Esplanade square

Esplanade (Spianada) is famed as ‘the largest square in the Balkans’ and owes its existence to a strategic manoeuvre. In 1576, the houses which huddled around the gate of the fortress began to be demolished to allow the defenders a better outlook over the area. In a period of twelve years, more than 2500 dwellings were pulled down, leaving a great space which the French later planted with trees, and which today forms the Esplanade Square.