The Market Square in Krakow is not only the center of the city, but also the center of historical, cultural and tourist life. The dimensions of the area are 200 by 200 meters, which rightfully gives it the title of one of the largest in Europe.
The time of its appearance dates back to the 13th-14th centuries, when Krakow was the capital of Poland. Car traffic to the Market Square is closed, so citizens and guests of the city can freely walk around the square and the streets adjacent to it.
In the center of the Market Square is the Sukiennice building, the first floor of which is occupied by shopping arcades with many souvenir shops. On the second floor there is a museum of paintings by Polish masters of the 18th-19th centuries. Next to the shopping arcades there is a small, partially underground, church of St. Wojciech.
Just behind the Sukiennice stands the slightly lopsided tower of the City Hall. Once upon a time, prisoners were languished and tortured in its dungeons, and the city treasury was located on the ground floor. Nowadays the Krakow History Museum is located in the Town Hall building. Also, part of the museum is located in the dungeons under the square, occupying about 6,000 square meters.
It is impossible to pass by the unusual asymmetrical Gothic architecture of the St. Mary's Church (Bazylika Mariacka), located between the Market Square and the adjacent St. Mary's Square. Every hour a trumpeter plays on the church tower. This signal is a tribute to the ancient tradition, when the sound of a trumpet announced to the townspeople about an approaching attack or fire.
The market square is surrounded by houses, each of which has its own interesting architectural appearance and history. Now these houses house cafes and restaurants where you can eat, drink and admire the view. Also at the service of tourists on the square: street artists, sellers of fresh flowers, coachmen with teams of horses and carriages and “living sculptures”.
How to get there: the nearest stops are Plac Wszystkich Swietych (trams nos. 1, 6, 8, 13, 18), Poczta Glowna (buses nos. 610, 904, 62, 69) Address: Krakow, Stare Miasto, Rynek Glowny
Its shape is square, 200 x 200 meters. The square appeared somewhere at the end of the 13th century, at a time when Krakow was the capital of the Kingdom of Poland. At that time there were many market pavilions on the square - hence its name.
On each side of the square there are three streets adjacent to it, connecting it with the entrance gate to Krakow. Along the perimeter there are former rich merchant houses, now there are restaurants and cafes.
Former merchant houses
The Market Square is a beautiful landmark of Krakow. It is completely pedestrian, except for the elegant carriages with horses. And there are a lot of them here, it feels like you are where they also like to ride tourists around the city on horseback.
Eh, I'll give it a ride
There is also a monument to the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz.
Monument to Adam Mickiewicz
In the middle of the square there is a nice two-story building called the Cloth Hall. Once upon a time in the Middle Ages, cloth was traded there, hence the name. Now in the Cloth Hall on the ground floor they also sell goods, but mostly for souvenirs. And the second floor is given over to the painting museum.
Sukennitsa
Immediately behind the Sukiennice stands the 70-meter-high Krakow Town Hall. It is a rather massive and high tower with an observation deck at a 50-meter height. The town hall is slightly askew - a kind of “Leaning Tower of Pisa in Krakow style”, with a deviation from the vertical axis of 55 cm.
Krakow Town Hall
Why was she looking sideways like that? The fact is that the City Hall building was erected from brick and stone. Having stood on the square for more than 600 years, it was damaged by a fire caused by a thunderstorm. We had to dismantle part of the building, leaving only the tower, carefully strengthening it.
Previously, the city council met in it, the treasury and court were located, and prisoners were tortured in underground casemates. Now the Town Hall houses a historical museum. The history of Krakow is very rich, so there are many historical exhibits. Some of them are located in the dungeons under the square itself, occupying 6 thousand square meters.
Everyday life in the square is peaceful and calm. Residents and guests of the city love to sit in street restaurants.
Street restaurants are cozy and always warm
And young people sit comfortably in the square and feed the pigeons, which no one drives away. After all, according to an old legend, these are not pigeons at all, but enchanted warriors waiting for their reincarnation.
Everyday life
Many people are attracted by the cute sculpture of a little ram playing the pipe. I wonder what he's playing about?
Playing ram
Krakow's Market Square pleases the eye with beautiful churches. There are two of them: the squat Church of St. Wojciech, and the St. Mary's Church, which is adjacent to the square.
St. Mary's Church attracted our attention with the unusual asymmetry of two tall, attractive towers.They are of different heights: one is 82 meters, crowned with a Gothic helmet and crown. The other is 69 meters high and has a bell tower.
