Rynek Główny has been the heart of Kraków since 1257, making it the largest medieval market square in Europe. That's not a record it holds modestly. For centuries, everything of consequence happened here: traders sold salt at half the price of gold; Tadeusz Kościuszko mustered his army of 6,000 before marching on Warsaw in 1794; and in 1939 the Nazi occupiers renamed it Adolf Hitler Platz. The name didn't stick.

At the square's centre sits the Cloth Hall, rebuilt in Italian Renaissance style after a 1555 fire at the insistence of Queen Bona Sforza. On the hour, every hour, a trumpeter sounds the Hejnal from St. Mary's Basilica, always cutting it short mid-note in memory of the medieval watchman killed by a Tartar arrow before he could finish.

VoiceMap's self-guided tours use the square as a lens for Polish history, tracing the Kościuszko rebellion, the legends behind the Cloth Hall's hanging knife, and a sculptor's quiet revenge hidden in the square's most-photographed artwork.