The Cloth Hall, or Sukiennice, sits at the heart of Kraków's vast medieval market square, and it has been doing so, in one form or another, since the 1300s, when King Casimir the Great opened Poland's first permanent shopping arcade here. Fire gutted the building in 1555, which turned out to be something of a blessing: the Italian Queen Bona Sforza had it rebuilt in her favourite Renaissance style, and the result is the elegant arcaded gallery you see today.

The knife hanging by the entrance is a detail worth pausing over. It may or may not be the legendary blade from the feuding brothers of St. Mary's. More likely, it was a reminder to would-be thieves that punishment ran to ears and noses, not just fingers.

VoiceMap's walking tours use the Cloth Hall to trace the city's medieval trade economy, connecting the building's fabric merchants and salt traders to the nearby Wieliczka mines, where salt once cost half the value of gold.