Why are the towers so different? The Poles have their own interesting legends about this.
Tower legends St. Mary's Church
St. Mary's Church towers
According to one of them, St. Mary's Church was built by two influential families in Krakow. Each fought for its superiority and built its own tower. There was an agreement - whose tower would be higher and more reliable, that family would have more influence in the city.
Emerging issues in construction often pitted the two families against each other, but whatever one may say, many things had to be resolved together. Therefore, the families, after some reflection, decided to unite by marrying their children. They agreed that the church towers would be completed by their children, and whoever wins would dominate their alliance.
Each head of the family hoped that his child would win the treaty. The son's father was confident that their family would have victory, since construction was still the work of men. But his daughter’s father, knowing her character, had no doubt at all that their family would give anyone a head start in this dispute.
And so it happened - the young wife so diligently pleased her husband at night that he had no strength left to do anything. So he slept during the day, and his wife’s tower grew and grew. And although the daughter’s family won the argument, for the young couple its result became absolutely indifferent, because they fell deeply and tenderly in love with each other, and this was much more important than any superiority.
Fragment of the facade of St. Mary's Church
Another legend tells about two mason brothers who contracted to build a church. Everyone built their own tower. The older brother's construction grew faster, but the younger brother's construction took longer, but more reliably. So the older brother became jealous that the younger brother was superior to him in skill, and in a fit of anger he killed his brother with a knife. But he could not survive what he had done, and threw himself down from the tower.
The city residents were shocked by this outcome and decided not to complete the construction of the younger brother’s tower, but simply covered it with a Renaissance roof. The knife was hung in the Cloth Hall, where it is kept.
Trumpeter and symbol of Krakow - hejnal
In those days, the towers served instead of watchtowers. Every day the trumpeter climbed them and looked around to see if everything was calm in their area.
One day, the young guard noticed the Tatars approaching on horseback. The trumpeter blew his trumpet to warn the city's inhabitants about the danger, but his song ended abruptly - his throat was pierced by an insidious arrow from the enemy.
Then Poland fell under the yoke of the Mongol-Tatars and lost its freedom for many years. But every day a trumpeter climbed the tower and blew the song the young guard had begun, breaking it off at the same place.
The song (hejnal) has become a kind of symbol for the Poles. They believed that they would be able to regain their independence when their heynal sounded from the highest minaret of Samarkand. True or not, the time has come, and as the legend says, the Polish trumpeter finally played a melody (hejnal) from the minaret from the very beginning to the end. Soon after this, Poland became independent again.
The talisman song sounded even during all subsequent wars that befell Poland.
It sounds every hour now. From the highest window of the tower, a trumpeter blows in four directions. Having finished playing, he waves his hand in greeting to everyone who listens and sees him. For tourists, this is a good sign, giving hope to visit the glorious city of Krakow again soon.
On the Market Square in Krakow
The Market Square is rightfully considered the soul and heart of Krakow.
Created in 1257, for centuries it was a center of trade and crafts, and the most honorable place was occupied by the cloth rows that divide the area in half. The square has the shape of a square, from each side of which there are three streets leading to the entrance gates of Krakow.
But the Market Square is not only a place of trade, it is also replete with historical buildings. Here is the city hall, the Square Museum, as well as the stunningly beautiful Church of the Virgin Mary, which is undoubtedly the pearl of this place.
The square is a favorite place for both tourists and citizens, because it is here that you can feel the spirit of medieval Poland.
Matejki Square
Matejki Square (Krakow) is the former market square of the city of Klepacz. The square is named after the famous Polish artist Jan Matejko, who became famous for his paintings on a historical theme.
Mariatskaya Square
The small square to the right of St. Mary's Church is called St. Mary's Square (plac Mariacki). On it stands a fountain with a figurine depicting a poor student - Jacques. This fountain is a gift to the city from Krakow craftsmen, erected in 1958. The figure was copied from the altar of Vit Stwosz.
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The Market Square, or Main Market Square in Krakow, is one of the largest medieval squares in Europe.
It was built in 1257 and was very large for that time, but gradually acquired new buildings and blended into the urban landscape. The layout of the square has been preserved unchanged since the 13th century - it is a slightly irregular square with sides of 200 meters, from each side of which there are three streets leading to the entrance gates of Krakow. The buildings surrounding the square were erected in the 14th-15th centuries, but over time they were reconstructed more than once, so now we see facades in the classical style of the 17th-19th centuries, in which many architectural fragments of the Renaissance and Baroque era have been preserved: portals, ceilings, attics, galleries courtyards.
