Galicia's pearl — Renaissance arcades, Romani heritage, and one of Poland's best-preserved old towns
Tarnów is a mid-sized city in southern Poland between Kraków and the Carpathians, with one of the best-preserved Renaissance market squares in Central Europe — a result of the town largely escaping both wartime bombing. The town hall's distinctive Renaissance attic, the arcaded merchants' houses around the Rynek, and the Gothic cathedral with Tarnowski family tombs give the historic centre a quality rare outside Kraków. Tarnów was historically home to one of Europe's largest Romani communities; the Romani Museum here is the only one of its kind in Poland.
Tarnów received its city charter in 1330 and became a significant commercial and intellectual centre of Galicia under Polish rule. The city was particularly prosperous in the Renaissance under the Tarnowski family, powerful magnates who built the Renaissance town hall and endowed the cathedral. By the 19th century it had a large Jewish community — over 40% of the population; in 1942 it was the site of the first deportation of Polish Jews to Auschwitz. A monument in the railway station marks this history. Karol Józef Wojtyla — later Pope John Paul II — studied at the underground seminary in Ta…