The tripto catalogue lists 118 market squares, old towns, plazas and grand streets. They are the easiest trips to plan: walking around is free, and the square is usually surrounded by a town hall, churches and museums.
Kraków's Main Square was laid out in 1257; it holds the Cloth Hall, St Mary's Basilica with its bugle call and the Town Hall Tower, and the Rynek Underground route runs beneath it. Wrocław Market Square covers 3.64 hectares and is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe – with a Gothic town hall and the Piwnica Świdnicka cellar. Zamość Old Town is a Renaissance "ideal city" founded in 1580, with three squares and a place on the UNESCO list, as is Toruń's medieval old town with its Leaning Tower and the ruins of the Teutonic castle. Warsaw's Old Town Market Square was rebuilt after the war from Canaletto's paintings, and in Kazimierz Dolny on the Vistula you will find a square with a well and the Przybyła townhouses.
Most places in this category are in the Silesian region (close to 20), Lesser Poland (close to 20) and Lower Silesia (over a dozen). Warsaw, Kraków and Łódź with Piotrkowska Street lead among cities.
In practice: 20 to 45 minutes is enough for a walk around a square, but with the town hall tower and a museum it becomes half a day. More than a third of the places in this category are marked as free in the catalogue; only towers, underground routes and museums charge. Mornings and evenings are the most pleasant; in December many squares host Christmas markets.
Old towns & squares
Kraków
Kraków's Main Market Square (Rynek Główny, say: RIH-nek GWOO-vnih) is the heart of the Old Town and one of the largest medieval town squares in Europe – roughly 200 by 200 meters, about 10 acres, laid out when Kraków received its town char…
Old towns & squares
Wrocław
Laid out in the 13th century on a flat rise above the Oder, beside a trade route running across Europe from east to west, this square measures roughly 204 by 170 metres. Wrocław's Market Square covers 3.64 hectares, making it one of the la…
Old towns & squares
Zamość
The Old Town of Zamość (say "ZAH-moshch") is a complete Renaissance "ideal city" that has survived almost intact since it was founded in 1580 by Chancellor Jan Zamoyski and designed by the Italian architect Bernardo Morando. Inside the lin…
Old towns & squares
Toruń
Toruń Old Town (say "TOR-oon-y") is one of the best-preserved medieval town centers in Europe and the main reason travelers stop in this city on the Vistula River. Red-brick Gothic churches, merchants' houses, riverside walls, the great Ol…
Old towns & squares
Warsaw
The town houses around Warsaw's Old Town Market Square look centuries old, but most are about 70 years old. After the 1944 Warsaw Uprising the square lay in ruins, and in 1949–1953 it was rebuilt so faithfully that in 1980 the Historic Cen…
Old towns & squares
Kazimierz Dolny
Kazimierz Dolny Old Town (say "ka-ZHEE-myesh DOL-nih") is a small Renaissance riverside town on the Vistula, tucked between wooded hills in eastern Poland, and one of the country's favorite weekend escapes. Its square with a wooden well, t…
Old towns & squares
Warszawa
Warsaw's most famous monument is almost 180 years older than the square it stands on. Sigismund's Column, honouring King Sigismund III Vasa, was raised in 1644 in front of the Kraków Gate, outside the city walls, while Castle Square itself…
Old towns & squares
Warszawa
The town houses around Warsaw's Old Town Market Square look centuries old, but most are about 70 years old. After the 1944 Warsaw Uprising the square lay in ruins, and in 1949–1953 it was rebuilt so faithfully that in 1980 the Historic Cen…
Old towns & squares
Warszawa
On Krakowskie Przedmieście you can walk through four centuries of Polish history in an hour: from St Anne's Church, where Pope John Paul II met young people in 1979, past the University of Warsaw and the Presidential Palace, to a pillar in…
Old towns & squares
Wrocław
Laid out in the 13th century on a flat rise above the Oder, beside a trade route running across Europe from east to west, this square measures roughly 204 by 170 metres. Wrocław's Market Square covers 3.64 hectares, making it one of the la…
Old towns & squares
Łódź
Piotrkowska Street in Łódź (say pyot-ROOF-ska, and the city is woodge) is the main street of one of Poland's largest cities and one of the longest high streets in Europe: a dead-straight 4.2 km avenue lined with the mansions, banks and hot…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Łódź
Under the feet of people strolling along Piotrkowska Street lies an open-air gallery of Polish cinema. The Łódź Walk of Fame consists of more than 113 brass stars set into the pavement — from Andrzej Seweryn, who received the first in 1998…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Legnica
It was meant to be a vast four-wing complex with two courtyards and a monumental tower, but only the first section was ever built. Even so, Legnica's New Town Hall, erected in 1902–1905, is impressive: five storeys, ornate gables, knights…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Katowice