The market square became a trade center, where there was a place for artisans of various specialties: there was a salt row, coal, fish, grain, etc. In addition to its trading function, the square began to serve as a central square in the city; it more than once witnessed the most important historical events, even executions took place here. For example, here, after the coronation, the townspeople swore an oath to the king.
From the beginning of the 19th century, when the Austrian authorities came to the city, the market square became simply a decoration of the city. Only the renovated building of the Cloth Hall (Cloth Hall) and the town hall tower were left on the square. The facades of houses are being updated, the cemetery near St. Mary's Church is being cleaned.
Among the main current attractions of the square are the Sukiennice, the Town Hall Tower, the Church of St. Wojciech, the Zbaraski Palace, the Palace "Under the Rams", the monument to Adam Mickiewicz and, first of all, the St. Mary's Church.
Now the square and the surrounding streets are closed to traffic and have become a place for pedestrian walks. On the western part of the square there is the opportunity to ride in a carriage. Cafeterias, taverns and restaurants, museums and cultural institutions located on the Main Market, together with historical attractions, attract tourists from all over the world.
Continuing my walk, I reached the market square. I immediately felt that I was in the center of the city's tourist area. The Market Square does not provide any options for spending your money. Here you have the opportunity to ride in a beautiful carriage drawn by a pair of beautiful horses, and small excursion buses, and throw a coin at a living sculpture, and many cafes along the perimeter of the square.
Let's start with the main building of the square, which is the hallmark of the city, St. Mary's Church. The Church of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, in common parlance St. Mary's Church, is a Catholic church of Gothic architecture, the facade of which consists of two high towers. One of them, 80 meters high, was considered a guard tower in the Middle Ages.
The Gothic stained glass windows of the cathedral are considered one of the most valuable in Poland. In 1962, the church received the title of minor basilica. According to information from the website krakow.ru, tourists can enter the church only through a special entrance and for money. I looked for this entrance for a long time, but never found it, so I entered the central entrance together with local parishioners, took a few shots and got these photos.
Then I walked around the church on the right side and ended up on a small St. Mary’s Square. On it stands a fountain with a figurine depicting a poor student - Jacques. This fountain is a gift to the city of Krakow artisans; delivered in 1958. The figure was copied from the altar of Vit Stwosz.
It must be said that in the Middle Ages, there was a church cemetery here (as it should be with every church). And only when the Austrians came to the city did they decide to “restore order” and remove the cemetery from the central square.
In the center of that cemetery there was a chapel, on the site of which the Church of St. Barbara was later built.
You can enter the church through the central entrance. In the Middle Ages, St. Mary's Church was maintained through donations from wealthy townspeople. Wawel Church was a royal one, and rich townsfolk gathered here. Among the rich families of the city there were approximately equal numbers of Poles and Germans, so by the end of the 14th century, services in St. Mary’s Church were held in two languages: Polish and German. And then only in German, and services in Polish were moved to the neighboring Church of St. Barbara.
The situation changed only in 1537, when the Krakow philistinism was “Polonized.”
“Polonization” took place in a very peculiar way: rich families were faced with a choice - either they start speaking Polish, or there is no place for them in Krakow. As you can see, “volitional decisions” are far from a Soviet invention. :-)
Thus, services in German were now moved to the neighboring Church of St. Barbara. Where sometimes they take place to this day.
Legend has it that St. Barbara's Church was built from "surplus" material that remained from the construction of St. Mary's Church. And even the builders of St. Mary’s Church built it as a “hack job” in their free time.
However, in fact, this church was built in 1394-1399.
Near the western entrance there is a carved Gothic heliport from the 15th century. Inside the church there are paintings by Tomaso Dolabella, representing scenes from the life of St. Francis Xavier, St. Francis Borgia and the suffering of St. Catherine. Father Jakub Wujek, a Bible translator who died in 1597, is buried under the church.
If you go around the church on the left, then through a nice nook you can get to the Small Market. Appearing already in 1257, it initially served as an auxiliary market place in Krakow. At first, they sold exclusively meat and the famous Krakow sausages, and since the last century - vegetables. The pavement of the square has a slight slope to the south. From the east it is closed by a number of medieval buildings, from the west - by buildings that are part of the ensemble of the Church of St. Barbara.
In summer, Krakow's Lesser Market turns into a small open-air cafeteria, with numerous tables and colorful umbrellas, where you can take a short break without losing contact with Krakow's attractions. In cold or rainy weather, guests of the city can enjoy restaurants, cafes and taverns on the first floors of buildings.
