Warsaw Old Town

The Old Town (Stare Miasto) of Warsaw is a district that was almost entirely destroyed during the Second World War and subsequently rebuilt from ruins using original plans, photographs, and the memories of survivors, making it one of the most remarkable acts of urban reconstruction in modern history. The baroque Old Town Market Square (Rynek Starego Miasta), the heart of the district, was razed block by block during the German occupation of Warsaw between 1939 and 1944, and what visitors see today is a meticulous post-war reconstruction completed mainly between 1950 and 1970.

The reconstruction was guided by the paintings of Canaletto, the eighteenth-century Venetian view painter whose vedute of Warsaw captured the facades and rooftop silhouettes that masons and architects used as templates for the rebuilt city, along with the measurements and documentation preserved by the Polish Army in exile. The square is surrounded by colourful merchant townhouses rebuilt in their historical forms, with the Mermaid Statue (Syrenka) at its centre, Warsaw's iconic symbol, cast in bronze in 1855 and now replicated across the city. The Barbican and the city walls that defended this quarter from the sixteenth century onward were also destroyed and rebuilt, and the full circuit of the medieval defensive circuit is now walkable as a heritage promenade.

The Royal Route that begins at the Old Town and runs south through the Castle Square to the Royal Łazienki Park was the processional way of the Polish monarchy, and its townhouses were rebuilt with particular care because they house some of Warsaw's most important cultural institutions, including the Museum of the History of Polish Jews, which opened in the rebuilt building in 2014. The Royal Castle itself, which stands at the entrance to the Old Town, was reconstructed after being almost entirely destroyed in 1944 and now houses a museum with interiors that include original works from the Polish monarchy's collection, including paintings by Rembrandt and Bellotto, and the signed Polish constitution of 3 May 1791, the first constitution of its kind in modern Europe.

The Castle Square in front of the Royal Castle is Warsaw's most symbolically charged public space, where hundreds of thousands gathered in 1989 for the first mass celebrated by Pope John Paul II after his election and which was the focal point of the Solidarity movement's struggle against communist rule. The Old Town was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1980 in recognition of the extraordinary effort and fidelity to original forms that went into its reconstruction, and visiting it today means inhabiting a city that is simultaneously centuries old and a product of the twentieth century's most determined acts of cultural resistance.

It is the world's most famous example of post-war urban reconstruction, rebuilt from ruins with extraordinary fidelity to historical form.

The Royal Castle houses a world-class collection of Polish royal art and the original 1791 constitution document.

The Castle Square is Poland's most symbolically important public space, central to the Solidarity movement and the fall of communism.