Olsztyn Things to Do

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Market square (Stary Rynek) is a main old town squre in Olsztyn. The square has classical structure - it is surrounded by old 3-4 floor houses. Restaurants, butiques, hotels locate in these houses.
In the centre of Old town squre the town hall is situated. The town hall takes pretty big area of the square becouse of not big sizes of square. From the angles of the square old town streets take start.

St. Jacob cathedral is a gothic church located in old town of Olsztyn. Church was built in 14 century. In 1596 wooden tower was replaced to stone/brick tower. The tower is 63 m high. Side chappels were created in year 1721 by Piotr Olchowski from Reszel. At least from 1565 Polish language were used on Masses in the church.
Temple has rich interior decorations in gothic, renaissance, baroque styles.

Old Town Hall locates in the centre of old town square. Town hall is a 2 floor building built in gothic style in 14 century. In 1640 town hall burnt but four years later it were restored. The first floor belonged to town government, but in cellar grew trading. Small tower were created on the building. Medieval cellars of town hall and solar clocks on walls are main tourist attractions of old town hall.

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If you climb the tower at Olsztyn Castle you can obtain some good photographs of the town. On the day I visited one of the members of staff had to open up the tower to allow us up and then waited for us to look around. You felt pressured to hurry up so he could lock it up again, or not in my case as I snapped away and was last to leave

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The Cathedral Basilica of St. James with its exquisite 16th-century crystal vaulting and high brick tower is in the oldest part of Olsztyn. It is built in a brick gothic style (Backsteingotik) with red bricks and white lime washed walls and the construction is common in the Baltic Sea Region and surrounding area.

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I’m not sure what this church is called but it is very close to the castle. What surprised me with this church was not the building itself. When I arrived there was a coach parked outside containing army conscripts, nothing unusual about that as you often see soldiers in Poland. Two officers got out of the coach and went inside the church to have a look around the same as me except they were wearing side arms and as far as I’m concerned it’s bad enough in times of war to enter a church with weapons let alone in peace time. Not sure why they did it perhaps its normal practice in Poland

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Olsztyn's oldest building is the Gothic Castle, which was begun in the years 1346-1353. Nicolaus Copernicus lived in Olsztyn Castle from 1516 to 1519 and again during 1520-21 as the administrator of the Warmia Chapter's local estates, a statue of him is located in the grounds. During his time at the castle he wrote the Treatise on Money and drew a table on the wall of the castle cloisters to help track the progress of the spring and autumn equinoxes which is still visible today. The castle also contains a museum and a high tower with views overlooking the town.

The Old Town was at one time surrounded by walls and these were renovated in 1620 after a fire in the town, these have now gone but the Gothic Upper Gate still survives and is now known as the High Gate, which now forms the main entrance to the old town.