Square, Plaza sights in Poland
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Rynek
In the middle of the oddly shaped Rynek is the 19th-century town hall.
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Old Town
Gorlice's Old Town and its unusual two-tiered, sunken Rynek are perched on a rise above the Ropa River.
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Rynek
Reszel's tiny Old Town is centred on the Rynek and its low-key town hall which houses the local tourist office.
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Mały Rynek
East of Plac Mariacki is the Mały Rynek, the 'Little Market Square'. It was the meat market in medieval times.
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Old Market Square
The heart of the city, the Old Market Square was laid out in 1253 and contains a vibrant mix of sights, restaurants and entertainment outlets.
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Plac Mariacki
To the south of the Basilica of the Assumption of Our Lady is the small, charming Plac Mariacki , which until the early 19th century was a churchyard.
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Plac Grzybowski
Plac Grzybowski is the centrepiece of Warsaw's current Jewish community. Here, behind the Teatr Żydowski (Jewish Theatre; ) is the Nożyk Synagogue, the city's only synagogue to survive WWII.
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Old Town Market Square
The usual starting point on Toruń's Gothic trail is the Old Town Market Square, dominated by its massive redbrick town hall and lined with fine restored houses, many graced by intricate decorative façades.
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Castle Square
A natural spot from which to start exploring the Old Town is triangular Castle Square. Attracting snap-happy tourists by the hundreds each day is the square's centrepiece, the Sigismund III Vasa Column (Kolumna Zygmunta III Wazy; M0560).
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Main Market Square
Start your sightseeing in the low-key but attractive Main Market Square, whose name is unusually rendered in Polish as Główny Rynek, rather than the other way around - obviously the city's founders valued a certain eccentricity in adjective order.
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Rynek
The Rynek (formally called ul Stare Miasto) was destroyed during WWII and rebuilt in a grandiose style only superficially referring to the past. It's best seen at night, when the town hall is lit up with dazzling spotlights and half the population turns out for an evening drink.
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New Town Square
North of the castle lies the New Town, centred on the New Town Square. The building in the middle is a former Protestant church, erected in the 19th century after the town hall was pulled down. It's a quieter, more tourist-free part of town, and the square hosts irregular art and craft markets.
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St Waenceslaus church
The most significant relic of Radom's earliest years is the St Waenceslaus church in the Old Town Sq. Built originally in the 13th century from wood, it was the first parish church of Old Radom. It was used for various purposes (such as a military hospital and psychiatric ward) and completely restored in the 1970s.
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Rynek
The central Rynek is not lined with historic burghers' houses as you'd find elsewhere in Silesia but encircled by drab postwar blocks. It's a showpiece of the 'early Gierek style' - the term Poles sarcastically give to architecture spawned during the fleeting period of apparent prosperity in the early 1970s, when Edward Gierek's government took out hefty loans from the West to make Poland a 'second Japan'.
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Rynek
Opole's Rynek, badly damaged during WWII, has been rebuilt. It is lined with attractive sand-coloured Baroque and Rococo houses and, particularly on the west side, pubs and bars. The 64m-high tower of the oversized town hall in the middle was modelled after the one at the Palazzo Vecchio in Florence and looks a little out of place here. The original, dating from 1864, collapsed in 1934 but was rebuilt in the same style.
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Rynek
The castle gives on to the elongated and leafy Rynek, lined with old burghers' houses dating mostly from the 18th and 19th centuries. On its northern side is the Protestant church and, next to it at No 2, the town hall, both remodelled early this century. Behind the town hall is the 14th-century parish church, extensively rebuilt over the years, with a typically lavish interior featuring a ceiling painting of the Ascension.
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New Town
The New Town is a bit of a misnomer, considering it was founded at the end of the 14th century and since 1408 has commanded its own jurisdiction and administration. It exudes similar architectural styles to those found in the Old Town, but lacks any defensive walls, probably due to the fact that historically it was inhabited by poor folk. Ul Freta is the New Town's main street, leading north from the Barbican towards New Town Sq (Rynek Nowego Miasta).
