Old Town

Old Town (Stare Miasto),  is the oldest historic area of the city. It is bounded by Wybrzeże Gdańskie, along the bank of the Vistula, and by Grodzka, Mostowa and Podwale Streets. It is one of Warsaw’s most prominent tourist attractions.

The heart of the area is the Old Town Market Place, with its restaurants, cafés and shops. Surrounding streets feature medieval architecture such as the city walls, the Barbican and St. John’s Cathedral.

The Old Town Market Place (Rynek Starego Miasta), which dates back to the end of the 13th century, is the true heart of the Old Town, and until the end of the 18th century it was the heart of all of Warsaw. Here the representatives of guilds and merchants met in the Town Hall (built before 1429, pulled down in 1817), and fairs and the occasional execution were held. The houses around it represented the Gothic style until the great fire of 1607, after which they were rebuilt in late-Renaissance style.

Castle Square (Plac Zamkowy) is a visitor’s first view of the reconstructed Old Town, when approaching from the more modern center of Warsaw. It is an impressive sight, dominated by Zygmunt’s Column, which towers above the beautiful Old Town houses. Enclosed between the Old Town and the Royal Castle, Castle Square is steeped in history. Here was the gateway leading into the city called the Kraków Gate (Brama Krakowska). It became to develop in the 14th century and continued to be a defensive area for the kings. The square was in its glory in the 17th century when Warsaw became to country capital. And it was here that in 1644 King Władysław IV erected the column to glorify his father Sigismund III Vasa, who is best known for moving the capital of Poland from Kraków to Warsaw.

Canon Square (plac Kanonia), behind St. John’s Cathedral, is a small triangular square. Its name comes from the 17th-century tenement houses which belonged to the canons of the Warsaw chapter. Some of these canons were quite famous, like Stanisław Staszic who was the co-author of the Constitution of May 3, 1791. Formerly, it was a parochial cemetery, of which there remains a Baroque figure of Our Lady from the 18th century. In the middle of the square, the bronze bell of Warsaw, that Grand Crown Treasurer Jan Mikołaj Daniłowicz, founded in 1646 for the Jesuit Church in Jarosław. The bell was cast in 1646 by Daniel Tym – the designer of the Zygmunt’s Column. Where the Canonicity meets Royal Square there is a covered passage built for Queen Anna Jagiellon in the late 16th century and extended in the 1620s after Michał Piekarski’s failed 1620 attempt to assassinate King Sigismund III Vasa as he was entering the Cathedral. Also the thinnest house in Warsaw is located here.

UNESCO World Heritage Site

Warsaw’s Old Town has been placed on the UNESCO‘s list of World Heritage Sites as “an outstanding example of a near-total reconstruction of a span of history covering the 13th to the 20th century.

Attractions old town, old town market square, stare miasto warsaw, unesco, unesco heritage site, warsaw, warsaw attractions, warsaw city guide, warsaw old town