The story of this place
Laid out in 1257 under Kraków's charter of German town law, the Rynek Główny is the largest medieval square in Europe, a 200-metre expanse that has been the city's beating heart for nearly 800 years. At its centre stands the Cloth Hall, a Renaissance trading arcade where merchants once dealt in salt, lead, and textiles. From the tower of St Mary's Basilica a trumpeter still plays the hejnał every hour, breaking off mid-note to commemorate — legend holds — a medieval watchman shot in the throat by a Tatar arrow as he warned the city. Cafés, pigeon flocks, and the Town Hall Tower complete a square that survived even the Nazi occupation, when it was renamed Adolf-Hitler-Platz.