdansk but it was also supposed to be a beautiful small town in its own right. Finally warmed up we headed out to explore the old town which was only a few minutes walk from our hotel. Sitting on the riverside, the Old Town is enclosed with several imposing old gates, and even has its own leaning tower. The cobblestoned streets hide lots of eateries as well as gingerbread shops and museums- which the area is famous for. The main square had several impressive churches and the town hall- all very different in their architecture. After spending a while mooching around and seeing the ruins of the old teutonic knights we headed to a restaurant which is known for their pierogis as we had no facilities to cook at all in the Ibis.
Photos: Torun town picture
This traditional looking restaurant (Pieogiarnia Stary Mlyn) had a variety of pierogi fillings as well as either steamed/fried or roasted varieties a bit more like cornish pasties. We ended up trying beef, pepper and onion roasted pieogis which were massive and cream cheese and potato steamed and fried pierogis. There was also traditional lemonade and mixed picked salads to cut through the stodge. All fantastic, but I struggled moving afterwards!! We only needed to waddle back to the room though and didn’t do much more with our evening after that.
In the morning we made the most of the Ibis budget breakfast- filling ourselves up for the day and also making some sandwiches to have for lunch later on in the day. As Gdasnk was only a couple of hours away we also had a very slow morning and didn’t check out until 11.30. Next we head to Gdansk for a night, our last stop in Poland!
Thanks
Alex
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