The Sukiennice
Cloth hall as market, gallery above.
Ingo Mehling — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Silar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Silar — CC BY-SA 4.0 · Silar — CC BY-SA 4.0
The Rynek is medieval Europe's greatest square: two hundred metres by the same, laid in 1257 and still the heart of everything — at its centre the Sukiennice Cloth Hall in Renaissance arcades: a market working seven centuries (amber and wood gifts below, the gallery of Poland's great paintings above), with the slightly leaning Gothic Town Hall Tower, the demolished city hall's witness, climbable in summer. Beside it St. Mary's with her unequal towers — and from the taller the hejnał sounds every hour around the clock: a bugle call cut off mid-note, honouring the trumpeter a Tatar arrow struck as he warned the city (1241) — Poland's most famous sound rite, broadcast at noon on national radio. And beneath the paving the Rynek Underground: the medieval market's excavations as passages under glass flooring with dazzling display technology — the square's modern surprise. The square's pigeons, carriages and spreading cafés are a theatre that never closes — evening all lights and violins.
Cloth hall as market, gallery above.
The medieval market beneath glass floors.
The leaning Gothic lone witness.
Rynek Główny, 31-042 Krakow
St. Mary's BasilicaSt. Mary's is Krakow's Gothic jewel: her unequal towers (the legend: two builder2 minutes walk4.7
The Szołayski HouseA nineteenth-century town house on Plac Szczepański in Kraków, a branch of the N3 minutes walk4.7
The Little Market SquareA square in the old town directly behind St Mary's Church, less than a hundred m3 minutes walk4.8
Collegium MaiusThe oldest building of the Jagiellonian University, the second oldest university3 minutes walk4.6
Museum of Pharmacy, KrakówA museum of the Jagiellonian University in a fifteenth-century house on Floriańs3 minutes walk4.8Three are ideal: old town day (Rynek, Wawel, St. Mary's, walls), Kazimierz-and-Schindler day, and a great excursion day (Wieliczka or Auschwitz — both in one exhausting day is possible on an organised tour). A fourth adds a Zakopane return trip. Krakow is Europe's cheapest quality capital — hotels and tables at half western prices.