Toruń

Young Chopin, just as Napoleon, was probably shown the house in Kopernika Street No. 40 as the place of birth of the great astronomer. Today, tourists are shown another house located in Kopernika Street, namely the house No. 15. He was truly enchanted by the Gothic, as he had never seen such an accumulation of Gothic churches, tenement houses, granaries, gates and defence walls. He looked with admiration and explored thoroughly both the interior and exterior of the town hall and in a letter to his family he wrote that “the entire edifice is the most magnificent example of the Gothic style”.

The city fortifications of those times included not only medieval defence walls but also modern fortifications. Entering the city from the east, Fryderyk Chopin must have noticed St. James’s Fort, which was a new building at that time. It was not covered by trees and the road used to run along the fort. Close to the pool of Kaszownik, which used to be larger than now, Chopin must have seen fortifications such as a lunette, a complex of bastions surrounding the city and gunpowder stores (one of them still exists in ul. Wola Zamkowa). Strolling along the Vistula, Chopin could admire the cofferdam No. 1 in the eastern part of Toruń and the cofferdam No. 5 and 6 in the western part of the city (the latter still exist and can be found next to the northern abutment of the road bridge). Chopin had an opportunity to attend a service in St. Nicolas Church, as the church was converted to a store by Prussian authorities five years later. However, he could not see the former Dominican monastery attached to the church, as the monastery had been dismantled at the beginning of the 19th century and replaced by a military bakery (existing until now).

Visiting the New Town Market, Frycek must have noticed the new Evangelical church and new barracks upon the Vistula river (presently converted into a hotel). In the Old Town Market there used to be a different Evangelical church (the present Holy Ghost Church) without its tower at that time and on the site of dismantled old Artus Court there was an empty yard and some debris. Walking from the Old Town to the New Town he could not have seen the dismantled Kotlarska and Paulińska gates, however, he must have seen the Bydgoska and Chełmińska gates. Outside the medieval defense walls there had not been such churches as the Holy Ghost Church and St. Catherine’s Church located behind the gates with the same names, as they had been dismantled by Prussian authorities. The present St. Catherine’s Square had been an empty yard used for military drill at that time. There had also been no trace of St. George’s Church (in 2009 its foundations were discovered next to Uniwersam supermarket) and St. Lawrence’s Church (in the square in front of the Open-air Museum), which had been dismantled a year before Chopin’s visit to Toruń.

During his stay in Toruń, Fryderyk Chopin lived in the tenement house of the Fenger family located in Mostowa 14. Ludwika Skarbek nee Fenger, the owner of Żelazowa Wola, was born in Toruń just as her son Fryderyk, who spend his childhood with his grandparents and later became a godfather to the only son of the Chopin family. In order to commemorate the composer’s visit in Toruń, a commemorating plate was embedded in the building with the following inscription: “Fryderyk Chopin stayed in this house in 1825”. Next to the plate commemorating Chopin’s visit there is another plate dedicated to Fryderyk Skarbek.