Olsztyn
— — a castle town once held by Copernicus.
Not only on a wall.
“In the lake country of Warmia, north-east of Warsaw, on the Łyna River. The brick castle at the centre was finished in 1353 by the Warmian Chapter, and from 1516 to 1521 it was administered by Nicolaus Copernicus, who left a meridian line he drew on the cloister wall. Eleven lakes sit inside the city limits. Pine forest reaches the edge of every district.
Olsztyn, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
Olsztyn is the capital of the Warmian-Masurian Voivodeship, sitting on the Łyna River in north-east Poland about 200 kilometres north of Warsaw and 175 kilometres south of Gdańsk. The city covers roughly 88 square kilometres, with a population near 170,000, and holds eleven lakes within its administrative boundary — most notably Lake Ukiel on the western edge. The historic centre is built around the brick-Gothic Castle of the Warmian Chapter, completed in 1353, and the cobbled Old Town that grew beside it through the fifteenth century.
The Castle of the Warmian Chapter is a brick-Gothic fortress, raised between 1346 and 1353 above a bend of the Łyna. Nicolaus Copernicus administered the estates of the chapter from the castle between 1516 and 1521, and personally directed its defence against the Teutonic Knights during the siege of 1521. A meridian line he drew on the cloister wall to track the spring equinox survives in place — one of only two original Copernicus astronomical instruments left in situ anywhere in Europe.
Eleven lakes sit inside Olsztyn's city limits, a density unusual for any European city of its size. The largest is Lake Ukiel — also called Lake Krzywe — covering 412 hectares on the western edge, with a city beach, a sailing club, and a pine-shaded ring path. The Łyna River cuts north through the centre, eventually joining the Pregolya in Kaliningrad and reaching the Vistula Lagoon. The forested Las Miejski wraps the southern districts and holds the city's last red deer population.