Floriańska Street: a short evening walk

A street on the Royal Road

Floriańska is one of the main streets of Kraków's Old Town. It is part of the Royal Road, the coronation route that starts at St Florian's Church and the Barbican (built in 1499), enters through St Florian's Gate, runs down Floriańska across the Main Square and continues up Grodzka to Wawel. The street appears on the plan of the extended city in 1257, after the Mongol invasion of 1241, and is named after Saint Florian. Walk it from the gate toward the Square and you follow the coronation route; walk from the Square to the gate, as you will for the café, and you go against it.

From the Square to the gate

Start at the north-east corner of the Main Market Square, which Wikipedia calls the largest medieval town square of any European city. Floriańska is lined with tenement houses that now hold shops, cafés and restaurants. The square came into existence when the city received Magdeburg Rights in 1257. The café is toward the gate end of the street, not near the Square, and its name board hangs over an arched doorway, with arched windows on either side of it. Look for that three-arch front as you walk, and you will not pass it by.

• Number 25: the Pharmacy Museum of the Jagiellonian University Medical College
• Number 41: the Jan Matejko House
• Number 45: Jama Michalika
• The northern end: St Florian's Gate

The gate and the walls

St Florian's Gate stands at the street's northern end, in the line of the former city walls. Most of the Old Town's fortifications were demolished in the nineteenth century and the moat became the Planty park, a green belt around the Old Town. The northern walls, the Barbican, the Florian Gate and three towers were saved from demolition, thanks to Professor Feliks Radwański. A short stroll to the gate and back makes a pleasant bookend to the evening, and it costs nothing but a few minutes. The whole street is 335 metres long, so an end-to-end walk is brief, and the gate looks best once it is lit.

A recognised street

The UNESCO listing dates to 1978, when the Historic Centre of Kraków was among the first sites on the original World Heritage List, and Floriańska falls inside it. In 1994 the street was designated a Historic Monument of Poland. In 1882 it carried the first horse tram line, converted to electric operation in 1901, and the tram has since gone. Today it is one of the city's best-known promenades, which explains why it never feels empty, and why it is a good street for a first orientation walk.

Fitting it around the show

A walk down Floriańska works well before the show, when you are fresh and the street is busy, or after it, when the dinner has settled and the lamps are on. Allow more time than the distance suggests, since you will stop to look. Keep the café's address in your phone and give yourself a few minutes' margin before the start shown on your booking, so that the walk does not turn into a rush. Wear shoes that cope with old paving. If you want to see the gate in daylight and the street at night, split the walk across two days. Eat before the show rather than after, since the dinner is three courses and a snack on the walk is not needed.