Zinar Castle

Podgórze Market Square, once the center of an independent city, was established in the 1880s, when Podgórze was granted city rights. The choice of the site was not accidental, as it was a crossroads of roads that were important in the Middle Ages, leading to Wieliczka (salt route), Kraków (crossing the Vistula River) and towards Kalwaria Zebrzydowska. In order to optically enlarge the relatively small plot of land, the market square was shaped like a trapezoid, narrowing towards the church.

The most important buildings of the city were located next to the market square, including the first town hall, and later the famous inn "Pod Czarnym Orłem" (No. 13) and the new seat of the town hall (from the mid-nineteenth century; No. 1).

In the nineteenth century, the parish church of St. Józef, rebuilt at the beginning of the 20th century in the neo-Gothic style. Its dominant element is an 80-meter clock tower topped with a soaring cupola, the shape of which clearly resembles the medieval helmet of the taller tower of St. Mary's Church - was it the envy of the proud inhabitants of Podgórze?