Old Market Square
You are standing in the centre and the oldest part of Poznań's Old Town. Each side of the square runs about 140 metres, which makes it the third-largest market square in Poland; Wrocław has one of the two bigger ones. In the middle sits a block of buildings led by the Old Town Hall, and around it rise tall rows of former tenement houses, the kamienice.
The town itself is younger than you might think. The first settlement lay on the river island of Ostrów Tumski, at least from the 9th century, while this part of the city on the left bank of the Warta received its charter in 1253. The square was laid out around then, with each side cut into 16 equal plots, and work on the Royal Castle at the western edge of the walls had started a few years earlier.
After a fire in 1536 left heavy damage, the Italian builder Giovanni Battista di Quadro reshaped the Town Hall and several other buildings in Renaissance style from 1550. Most of what you see around you, though, was rebuilt after the Battle of Poznań in 1945 badly damaged the square.
Look at the central block. The row of small 16th-century merchants' houses, the domki budnicze, got its multicoloured paint between 1953 and 1961, and its arcade holds souvenir stalls. On house number 17, find the coat of arms of the merchants' guild that gave the houses their name: a herring and three palms. Next to them, facing south, stands the former town chancellery.
The Town Hall stands at the northeast corner of this central group, 10 metres away, a minute's walk.