Katowice Market Square (Rynek, pronounced roughly "RIH-nek") is the main square of Katowice, the largest city of Poland's Upper Silesia region, and the natural place to start exploring downtown. Trams cross it, the main streets meet here,…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Legnica
With its double flight of steps, mansard roof and onion dome, Legnica's Old Town Hall looks more like a small Baroque palace than an office building. The city's guidebooks call it the finest building of its kind in Lower Silesia. It stands…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Łódź
This octagonal square at the northern end of Piotrkowska Street is the point from which Łódź numbers its buildings, and the place where the industrial city began. It was laid out in 1823 as the marketplace of a new cloth-makers' settlement…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Kraków
Long before chartered Kraków and its Main Square existed, a trade route from Hungary and Bohemia to Mazovia and Greater Poland already ran this way. Grodzka Street leads from a corner of the Main Market Square to the foot of Wawel Hill and…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Warszawa
A monumental 19th-century church, the surviving townhouses of Próżna Street and the 160-metre Cosmopolitan tower all stand around a single square. Grzybowski Square (Plac Grzybowski) is one of the few places in Warsaw where you can clearly…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Częstochowa
For centuries Częstochowa was two towns, Old and New Częstochowa, and each had its own town hall. The Neoclassical building on Plac Biegańskiego was built for the merged town, halfway between the two former market squares. Today it houses…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Głogówek
From the tower of this town hall a watchman once announced the hours and important news with a trumpet, and in 1625 soldiers passing through the town shot the ball on its tip through in three places. The Renaissance town hall in Głogówek,…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Kraków
The Little Market Square (Mały Rynek, say "MAH-wih RIH-nek") in Kraków is a long, cobbled square tucked directly behind St. Mary's Basilica – a calmer sidekick to the vast Main Market Square and one of the oldest trading spots in the city.…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Łódź
The walls of the courtyard at 3 Piotrkowska Street are covered with a mosaic of hundreds of thousands of hand-cut pieces of mirror arranged in shapes that resemble rosebuds. Rose Passage (Pasaż Róży) is the work of artist Joanna Rajkowska,…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Brzeg
Brzeg Town Hall (say "BZHEG") is one of the finest Renaissance town halls in Poland and, together with the Piast castle a few streets away, the reason to stop in this small Silesian town on the Oder. Built in 1569-1577 by the Italian maste…
Hidden gemOld towns & squares
Gdańsk
Mariacka Street (St Mary's Street) in Gdańsk is the most atmospheric lane in the Main Town: cobbled, car-free and lined with stone terraces, gargoyle drainpipes and amber workshops. It runs about 185 m from St Mary's Basilica down to St Ma…
Old towns & squares
Szczecin
Rynek Sienny – the Hay Market (roughly "RIH-nek SHYEN-nih") – is the oldest market square in Szczecin and the heart of its rebuilt Old Town. The square is dominated by the brick Gothic Old Town Hall with its lacy, stepped gable, and surrou…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
The Kraków Christmas Market 2026 opens on the Main Market Square on 27 November 2026 and runs until 6 January 2027. Wooden stalls go up between the Cloth Hall, St Mary's Basilica and the Mickiewicz Monument, and Galician mulled wine is pou…
Old towns & squares
Karpacz
Walking the promenade in Karpacz takes about five minutes, yet this short stretch of ul. Konstytucji 3 Maja packs in Poland's shortest street, the country's highest town hall and a pavement with the bootprints of Polish Himalayan climbers.…
Old towns & squares
Radom
In most historic towns life revolves around the market square, but in Radom the heart of the city is a street — the pedestrian promenade on ul. Stefana Żeromskiego, the old road to Lublin. At number 51 there was once Stanisław Wierzbicki's…
Old towns & squares
Kraków
For centuries, kings rode along this same route to Wawel to be crowned, and funeral processions carried their coffins the same way. The Royal Route runs from Matejko Square through St Florian's Gate, the Main Market Square and Grodzka and…
Old towns & squares
Sandomierz
Sandomierz Market Square is not flat: between its upper and lower corners the difference in height reaches 15 metres, so the houses around it stand as if on steps. Beneath them run cellars and passages dug into the loess, and in one of the…
From this category: Zamość Old Town, Toruń's old town and Kraków's Old Town with the Main Square. Warsaw's Old Town is on the list as well.
No – walking around squares and old towns is free. You pay for town hall towers, underground routes and museums.
20 to 45 minutes for a walk around the square. For Kraków, Toruń or Zamość with towers and museums, set aside half a day or a full day.
Updated: · Opening hours and prices can change — check the attraction page before you go.