The Main Market Square in Kraków is the number one compulsory place to visit for everybody who comes to Kraków. This is the biggest medieval marketplace in all of Europe. Geometrically it’s a nearly perfect square with sides 200m long. It was charted during so called Great Location of Kraków on German law in 1257. Adapting these laws meant charting a main market square and a very regular system of streets connecting to it. This system, although disrupted by some irregularities, is very clear and visible even today.
Theoretically two perpendicular streets were supposed to meet at every corner of the square (as is the case with St. Anny Street and Wiślna Street). However in the south-east corner there’s only one street – Grodzka – at 45 degrees instead. Just like the other irregularities encountered throughout the city this one is also due to the preexisting settlement – the 1257 foundation act didn’t mean the city was being built from scratch. Regarding the irregularities it hard not to mention the St. Mary’s Basilica situated by the Main Markest Square, at a weird angle to the square’s sides. This of course is just means that the church was there before the foundation and thus before the marketplace was drawn. Another testament to the pre-foundation era is the St. Wojciech’s Church and its seemingly awkward placement on the Market Square’s surface.
During a walk through the Main Market Square various historical buildings can be seen. One of them is the aforementioned St. Mary’s Basilica (although technically speaking the space it’s built on has its own name – St. Mary’s Square). Its characteristic, slender form with two uneven towers is the main focal point of the Market Square. Another point of interest is the Adam Mickiewicz monument, often called “Adaś” by the people of Kraków. There’s also an ancient, Romanesque church of St. Wojciech Not far from here. At the very center of the Square there’s the Cloth Hall – a building rich with beautiful renaissance forms (famous wall adorned with mascarons) where souvenirs can be bought. The Cloth Hall also houses an art gallery displaying 19th century Polish paintings and – since 2010 – an entrance to one-of-a-kind underground museum with an exhibition portraying the everyday life in medieval Kraków and accessing the oldest preserved parts of the buildings from that time. The museum is a truly amazing source of knowledge about the Main Market Square during the Middle Ages – it helps to understand why the square was so vast and why it’s relatively empty today.
The Main Market Square had always been a strategic point in the city. Important ceremonies and national events had been held here for centuries – two of them, namely Hołd Pruski and Tadeusz Kościuszko’s Oath, are commemorated with appropriate tablets. The square was also the place for meting out justice – the city’s executioner and whipping post could be found here. Before the punishment, however, a trial had to be carried out – on the other side of the Market Square the Town Hall Tower can be found. It’s 70m tall and leans slightly to one side. It used to be just a part of a much larger structure that housed a torture chamber in its dungeons.
Right by the Town Hall Tower there’s a piece of modern sculpture “EROS SPĘTANY” by Igor Mitoraj that lends a flare of modernity to its surroundings. The famous “head” is also a frequently used “photo opportunity” spot.