Kazimierz Dolny

Kazimierz Dolny grew rich shipping grain down the Vistula, and the money went into stone. On the market square stand the two houses built in 1615 by the Przybyla brothers, their facades crowded with carved figures of Saints Nicholas and Christopher among vines and beasts. A wooden well sits in the middle of the square, brick granaries line the river bank, and the ruins of a fourteenth century castle and a round watchtower look down from the slope. From the 1920s painters came here in numbers and never quite left, so the square fills with easels, galleries and craft stalls. Behind the town, loess ravines run like sunken lanes between walls of soft earth.

History

A Benedictine settlement called Wietrzna Góra stood here in the 11th century, and in 1181 Prince Casimir II the Just gave it to the Norbertine nuns of Zwierzyniec, who renamed it Kazimierz; the name first appears in 1249. Casimir III the Great granted town rights in the first half of the 14th century, the Firlej family held the town from 1501 to 1644 and rebuilt it after the fires of 1561 and 1585, the golden age of the grain trade ended in February 1656, and in 1677 John III Sobieski allowed Armenian, Greek and Jewish merchants to settle here (Wikipedia, Kazimierz Dolny).

What to look for

• The market square - the wooden well and the carved Przybyla houses of 1615.
• The castle and watchtower - ruins above the roofs, with the Vistula bending away below.
• The loess ravines - Korzeniowy Dol and others, worn metres deep with roots hanging overhead.
• The granaries - Renaissance brick warehouses strung along the river bank.

When to go

Late spring and September are the best of it, with warm light on the granaries and the ravines dry enough to walk. Weekends draw day trippers from Warsaw and Lublin all summer, and a film festival takes over the town for a week. After rain the ravines turn to slick mud. Out of season much of the square shuts.

Practical notes

This is a weekend town, and on a fine Sunday the square is solid with people while cars park far out on the approach roads. Prices match Warsaw. The galleries and stalls sell much the same amber, honey and paintings. The cockerel-shaped bread is a souvenir rather than good bread. Midweek in winter, half the shutters are down.

Nearby

The park at Pulawy across the river, and a small ferry to the castle ruins at Janowiec.

Key facts