Packed with monuments, landmarks, museums, and mementos from the city's rich history, Poznańs marvellous Old Town Square warrants more than a passing glance and smartphone pic. Faithfully reconstructed after the immense damage of WWII, the Square can easily take a few hours to properly explore and enjoy. For our walking tour of all the Square's sights, see our full feature, or proceed here for a more concise version.
The most impressive structure on the Old Town Square has to be the deliciously elaborate Town Hall at its centre. Near its southeast corner, you’ll find the Pranger, a 16th-century punishment device to which unlucky criminals would be chained and whipped or mutilated according to the executioner’s fancy. To the left of the Town Hall is perhaps the most recognisable Poznań sight: the technicolour row of Budnicy Houses (domki budnicze), named in honour of a class of merchants known as Budnicy, whose headquarters used to operate at no. 117.
Moving clockwise, we come across two sad concrete carbuncles haunted by the ghost of the beautiful Cloth Hall that stood in their place before World War II. The one closer to the merchant houses is now the Wielkopolska Military Museum, while the one on the left houses Arsenał, a contemporary art gallery originally known as the Central Exhibition Bureau. A bit further along, you’ll see the 18th-century police guardhouse, currently housing the 1818-1819 Wielkopolska Uprising Museum.
A few steps away is the cute, freestanding Municipal Scales building, which almost looks like something out of Hansel and Gretel. Originally constructed in 1534, it once housed hardware for weighing merchandise on its way to the market. Behind it you’ll find a small statue of a traditionally-dressed Bamber peasant girl carrying jugs used in wine-making; for more about the Bambers - a group of farmers from Bavaria who came to Poznań around 300 years ago - visit the Poznań Bamber Museum.
Other sculptures include four mythological fountains guarding the square’s four corners: they depict Proserpina, Mars, Neptune, and Apollo. Between the last two there’s one more monument worth admiring - the 1724 figure of John of Nepomuk, a Bohemian martyr saint who was supposed to protect the city from repeated, disastrous floods (the 1960s re-routing of the Warta River ultimately did a far better job of that, however).
Though it may not look like it at first glance, there are three palaces ringing the outside of the square; they are the baroque Działyński Palace at no. 78, the classicist Mielżyński Palace at no. 91, and the beautiful Renaissance-style Górka Palace (ul. Wodna 27), currently housing the Archeological Museum.
