Great Astronomers
Copernicus
Torun, Poland (2006)
In late October of 2006, I took a train ride from Berlin to Poland with my cousin Jerry. He was going to travel to some eastern European country, and suggested that I could travel with him. I selected Poland, specifically to go to Torun, and he agreed to modify his plans and go together. More photos of the trip can be found on my vacation page, but additional Copernicus details are shown here.
Torun is not a large city, and it was easy to walk around town and look for interesting sites.
In the main square in Torun is this nice statue of Copernicus.
The statue is also a general meeting place for school tour groups. Jerry is pretending to fit in with the much younger Polish students.
I've finally reached my goal of visiting the homes of all the major early astronomers! Jerry and I both toured the Copernicus Home museum, where Copernicus was born and lived his early years. Photos were not allowed inside, and part of the outside facade was undergoing restoration, but I was thrilled to be in Poland and visit this historic site at last.
Just a block away was the Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Baptist and St. John the Evangelist. It is a small church with the baptismal font that was probably used to christen Copernicus. I found this by accident, due my interest in European cathedrals.
Bertel Thorvaldsen's statue of a seated Copernicus holding an armillary sphere, before the Staszic Palace, seat of the Polish Academy of Sciences, in Warsaw. This statue was just next to the church where Chopin's heart is kept, which I saw for my wife's interest. The road around the statue was under construction, so I could not get any better view than this one.
In Weil der Stadt, Germany, Kepler's monument includes a statue of Copernicus. See the Kepler page for the full monument.
Still to come: visits to Copernicus' final resting place in Frombork, northern Poland. The next time I visit Poland, Carol wants to emphasize the musical side, and Frombork is not too far from Warsaw. Also, there might be some places worth looking into in Padua, Italy, where Galileo lived. That city is already on my list of places to visit.
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