Royal Baths Park

Łazienki Park
Chopin monument (top), royal promenade (middle), Palace on the Isle (bottom)
Type	Municipal
Location	Warsaw
Area	76 ha
Created	1918
Status	Open all year

Łazienki Park (Polish: Park Łazienkowski or Łazienki Królewskie: "Baths Park" or "Royal Baths"; also rendered "Royal Baths Park") is the largest park in Warsaw, Poland, occupying 76 hectares of the city center.

The park-and-palace complex lies in Warsaw's central district (Śródmieście) on Ujazdów Avenue, which is part of the "Royal Route" linking the Royal Castle with Wilanów Palace to the south.

North of Łazienki Park, on the other side of Agrykola Street, stands Ujazdów Castle.

Originally designed in the 17th century as a baths park (hence the name) for nobleman Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski, in the 18th century Łazienki was transformed by Poland's King Stanisław August into a setting for palaces, villas, classicist follies, and monuments.

In 1918 it was officially designated a public park. Łazienki is visited by tourists from all over Poland and the world, and serves as a venue for music, the arts, and culture. The park is also home to peacocks and a large number of squirrels.

Łazienki Park was designed in the 17th century by Tylman van Gameren, in the baroque style, for military commander Stanisław Herakliusz Lubomirski. It took the name Łazienki ("Baths") from a bathing pavilion that was located nearby.

The picturesque and charming garden scheme owes its emergence as its present shape and appearance mainly to the last ruler of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, King Stanisław August Poniatowski (Stanisław II Augustus). In the mid-16th century, it became part of the estates of Poland’s Italian-born Queen Bona Sforza, who built a wooden manor house with an Italian garden on this site. Later, the wooden manor house of Queen Anna Jagiellon stood on this spot, immortalized in 1578 by the performance of the first Polish play, “Dismissal of the Greek Envoys” by Jan Kochanowski. To the south, King Sigismund III Vasa had a four-sided stone castle with corner towers erected in 1624.