Ninety seconds on Castle Square
Start your Old Town walk here, beside Sigismund's Column: it is Warsaw's symbol, and it stands where Krakowskie Przedmieście reaches the castle and the Old Town.
The king on top of the column is Sigismund III Vasa, who moved the Polish capital from Kraków to Warsaw. He holds a sword and a cross, which stand for his earthly and heavenly glory.
It is the oldest secular monument in Poland: it went up in 1644 and fell to German gunfire in 1944, so the column you see is the post-war rebuild. Its shaft is now granite, in place of the brown-and-red veined marble of the original.
Look down at the base for the four eagles. They are post-war casts, larger than the originals and without the crowns the old ones wore.
Seen from above, the square is an irregular triangle.
Two stops make the visit. Walk round the column first: it stands on a raised base in the higher, southern part of the square. Read the east plaque, then the north plaque, which records the 1949 reconstruction.
Then stand on the column's steps and look round. The Old Town burgher houses and the Neo-Gothic top of St John's Archcathedral rise on one side. The Royal Castle with its Clock Tower fills the other, and this is the view to photograph.
Approach along Krakowskie Przedmieście, walking north, if you can. When the column was rebuilt it was moved and turned to face that street, so the king comes into view head-on as you walk up it.
Wear shoes with a good grip.
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