Old towns & squares

Market Square in Rzeszów

The market square of Rzeszów forms an uneven quadrilateral in the heart of the Subcarpathian capital. Three frontages are built up — south, east and north; in the western one the town hall rises alone. Townhouses from the 15th–19th centuries were rebuilt after the great fire of 1842, and underground corridors, now secured, run beneath the square.

A town hall with seven lives

The first mention of the town hall dates to 1427. The brick one, raised before 1591 on the initiative of Mikołaj Spytek Ligęza, was destroyed during George II Rákóczi’s raid in 1657. The present shape comes from the rebuild of 1895–1898, when the building was heightened, turrets added, and the gable adorned with a clock and an eagle of gilded copper sheet. After wartime devastation, reconstruction came only in 1993–1996.

Tomasz Stańko’s bugle call and the underground

Every day seven bugle calls sound here, composed by Tomasz Stańko — the trumpeter who created his own jazz language — making it one of the few municipal signals written in a contemporary musical idiom. At Rynek 26 begins the Underground Tourist Route, leading through corridors carved beneath the old town.

In practice

Cafés and restaurants operate in the townhouses’ ground floors, and representative streets such as Kościuszki and Mickiewicza set off from the corners. Start in the morning at the town hall, book a slot for the underground route, and return in the evening to the illuminated old town.