Market Square in Stary Sącz

The market square of Stary Sącz looks just as you would picture a small Galician town: low, mostly 19th-century houses, a well beneath lime trees, and paving of Dunajec river cobbles that took 11 years to lay. It is the centre of one of Poland's oldest towns, which together with the Poor Clares' convent founded by St Kinga was declared a Monument of History in 2018.

History: Kinga's town

The first record of the town's charter under German law dates from 1273, in the time of Duke Bolesław the Chaste. The town was finally laid out under Magdeburg law in 1357/1358 by Abbess Konstancja and King Casimir the Great. The square is almost exactly square, with its sides facing the four cardinal points; two streets leave each corner at right angles.

The town burned many times. The great fire of 1795 destroyed almost all the buildings and the town hall in the middle of the square, which was never rebuilt – a reconstruction stands today in the Sądecki Ethnographic Park in Nowy Sącz. The only brick house to survive was the so-called Dom na Dołkach ("House in the Hollows"). The oldest list of market-square houses, from 1699, records 26 plots.

What to see

• The cobbles – the square was first gravelled, and in 1861 work began on paving it with granite cobbles from the Dunajec; it took 11 years.
• The well under the lime trees – it once stood next to the town hall; its present form dates from 1848, and the surrounding limes were planted in 1877.
• Dom na Dołkach (Rynek 6) – a 17th-century house with a broken shingled roof, metre-thick walls and barrel vaults. It houses the Seweryn Udziela Regional Museum, founded in 1954.
• The "Butter Market" – a market place on the south side, created where burned houses once stood.
• The Poor Clares' convent – St Kinga's foundation and part of the same old-town ensemble listed as a Monument of History.

Curiosities

There are two explanations for the name Dom na Dołkach. Local historian Wiktor Bazielich derives it from the building's position at the lowest point of the square; another version says one owner, a tanner, soaked hides in barrels sunk into the ground. The entrance hall keeps its 17th-century floor of river cobbles – according to the municipality, the stones turn damp just before it rains. Old street names have their own stories, too: today's ul. Jana Pawła II used to be called Bloody Street.

Tripto tips

The square is open around the clock and free. The cobbles are uneven and slippery after rain – wear sturdy shoes, and with a pushchair stick to the pavements, rebuilt in 1996–1997. Allow an hour for the square and nearby lanes, half a day with the Regional Museum and the convent. Mornings are quietest, before the square fills with parked cars.