#1. Torun
If you’ve spent your time so far in Poland jostling with the stag and hen crowds in Kraków and wandering Warsaw’s concrete, then Torun will come as a mini-revelation.
This magnificently walled Gothic town on the Vistula should be high on every traveller’s list, possibly as its delights seem low on everyone else’s, leaving visitors who make it here to revel unrestricted in its wealth of red-brick buildings, Unesco-listed sites and medieval city defences, all of which WWII mercifully decided to ignore.
Beyond architecture, Torun is also well known as the birthplace of Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543). His name (Mikolaj Kopernik in Polish) is all over town, and you can even buy gingerbread shaped in his image. This other Torun icon – its pierniki (gingerbread) – is famous across Poland.