Historic Poznań — from Mieszko I's island stronghold to the Old Market Square

The island where Poland began

Ostrów Tumski, Cathedral Island, is the last of the Warta's islands left inside the city: the main channel runs to the west, the narrow Cybina to the east. A Piast stronghold stood here in the 10th century, and in its western part, an area of roughly 80 by 100 metres, the ruler's residence consisted of a two-storey stone palatium joined to a chapel — a chapel usually associated with Dobrawa, the wife of Mieszko I.

Those foundations were found beneath the present Church of St Mary during excavations led from 1999 by Hanna Kóčka-Krenz. In 2020 archaeologists also uncovered a rampart from Mieszko's time more than forty metres wide. Sections of the defences are displayed in the Genius loci archaeological reserve, set up where the island was first walled at the end of the 10th century.

The cathedral and the island's other buildings

The archcathedral of SS Peter and Paul is among the oldest churches in Poland and has been rebuilt many times over. Until 1945 it was Baroque with a Classicist front; it burned out in the fighting of February that year and was rebuilt in Gothic form. Pre-Romanesque and Romanesque remains survive in the crypts, and twelve chapels ring the nave. The best known is the Golden Chapel, endowed in the 1830s by Edward Raczyński. King Przemysł II is buried here; tradition claims Mieszko I and Bolesław the Brave too, which historians treat as unproven.

Next to it stands the 15th-century Gothic Church of St Mary, the best-preserved Gothic building in the city, raised directly over the old palatium. The Lubrański Academy, founded in 1518 by Bishop Jan Lubrański and built by 1530, was Poznań's first institution of higher learning; closed in 1780, it has housed the Archdiocesan Museum since 2007. The island's story is also told at Brama Poznania, a heritage interpretation centre opened on 30 April 2014 in Śródka and linked to the island by a footbridge.

A market square and its goats

The left-bank town was laid out around 1253, when the ducal seat crossed the river. The square measures 141 metres along each side, with a central block of 74 by 76 metres in the middle of it; by area it comes third in Poland, after Kraków and Wrocław. In the winter of 1945 some sixty per cent of the surrounding buildings were destroyed — of a hundred addresses, about twenty came through largely intact — and the rebuilding ran until 1965, when the final paving went down.

The town hall first appears in writing in 1313. Between 1550 and 1560 Giovanni Battista di Quadro of Lugano rebuilt it, adding a storey, an attic and a three-tier loggia facing the river. The clock with two mechanical billy goats went in as early as 1551, and they still butt heads every day at noon — the city's emblem, explained by a tale about a cook who burned the roast and stole two goats to replace it. Lightning destroyed the tower in 1675; rebuilt in 1690 it reached ninety metres, and the Classicist spire came in 1781–1784. The tower collapsed again in 1945, and since 22 July 1954 the building has held the Museum of the History of Poznań.

The parish church and Przemysł Hill

A few streets from the square stands the former Jesuit church, now the city's parish church and a minor basilica — to many eyes the finest Baroque interior in Poland. It was built between 1651 and 1701, with a long pause for the Swedish wars, to a design attributed to the Jesuit Bartłomiej Nataniel Wąsowski. The nave rises almost 27 metres, Jan Bianco did the stuccowork around 1700, and the sixteen columns of red scagliola carry nothing at all: they are there to articulate the space. The organ, built by Friedrich Ladegast, was first played on 26 July 1876 and has 43 stops.

At the western edge of the Old Town is Przemysł Hill, where Przemysł I began a castle around 1249. In 1783 Kazimierz Raczyński put up a Baroque building on the site, and in 2010–2013 the complex was reconstructed with a tower raised on the medieval foundations. The Museum of Applied Arts occupies it now, and the 43-metre tower gives the clearest view of how the square, the parish church and the cathedral sit in relation to one another.

Getting there and planning the day

Poznań Główny station is about two kilometres from the Old Market Square, with trams covering the gap; Cathedral Island is reached from the Śródka side. Central parking is metered, so a car park and a short walk usually works better. A waymarked Royal-Imperial Route runs from the island through the square to the Imperial Castle, and riverside paths link both banks for cyclists.

Visit in chronological order if you can: Brama Poznania and the island first, the left bank afterwards. Done that way the square stops being merely handsome and becomes what it was — the new town that took the island's role away in the 13th century. For the goats, be at the town hall a few minutes before noon. The whole complex was designated a Historic Monument of Poland by presidential regulation on 28 November 2008. Allow a full day for both parts, two if you want the museums as well.

How to get there and practical info

Location

Poznań, Greater Poland Voivodeship — Cathedral Island between the Warta and the Cybina, and the left-bank Old Town

Historic Monument

presidential regulation of 28 November 2008, "Poznań — the historic urban complex"

Origins

Piast stronghold on Cathedral Island in the 10th century; left-bank town laid out around 1253

Old Market Square

141 m to a side, central block 74 by 76 m — the third largest market square in Poland

Town hall

Gothic, rebuilt 1550–1560 by Giovanni Battista di Quadro; clock with billy goats since 1551

Museums in the complex

History of Poznań in the town hall, Greater Poland Uprising in the guardhouse, Archdiocesan Museum in the Lubrański Academy, Applied Arts on Przemysł Hill

The goats

they butt heads daily at noon, after the bugle call from the tower

Time needed

a day for both parts of the complex, two with the museums

Current hours and tickets

the town hall and castle branches are run by the National Museum in Poznań

When to go