House of Nicolaus Copernicus — Attraction in Toruń

Honestly, not worth it. I don’t usually leave negative Google reviews, but my experience here was pretty bad.

For one, the museum really was not particularly informative about Nicholas Copernicus. I get that it was 500 years ago and sometimes details are lost to history, plus this isn’t really where he made any of his calculations and discoveries, but still, they could have spent some time diving into who he was and how his upbringing may have affected who he became. Instead, There were a few hard-to-navigate iPad displays with a few paragraphs about his family in the very first room, and then everything else was pretty much just an example of a typical house of that era. That’s fine, but it’s not what I journeyed to Toruń to discover.

But even worse: the whole house was just utterly and completely clogged up by tour groups with no sense of letting individual travelers move around them and experience the home and loud, nasal-voiced tour guide guides who completely obstructed me from being able to hear the relatively few audio presentations.

It also didn’t help that it literally took me 10 minutes of standing at the ticket desk to buy my ticket, because the clerk was so busy processing some silly VAT receipt thing for the tour group ahead of me. This was a bit annoying, because I only had about 45 minutes before I had to leave to catch a train. Although ultimately, I couldn’t wait to get out of that museum fast enough, so the lost time really wasn’t a problem in the end.

At the very tail end of the exhibit, it did look like they had tried to implement some more immersive exhibits (with some projectors and dark rooms) that had the potential to create the sense of awe and wonder of the sky that Copernicus surely experienced in his youth, but they were done in a pretty half hearted fashion. If I were the curator of this museum, I would have started the exhibit with those types of experiences and led people into a sense of curiosity about the heavens, exploring who Copernicus was and what made him tick before then finishing with an idea of what the house may have looked like when he was there.

But as it stands, I left the museum really having learned next to nothing about Copernicus himself or even really what his discoveries were and very little about anything else of interest. Even though I have an interest in the sciences and generally appreciate paying homage to important places in scientific history like this, I honestly can’t recommend it. I guess it’s cheap enough that if you want to duck in just to say you’ve been here, you should, but don’t expect to get much out of...

Pretty cool, this is the house where Copernicus was born. It has a lot of things to read about science and the man himself. English as well, of course, which is great. There's a 4D movie as well. Though keep in mind that they have Polish and English projections so I recommend asking the people in the entrance about it. They have 3 different movies and you can pick one just before it starts. The movie I've seen is about Copernicus and his history, but they have another movie about the Universe. I don't know what the third one's about since only the first two were recommended to us by the lady. The 4D element is only in the chairs that move up and down. It's really nothing special so don't be afraid of missing out. And one of the chairs (on which I happened to be sitting on) didn't work properly when it rose to its max height, making constant slight jumping movements, which was a bit loud, annoying and distracting. A big part of the house doesn't have anything to do with Copernicus' house but just the houses at that time in general. It's also interesting, but I only wish more windows were open on the top floors to look out of. As it is, it just doesn't offer...

Great museum with cheerful and accommodating staff and terrific exhibitions. I was amazed how well everything was preserved and organised.

It was a pleasant upgrade that warmed my heart - being able to use not only a Polish audio-guide but also a Ukrainian one, with the full and perfect Ukrainian translation, and with a masterful audio recorded by the translator herself - the Ukrainian historian.

As I learned more about this wonderful cooperation, I would like to say an additional Thank You to all those who made it possible, first of all my own country's Embassy of Ukraine in Poland and Professor Historian Iryna Matiash, and, of course, the House of Nicolaus Copernicus and its Director Michał Kłosiński, and the Director of the Regional Museum of Toruń Aleksandra Mierzejewska.

Thanks to the staff, I also found out that the original of the portrait was temporarily joining an exhibition in the Town Hall and visit it as well.

I hope to visit the House of Nicolaus Copernicus again and see the extension of this marvelous cooperation when Polish Museums sound in my native...