Medieval Town of Toruń

Copernicus was born in a Toruń townhouse, and the house still stands among the 14th- and 15th-century merchant buildings of a city grown rich in the Hanseatic League. It began earlier: the Teutonic Order raised a castle here in the mid-13th century as a springboard for its conquest of Prussia. Gothic brick, gingerbread bakeries and views over the Vistula complete the picture. UNESCO inscribed the medieval town in 1997.