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The 12 Best Public Squares Worth Doing Absolutely Nothing In

The best public squares in the world aren't for ticking off. They're for sitting on a step with a coffee and watching an entire city be itself for an hour. Here are the twelve I'd lose a morning to.

The best public squares in the world have nothing to do, and that is the entire point. You don’t conquer a great square. You surrender to it. You buy a coffee you don’t need, you find a step or a ledge or a slightly overpriced café chair, and you watch a city run its daily program in front of you like the world’s slowest, best film.

I have done absolutely nothing in squares on four continents. I consider it research. Here’s where I’d happily waste a morning again.

1. Piazza Navona, Rome

Baroque, oval, three Bernini-adjacent fountains, and by noon it’s a churn of caricature artists and €18 spaghetti. So don’t go at noon. Go at 8am with a coffee from the bar on the corner, when the light’s still gold and the only other people are dog-walkers and a man sweeping. That’s the square the painters were painting.

2. Djemaa el-Fna, Marrakech

A square that’s basically two squares. By day, juice carts and snake charmers (avoid the snakes, it’s a scam and a photo will cost you). At dusk it FLIPS — smoke rises, food stalls unfold, drummers start, storytellers gather crowds. Sit on a rooftop terrace café (Café de France, Glacier) with a mint tea around 6pm and watch the whole transformation happen below you. Genuinely one of the great spectacles on earth, and the tea costs about 15 dirham.

3. Rynek Glówny, Kraków

The biggest medieval square in Europe, and it doesn’t feel like a museum — students cut across it, pigeons riot, the trumpeter plays his broken little tune from St Mary’s tower every hour (it cuts off mid-note, on purpose, ask a local why). Grab a bench. The square does the rest.

4. Grand Place, Brussels

Hemmed in by gilded guild houses so over-the-top they look frosted. It’s small, so it fills up, but at night when they’re lit it’s ridiculous in the best way. Get a Belgian beer to take onto the cobbles (legal-ish, nobody minds) and just look up.

5. Plaza Mayor, Madrid

Enclosed, arcaded, red, and full of Spaniards meeting for the paseo. The cafés under the arches are tourist-priced, so do as the locals do — buy a beer and a bocadillo de calamares from a side street and bring it into the square. People-watching here comes with a side of fried squid sandwich, which is the correct way to do anything.

6. Náméstí Republiky and the Old Town Square, Prague

The Old Town Square with its astronomical clock is mobbed every hour for the little mechanical show (which is, frankly, a let-down — the locals call it overrated and they’re right). The square itself, though, with a coffee at the quieter eastern edge, is wonderful. Watch the crowd watch the clock be disappointing. It’s better than the clock.

7. Trafalgar Square, London

Not pretty, exactly, but it WORKS. Lions to climb, fountains, the National Gallery’s free steps to sit on, protests and pop-up festivals constantly rolling through. Sit on the wall by the fountains with a meal-deal sandwich and watch London be every version of itself at once.

8. Piazza del Campo, Siena

Shell-shaped, sloping, and made for sitting — people literally lie down on the warm brick in the afternoon sun like it’s a beach. Get a gelato, claim a patch of slope, watch the light move across the Palazzo Pubblico. Twice a year they run horses around it (the Palio), but the other 363 days it’s pure laze.

9. Grote Markt, Antwerp

Guild houses, a wild fountain of a man flinging a giant hand into the air (long story, involves a folk legend and a giant), and far fewer crowds than Brussels. The café terraces here are actually reasonable. A good square for a long, slow Belgian beer.

10. Plaza de Armas, Cusco

Ringed by Inca-foundation arcades and two big churches, at 3,400 metres so you’ll be a little out of breath just sitting, which is convenient because sitting is the plan. Locals, tourists, women with alpacas, the lot. Find a balcony café, order a coca tea for the altitude, and let an afternoon evaporate.

11. Place des Vosges, Paris

The oldest planned square in Paris and the calmest — symmetrical red-brick arcades, a central garden where Parisians actually picnic and read. No big monument to gawk at, which is why it’s so good for nothing. Bring a baguette. Pick a bench under the lime trees.

12. Praça do Comércio, Lisbon

Wide open to the river, framed by a triumphal arch and yellow arcades. Sit on the steps where they meet the Tagus, feel the breeze, watch the trams rattle in behind you. There’s a tiny ginjinha shop nearby — get a shot of the cherry liqueur in a chocolate cup and bring it down to the water.

The trick to doing nothing well: you have to earn the chair. Buy something — the worst-value coffee on the square is still the cheapest rent in the city for a front-row seat to a place’s whole personality. Don’t scroll your phone. Just watch. And go at the unfashionable hours, early or late, when the square belongs to the people who live there instead of the people photographing it.

The best souvenir is an hour you can’t account for. Squares sell those for the price of a coffee.

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