We return back and at St. Mary’s Church we meet this woman, all in white. This “White Lady” is not just a “living figure” - she is a character from a Krakow legend. According to legend, meeting the ghost of a white lady promises misfortune. The living embodiment is more harmless; the only danger that awaits you is being smeared with white paint. As befits a ghost, the chosen victim (usually local boys) can be pursued by the “white lady” for quite a long time.
And then in front of us is a monument to the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz. At the base of the monument there are 4 allegorical figures: towards the street. Sienna - Fatherland, st. Florianska - science, to the Cloth Hall - courage, and to the Church of St. Wojciech - poetry.
The monument we see is a copy. When the Germans occupied the city, they began the destruction of Polish culture by demolishing monuments to the great Poles. This monument was demolished in 1940, the Germans demolished the monument; and it was restored in 1955 on the hundredth anniversary of the poet’s death.
Just behind the monument is one of the oldest architectural monuments in Krakow - the Cloth Hall. The name of this structure comes from the word “cloth”, because. these rows were built specifically for the trade of this product. The decree on the construction of this structure was given by King Boleslav V the Shy in the middle of the 13th century. The building consisted of several cloth rows connected under one roof. The modern building was built in the 14th century by King Casimir the Great. After the fire in 1555, it was rebuilt, various decorations and mascarons (masks) appeared.
They say that the prototypes for the mascarons were the faces of city leaders (apparently, in those years the authorities were not particularly favored either).
The Cloth Hall acquired its modern appearance in 1879 after reconstruction under the direction of the architect Tomasz Priliński, when arcade rows were added to it.
Inside the Cloth Hall today there are souvenir shops, and on the second floor there is an exhibition of the national museum (opened in 1879); the entrance to it is located to the right of the central arch from the side of St. Mary's Church. On the doors hangs a list of all the museums in the old city with addresses, opening hours and ticket prices.
In addition to souvenir shops, there are several cafes and restaurants on the ground floor of the building.
There is a knife hanging in the Cloth Hall arch facing the monument. According to legend, one of the builders of St. Mary’s Church stabbed his brother with this knife (however, I promised not to tell this legend here).
According to another legend, thieves' ears were cut off with this knife. Those. for the first time they cut off their hair (in those days men’s hair was long, they didn’t cut it almost bald, as it is now), and it was immediately clear: anyone without hair is a thief. Well, if the hair was already cut off, then the ears were already cut off.
The most unusual attraction on Market Square, which is a little dissonant with the surrounding architecture, is Igor’s creation “Bound Eros” (Eros Bendato). This monument is a huge head, 3.7 m wide and 2.25 m high.
And nearby is another most recognizable object of the city - the Town Hall Tower. Townspeople compare it to the Leaning Tower of Pisa. The reason is the tilt of the tower. Although the slope is only 55 cm (if you count from the base), but due to the high height (70 m), this relatively small slope is very noticeable and this attracts crowds of tourists who want to be photographed against its background. There are many legends telling about the mysterious tilt of the Town Hall Tower, but the only correct explanation is the fact that in 1703 a strong wind caused a slight deviation in the perpendicularity of the tower. Since then, the angle of inclination has gradually increased.
Today it houses a department of the Krakow History Museum (open only in summer), and in the basement there is a theater stage. In addition, you can climb the tower and admire the city from its height.
Near the town hall tower, a memorial plaque was installed on the spot where on March 24, 1794, the leader of the popular uprising, Tadeusz Kościuszko, took the oath of allegiance to the people.
And in 1918, with Poland gaining independence, symbols of the outgoing Austrian power were placed at the foot of the town hall.
A little further, behind the town hall there is a glass piggy bank for collecting donations - Skarbonka [skarbonka]. This place is also popular among Krakow residents as a meeting place. When a Krakow resident speaks of a meeting “pod skarbonka” [under the skarbonkon] - they mean exactly this piggy bank.
But let's return again to the other side of the Sukennits. Opposite the town hall you see the low building of the Church of St. Wojciech. St. Wojciech read his sermons here.
This is one of the oldest churches in Krakow, built at the end of the 11th century. Today most of it is underground, but it once stood normally, so you can imagine the height of the Market Square in those days. In the 17th century, the church received a baroque dome.
In the dungeons of the church there is now an exhibition of the archaeological museum dedicated to the history of the Market Square. The exposition is very small and does not arouse much interest. We will examine the houses along the perimeter of the square in the next part.
