Ninety seconds on Lublin Old Town
Lublin's Old Town gives you a Market Square lined with colourful Renaissance houses, a city gate at either end, and a guided route through the merchant cellars underneath.
The Kraków Gate, a tower in the old town walls, is where the Old Town opens up in front of you. Directly behind it, in a small courtyard on the right, a large mural copies a view of the city printed in 1618 in the atlas Civitates orbis terrarum. The courtyard is easy to miss.
The Market Square is an irregular trapezoid with the Crown Tribunal standing in its middle, where most towns would put a town hall, and the court sat from 1578 as the highest court of appeal for Lesser Poland.
The sgraffito on the facade of Rynek 19 is the pattern the city now prints on its own posters and websites. The Klonowic house at Rynek 2 carries painted portraits of Lublin poets between its first-floor windows.
Po Farze is an open square with the foundations of St Michael's parish church laid out in its paving and a model of the church in its southern corner. Ku Farze, the narrowest street in Lublin, runs from it to Rybny square.
The Grodzka Gate is a long vaulted passage, almost a tunnel, with King Stanisław August's monogram in view as you walk through towards the Castle. It joined Christian Lublin to the Jewish quarter beyond, which was destroyed in the Holocaust and is now open ground. A cultural centre inside the gate keeps the memory of Jewish Lublin through exhibitions and oral history recordings.
From the Kraków Gate, walk the Old Town in one direction and finish at the Grodzka Gate. Inside the Kraków Gate is the Museum of the History of the City of Lublin, with archaeological finds and everyday objects from the old town, and its fifth floor is a viewpoint over the Old Town roofs and the castle beyond.
Back outside, turn right for the mural courtyard, then walk on into the Market Square. Circle the Crown Tribunal and stop to eat at one of the restaurants on the square.
The Underground Route, entered at Rynek 1, brings you up at Po Farze square. From there, take Ku Farze down to Rybny square and leave through the Grodzka Gate, with the Castle beyond it.
The Underground Route is the one part of the Old Town you see only with a guide: a 45-minute walk through linked merchant cellars under the Market Square, Złota and Archidiakońska streets. On the way, a mechanical theatre tells the city's legend of its miraculous rescue from fire.
Buy tickets on the route's own website, and book ahead, especially for a tour in English.
Getting by on English alone is a little harder in Lublin, so keep a translation app ready for menus and tour bookings.
Stay in Śródmieście, the downtown district where most of Lublin's sights are. Give Lublin two days if you can: its core fits into one focused day, but two are far more comfortable.
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