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Rynek
Stretching out from the foot of the cathedral, the vast Rynek shows the extent of the war damage. Only the southern side of the square is anything like it used to be, with its restored houses originally dating from the 16th century. The detached building facing them, the Town Weighing House (Dom Wagi Miejskiej; 1604), retains fragments of 19th-century wall painting on a side wall.
Just round the corner, on ul Bracka, there are more historic houses and a 1701 copy of the Baroque Triton Fountain by Bernini in Rome.
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Rynek Główny
Measuring 200m by 200m, Kraków's Rynek Główny is the largest medieval town square in Europe and one of the finest urban designs of its kind. Its layout, based on that of a castrum (Roman military camp), was drawn up in 1257 and has been retained to this day, though the buildings have changed substantially over the centuries.
Most of them now look neoclassical, but don't let the façades confuse you - the basic structures are much older, as can be seen by their doorways, architectural details and interiors.
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Rynek
Rynek, Wrocław's market square, is Poland's second biggest after the one in Kraków. The Rynek was laid out in the 1240s and lined with timber houses, which were later replaced with brick structures. They gradually changed over the centuries, adopting the architectural style of the day. The north and south sides were completely destroyed during WWII but have since been rebuilt; they offer an appealing amalgam of architectural styles from Gothic to Art Nouveau.
Check out the new wavelike glass fountain on the western side of the square.
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Old Town Square
The partially walled Old Town (Stare Miasto) is centred on Old Town Square, which, for those with an eye for historical buildings, is the loveliest in Warsaw. It's lined with tall houses exhibiting a fine blend of Renaissance and Baroque with Gothic and neoclassical elements - aside from the façades at Nos 34 and 36, all were reconstructed after WWII. An 1855 statue of the Mermaid (Syrena), the symbol of Warsaw, occupies the square's central position, the site of the city's original town hall demolished in 1817.
On almost any given day, the square is swamped with tourists enjoying the pretty surrounds and numerous cafés and restaurants.
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Plac Bankowy
Like most of Warsaw's squares, Plac Bankowy is too big and busy to be appealing. It was once the financial district of 19th-century Warsaw, but the only reminder of this is spread along the western side of the square; here you'll see the imposing City Hall (Ratusz; M0570) and the former stock exchange and Bank of Poland building, both grand neoclassical buildings designed by Antonio Corazzi in the 1820s. The eastern side of the square was redeveloped after WWII and is now dominated by a blue skyscraper built on the site of a synagogue destroyed by the Nazis. The story goes that a local rabbi placed a curse on the site and, sure enough, the skyscraper was dogged by…
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Old Town
The Old Town was rebuilt from the foundations up because after the war it was nothing but a heap of rubble. The monumental reconstruction, which took place between 1949 and 1963, aimed at restoring the appearance of the town in its best times, the 17th and 18th centuries. Every authentic architectural fragment found among the ruins was incorporated in the restoration.
In 1945, the Old Town Square was just the walls of two houses sticking out of the rubble, today it is a harmonious blend of Renaissance, baroque and Gothic elements. It's alive and atmospheric, doesn't feel contrived, and is replete with open-air cafés and art stalls. The Historical Museum of Warsaw…
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Town Hall
Poznań's Renaissance Town Hall, topped with a 61m-high tower, instantly captures your attention. Its graceful form replaced the 13th-century Gothic town hall, which was consumed by fire in the early 16th century, along with much of the town. It was designed by Italian architect Giovanni Battista Quadro and constructed from 1550 to 1560; only the tower is a later addition, built in the 1780s after its predecessor collapsed.
The crowned eagle on top of the spire, with an impressive wingspan of 2m, adds some Polish symbolism.The main eastern façade is embellished with a three-storey arcade. Above it is a painted frieze depicting kings of the Jagiellonian dynasty, and a…
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