The City of Poznań is 750 years old. Previously, there was a medieval city there. The oldest traces of Poznań settlement are over 1000 years old.

The oldest part of the town is Ostrów Tumski, an island situated a couple of hundred metres east from the Old Market Square. Ostrów Tumski was once one of the first capital towns of the state of the Piast dynasty. It is here that in the mid of the 10th century the first Polish bishopric was established. The cathedral was constructed in 968 and has been destroyed many times by natural disasters, construction catastrophes and wars. The cathedral was rebuilt for the last time after the Second World War.

Currently, it is a three-nave Gothic basilica with pre-Roman and Roman architectural relics surrounded with a circle of chapels. The front towers and the three towers over the eastern part of the church have Baroque domes.

In the Cathedral’s vault there are fragments of the construction from Roman and pre-Roman times: a baptismal font and tombs of the first rulers of Poland. In the Cathedral itself there are tombs of Mieszko I and Bolesław Chrobry – the first rulers of Poland who, at the turn of the 11th century, brought Poland closer to the European Christian states.

Coming back from a walk to Ostrów Tumski and heading for the Market Square one should turn into the small Grobla street to see the All Saints Church built in classical style. At the beginning it was an Evangelical church, whose construction began in the second half of the 18th century. The Church was completed as late as in the beginning of the 19th century, because of prolonged works on the façade and the interiors.

This part of the city was also an island but a several dozen years ago. The Warta River, running only several dozen metres from the Poznań Old Town, has flooded this part of the city many times. There have been floods during which water inundated even the Market Square and the Town Hall.  There are plaques on some of the buildings in the Old Town showing the level of water during the floods. In the 1960s, however, the river channel was changed. The river flows now a couple of hundred metres from the Market Square, posing no threat to its monuments. There are propositions to lead the river channel to its old place creating a tourist attraction and a place for water sports.