Sandomierz Old Town

Sandomierz sits on a bluff of loess above the Vistula, small enough to cross in fifteen minutes and old enough to have layers under it. Merchants dug storage cellars beneath their houses over centuries, and some of them were linked in the twentieth century into a route that runs several hundred metres below the market square, eight to twelve metres down. Above ground there is a Renaissance town hall in the middle of the square, the brick Opatowska Gate with a view from the top, and a Gothic cathedral whose presbytery keeps a cycle of frescoes painted by eastern masters in the fifteenth century. Ravines cut into the loess on the edge of town.

What you actually see

• The underground route - linked merchant cellars beneath the square, walked with a guide.
• The cathedral - Gothic brick with fifteenth century frescoes in Byzantine style in the presbytery.
• The Opatowska Gate - the surviving town gate, climbable, with the roofs and the river laid out below.
• Queen Jadwiga's Gorge - a sunken loess lane in the hillside on the edge of the old town.

When to go

May to September for the riverside and the ravines. The underground route runs on fixed guided departures and sells out on summer weekends, so buy the ticket first and see the square afterwards. The cathedral closes to visitors during services. Autumn is quiet and the loess lanes hold their colour into October.

Honest expectations

The underground route is low, cool and short, and the commentary is usually in Polish only. The town is much loved by Polish visitors because a long-running television series was filmed here, which fills the square in summer with coach groups. Everything is compact to the point of thin, and an unhurried visit still ends by mid-afternoon.

Nearby

The Vistula bank below the walls and the Swietokrzyskie hills to the west.