Rynek Główny & The Cloth Hall: Europe's Grand Market

Why is it significant?

Step out onto the open cobblestones of Rynek Główny and take in the sheer scale of the square around you.

Key Facts

Open the walk

Step out onto the open cobblestones of Rynek Główny and take in the sheer scale of the square around you. Spanning two hundred meters on each side, this four-hectare plaza was laid out in twelve fifty-seven after the devastating Mongol invasion, making it the largest medieval town square in all of Europe. Rising from the center like a landed ship is the Sukiennice, or Cloth Hall.

In the fourteenth century, King Casimir the Great enclosed the market with Gothic brick arches so merchants from Flanders, Germany, and the Orient could trade English wool, silk, spices, and precious Baltic amber out of the rain. When fire destroyed the hall in fifteen fifty-five, Italian master Santi Gucci rebuilt the upper attic with a playful Renaissance parapet carved with grotesque stone masks, or maszkary, caricaturing prominent Kraków citizens.

Look under the western archway of the Cloth Hall: hanging from an iron chain is a medieval iron knife. Town legends say it was used in a duel between two brother architects who competed to build the two uneven towers of St. Mary's Basilica nearby.

Stroll through the wooden stalls smelling of leather and beeswax before stopping outside St. Mary's Basilica.