A beautiful day for a walk through Warsaw’s Old Town, the heart of which is the town market place, rich in restaurants, cafés and shops. Surrounding

streets feature medieval architecture.  The Old Town was established in the 13th century, growing up around the Royal castle. Until 1817 the most notable feature was the Town Hall built before 1429.  

In the early 1910’s the Old Town was a slum, with poor families in crowded subdivided tenements which had once been aristocrat’s palaces. Parts of it were bohemian, with painters and artists having their studios, while some streets were a red light district housing brothels.  During the invasion of Poland in 1939, the German Luftwaffe targeted the residential area and historic landmarks in a campaign of terror bombing.  After the Warsaw uprising in 1944, what had been left standing was systematically blown up by the German army. After the war, it was meticulously rebuilt, using as many as possible of the original bricks.