Planty Park

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The park surrounds the Old Town

Walkway with benches under trees

Grażyna Monument

Planty is a city park in Kraków, Poland. It encircles the District of Stare Miasto (Old Town), where the medieval city walls used to stand.

By the beginning of the 19th century the expanding city had begun to outgrow the confines of the old defensive walls. The walls had been falling into disrepair due to lack of maintenance after the Partitions of Poland. As a result, Emperor Franz I of Austro-Hungary ordered the dismantling of the old fortifications. However, in 1817 Professor Feliks Radwański of Jagiellonian University managed to convince the Session of the Senate of the Republic of Kraków to legislate the partial preservation of the old fortifications, namely, the Florian Gate and the adjoining Barbican.

The green belt was established in place of the old walls between 1822–1830 as part of the urban development projects to preserve the concept of a "garden city". The park consists of a chain of thirty smaller gardens designed in varied styles and adorned by numerous monuments. The gardens form a scenic walkway popular with Cracovians. The park has a surface of 21 square hectares (52 acres) and a length of 4 kilometers (2.5 miles).