Warsaw Barbican & City Walls
Barbakan Warszawski
A red-brick semicircular gatehouse linking the Old Town and New Town, which together with surviving city walls forms the defensive remains on the northern side of the Old Town.
The Barbican was built in 1540 as a semicircular defensive outpost outside the northern gate of Warsaw's Old Town walls. It was designed by an Italian architect, but by the time it was completed firearms had made it militarily obsolete, and it was later long surrounded by residential buildings. The Barbican and the city walls were destroyed during the 1944 Warsaw Uprising and rebuilt in the 1950s using historical drawings and surviving fragments. Street performers and painters often gather under the red-brick gate. A walkway outside the Old Town walls takes you halfway around the Old Town, past the moat and the Little Insurgent statue on the wall. Admission is free. It is a three-minute walk north from the Old Town Market Square, and passing through the gate brings you into the New Town.
Opening hours
Open all day (city wall walkway)
Nearby sights
- New Town & Maria Skłodowska-Curie Museum
- Old Town Market Square
- Multimedia Fountain Park
- St. John's Archcathedral
- Warsaw Uprising Monument
- Royal Castle & Castle Square
- St. Anne's Church & Viewing Terrace
- Grand Theatre – Polish National Opera