You see Torun first across the river Vistula, the river which flows through the heart of Poland from Warsaw to the sea. The river is a slash of grey, with the raw red of the ramparts above it, and at your back is the rolling plain. But it’s the triumphant assertion of the great church towers and spires that catches the breath - blatant red brick and shiny metal.

The Torun you see today is a rich merchant town of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries; a Torun that had grown rich enough, and powerful enough, to turn its back on the Germans with the revolt of 1454, and never look back. The Old Town was the centre of the merchants’ power - in the streets down by the river the old warehouses remind you where the wealth came from that built the church towers.

Here in the Old Town, the merchants of Torun created a town square that is grander than even the great market square of Krakow. (It is not as big as Krakow’s. But then, size isn’t everything.) The Ratusz (town hall) dominates the square; it seems almost as if the square isn’t quite big enough for it. There’s enough space, but the small houses and palaces around the square just can’t compete with the blunt assertion of the town hall and its gothic tower. Built in the fourteenth century, while the town was still under German rule, it has been rebuilt and redecorated through the centuries, but essentially it’s hardly changed.

The houses round the square repay a leisurely inspection, once you’ve recovered from the massive impact of the Ratusz. The ‘House under the Star’ (Pod Gwiadza) rejoices with ornate baroque swags and ornament; others are more classical. These were the mansions of the merchants of the town; the Old Town was theirs.

The craftsmen, less wealthy and socially a grade lower, had their own town and their own town square - the New Town. ‘New’ in Torun has its own meaning, though, since the New Town was founded in 1264, only thirty-one years after the foundation of the Old Town. They did have their own Town Hall, too - but it was pulled down last century, and a Protestant church stands in its place.

The three Gothic churches of Torun are its great glory; great brick barns and basilicas. Put the map away, and instead play the game of finding them by their towers and gables, by stray glimpses between the walls of houses, or at the end of a street. It will not be too difficult.

St Mary’s and St Johns’ (dedicated to both Johns - the Baptist and the Evangelist: I wonder how they would have got on, had they ever met?) are the churches of the Old Town; both are high, impressive, a little austere on the outside. Inside, stained glass, murals, pretty baroque altars lighten the tone.

St James’s, in the New Town, could never quite compete with the bulk of these churches, but instead it seems to have gone to town on pinnacles and parapets, delicacy rather than bulk. You may imagine, if you like, some master mason, smiling and even gloating a little as he thinks how annoyed those snobbish merchants will be. The family resemblance is still there, though, as it is in all the public buildings of the town; a striving for height, an impression of solidity.

But seeing Torun in terms of ’sights’ is misleading. It’s the sort of town which is only appreciated by walking it; the grid pattern of the Old Town, the narrowness of the streets that run down to the river, full of old warehouses and grain stores. Down Piekary there are old granaries, and a leaning tower ; on Podmurna, more granaries and an old Gothic mansion or two. There’s a roughcut, functional feeling to this architecture that makes Torun more than just a picture postcard.

Torun seems to be full of interesting museums. There’s a museum of oriental art in the Pod Gwiadza house; a regional museum in the town hall (and a restaurant under it); and an open-air museum to the north of the town, showing the rural architecture of the region. The Dom Eskenow, which also houses a museum, is a gothic mansion along one of the streets that run down to the river; intriguingly, it was converted into a granary in the nineteenth century.

And of course there is a museum - as well as a statue in the Old Town Square - to commemmorate Torun’s most famous son, Copernicus. The house in which he was born has been remodelled into a museum, perhaps more interesting for its interiors than for the exhibition, though some of the astronomical instruments are intriguing. Naturally, the house is to be found in Ul. Kopernika.

There’s also a statue of Copernicus in the town square. Someone told me it was the only one in Poland, but that’s true; there’s one in Warsaw, as well, at the end of Krakowskie Prxzedmiescie just before it becomes Nowy Swiat.

Torun today is a marvellous monument to the late Middle Ages, the ages of the merchants and the craft guilds. But it was the Teutonic Knights who started this settlement; and far in the south west corner of the town, by the river, the low brockwork foundations of their fortress are still to be seen.