Warsaw Old Town

Warsaw's Old Town is on the UNESCO list for an unusual reason: not for being old, but for how it was put back. Almost nothing standing here today is original. The quarter was rebuilt through the late 1940s and 1950s from eighteenth-century townscape paintings by Bernardo Bellotto, from pre-war survey drawings and from the measured records of architecture students, which is why the facades are accurate and the buildings behind them are not. The market square, the Royal Castle and the brick barbican are all reconstructions of that campaign.

History

The Old Town grew up in the 13th century around the castle of the Dukes of Mazovia, later the Royal Castle, was granted town privileges around 1300 and walled in brick before 1339, and its Market Square was laid out in the late 13th or early 14th century on the road from the castle to the New Town. The Town Hall, built before 1429, was pulled down in 1817, and since the 19th century the four sides of the square have carried the names of four notable Poles who lived on them, Zakrzewski, Kołłątaj, Dekert and Barss. The district was badly damaged in 1939 and almost entirely destroyed in 1944. The Warsaw Reconstruction Office rebuilt it, mostly from 1947 to 1951, reusing as many of the original bricks as possible, and the rebuilt Old Town was inaugurated on 22 July 1953; the project, the world's first attempt to resurrect an entire historic city core, was added to the World Heritage List in 1980 (Wikipedia, Old Town, Warsaw).

What's there

• The Old Town Market Square - the colourful reconstructed square with the mermaid statue.
• The Royal Castle - the rebuilt royal residence and its restored interiors.
• The Barbican and old walls - the reconstructed medieval fortifications.
• St John's Cathedral - the rebuilt Gothic cathedral.

When to go

Spring to autumn for terraces and mild weather; December for a Christmas market. A clear day flatters the colourful facades.

Good to know

Knowing it is a meticulous reconstruction rather than a survival changes how you read it, and that is the real interest of the place. It is smaller and quieter than Krakow's. Its power is the resilience it represents as much as its beauty.

Nearby

The Royal Route leads south to the palaces; the POLIN museum of Polish Jewish history is nearby.

Key facts