Kazimierz Dolny Things to Do

Rynek means the Market Square.
Once we find ourselves on the local Market Square, it is hard to resist the growing anxiety to explore. One cannot decide whether to admire the architecture of the Renaissance apartment houses of the Przybyla family, to be ravished by shapes and colours of an ingeniously designed Gothic-Renaissance parish church or simply to submerge into the familiar climate of the city. It is created by local community as well as by tourists, painters, and participants of various conferences and seminars often held in Kazimierz Dolny.

It was at the end of the sixteenth century that the first fully developed forms of Renaissance architecture were imported into the Lublin region,
The beginning of the next century saw an enormous increase in the number of fine religious buildings developed as a result of the great wealth created by the Lublin region being one of the most important exporters of grain to Western Europe. The majority of churches were erected by architects of ltalian origin who in this way created a local style known as the Lublin Renaissance.
Churches built in this style are aisleless with a bigger presbytery than is usual, which ends in a semi circle, as well as having a barrel vault. Their distinctive features are richly ornamented gables and stucco decoration of the interior. The Lublin Renaissance is best represented by the churches in Konskowola and Kazimierz Dolny.
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During the holiday season a number of performances take place In Kazimierz Dolny including concerts in the Parish Church. There are organs from 1620 inside.

A parish church located at the foot of the Castle Hill is also worth seeing especially due to its interior decorations.
Most of Kazimierz Dolny was destroyed by fire in 1561. The previously gothic parish church was restored and given a new facade, and this facade is now considered to be the finest surviving sample of the Lublin Renaissance style.

In the 18th century, Kazimierz Dolny went into a decline, along with the rest of Poland, speeded up by a severe attack by the Swedes, plague and several more fires.
Kazimierz Dolny today has little in the way of modern style building as it survives mainly on the flood of visitors there, many of them coming from Warsaw to spend the weekend there.

Many of the new merchants houses were built using the influence of the many Italian architects then working in Poland, with plaster mouldings on the walls and a high ornate loft to conceal the roof (a loft in this meaning is an extension upwards of the front wall of the house). Buildings in the same style can be seen in Lublin's old town and Zamosc.

Most of the city was destroyed by fire in 1561, but this was not the catastrophe it might have been because its merchants were given an 8 year tax exemption and the right to trade in Krakow salt to allow them resources to rebuild.
The merchants gained enormous profits from this and were able to build the town almost from new. The gothic parish church was restored and given a new facade, and this facade is now considered to be the finest surviving sample of the Lublin Renaissance style.

Kazimierz Dolny was probably named after either the 14th century Polish king Casimir the Just (Kazimierz Sprawiedliwy) or Casimir the Great. It is set in a small valley surrounded by low wooded hills. It has everything required of a picture postcard scene, including ancient decaying fortifications on a hill above it.
When it was first mentioned in the 12th century, it was already a thriving settlement. According to that famous Polish chronicler Jan Dlugosz, Casimir the Great established it as a town and created the defensive castle in the 14th century.
It gained city rights in 1406, by which time it was prospering as it could take advantage of both the river trade between Cracow (Krakow) and the Baltic sea and that between Krakow and Moscow.

The Hill of Three Crosses (Gora Trzech Krzyzy) is good panorama point. The Crosses were raised after the plague from XVIII century, after which the population of the town seriously got smaller. From the top you can see Kazimierz and the sorroundings.