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Wonderful Restaurants & Art Galleries! Old Town Market Square, with its charming architecture, boosts many wonderful restaurants and shops. It is a main focal point for tourists and locals alike. It is always bustling with people all year around. Artists sell their paintings and crafts there in the summer and springtime months. There are also many high-end art galleries to choose from. The origins of Warsaw date back to the end of the 13th century. The founding charter followed the "German law" of town setting: a definite urban system of grid pattern of streets with a centrally situtated marketplace and measured building lots. Towards the end of the Middle Ages the Old Town with its suburbs had the population of 3.5 thousand. After two centuries of town construction the city walls got their final shape - two parallel lines with a moat. The Market Square makes a rectangle of 90 by 73 metres with its longer sides being parallel to the Vistula riverbanks. A small Town Hall was built at the centre of the square at the beginning of the 15th century - rebuilt and enlarged many times, and finally was pulled down in 1817. In the 19th century the Old Town became neglected, its architectural relics gradually deteriorated and fell into oblivion - but in turn, the first efforts at conservation were started. From 1918 to 1939 the concern for architectural and urban conservation and modernisation gave concrete results. The Old Town was razed nearly to the ground in 1944. The decision of its reconstruction was taken in 1952 for the very same reason why it was destroyed by the Germans - namely for its value in Polish culture and in the nation's survival. The reconstruction of Warsaw's Old Town was completed by 1954, and in September of 1980 was it listed as a World Cultural Heritage. 
The Mermaid Warsaw, located in the Old Town Market Square is the emblem of Warsaw. It was sculpted by Konstanty Hegal in 1855. Cast in tin, half-women, half-fish, a mermaid has symbolized Warsaw since as long as the Middle Ages. It adorns old seals, municipal records and city maps, and was officially adopted as a coat-of-arms in 1792.
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