Warsaw - Old Town

The title "Old Town" - Stare Miasto - is in some respects a misnomer for the historic nucleus of Warsaw. Forty-five years ago this compact network of streets and alleyways lay in rubble: even the cobbles have been meticulously replaced. Plac Zamkowy (Castle Square), on the south side of the Old Town, is the obvious place to start a tour. Here the first thing to catch your eye is the bronze statue of Zygmunt III Waza, the king who made Warsaw the capital.

On the east side of the square is the former Royal Castle (Zamek Królewski), once home of the royal family and seat of the Polish parliament, now the Castle Museum (Tues-Sat 10am-5pm, Sun & Mon 11am-5pm; free Sun). Tickets can be bought from around the corner, ul Swietojanska 2. Though the structure is a replica, many of its furnishings are the originals, scooted into hiding during the first bombing raids. After the Chamber of Deputies, formerly the debating chamber of the parliament, the Grand Staircase leads to the most lavish section of the castle, the Royal Apartments of King Stanislaw August. Through two smaller rooms you come to the magnificent Canaletto Room, with its views of Warsaw by Bernardo Bellotto, nephew of the famous Canaletto - whose name he appropriated to make his pictures sell better. Marvellous in their detail, these cityscapes provided important information for the architects rebuilding the city after the war. Next door is the richly decorated Royal Chapel, where an urn contains the heart - sacred to many Poles - of Tadeusz Kosciuszko, swashbuckling leader of the 1794 insurrection and hero of the American War of Independence.
On Swietojanska, north of the castle, stands St John's Cathedral, the oldest church in Warsaw, now regaining its old functions after the Communist era. A few yards away, the Old Town Square - Rynek Starego Miasta - is one of the most remarkable bits of postwar reconstruction anywhere in Europe. Flattened during the Warsaw Uprising, its three-storey merchants' houses have been rebuilt to their seventeenth- and eighteenth-century designs, multicoloured facades included. By day the Rynek teems with visitors, who are catered for by buskers, artists, cafés, moneychangers and dorozki, the traditional horse-drawn carts that clatter tourists round the Old Town for a sizeable fee. The Warsaw Historical Museum (Tues & Thurs noon-6/7pm, Wed & Fri 10am-3.30pm, Sat & Sun 10.30am-4.30pm; free Sun) takes up a large part of the north side; exhibitions here cover every aspect of Warsaw's life from its beginnings to the present day, with a particularly moving chronicle of everyday resistance to the Nazis. On the east side, the Mickiewicz Museum (Mon, Tues & Fri 10am-3pm, Wed & Thurs 11am-6pm, Sun 11am-5pm; Thurs free) is a temple to the Romantic national poet.
From the Rynek, ul Nowomiejska leads to the sixteenth-century Barbakan, which used to guard the Nowomiejska Gate, the northern entrance to the city. The fortress is part of the old town defences, which run all the way around from plac Zamkowy to the northeastern edge of the district.