The River Wisla (Vistula) flows from the heights of the Carpathian Mountains in the south of Poland north to the Gulf of Gdansk and the Baltic Sea. En route it bisects Warsaw. The main city sights are concentrated on the river's west bank: the Old Town (Stare Miasto), the New Town (Nowe Miasto), the Muranow District, which encompasses the area once known as the Jewish Ghetto, and the Royal Way (Trakt Krolewski), a thoroughfare leading south from Castle Square in the Old Town to the summer palace at Lazienki. You should be able to explore comfortably the attractions of the first three on foot.

The hub of the Old Town is the market square (Rynek Starego Miasta), a pretty, colourful, cobblestoned plaza surrounded by tall, thin townhouses with facades dating from the medieval to the renaissance. Artists, buskers, tourists and their inevitable souvenir selling entourage abound while the al fresco restaurants, cafes and horse-drawn carriages add to the picture postcard Parisian feel. The square's particularly popular at night when the restaurants and cafes are packed.