Free Walking Tour of Krakow

This is Kraków's essential first walk, tracing the Royal Route through a center so well preserved that UNESCO named it one of the first World Heritage Sites on earth. From the meeting point between St. Florian's Gate and the Barbican — the last fragments of the medieval city walls — you'll follow the same path Polish kings once rode on their way to be crowned, past the Czartoryski Museum and down into the Rynek Główny, Europe's largest surviving medieval square.

Your guide brings the square to life: the Renaissance arcades of the Cloth Hall, the mismatched twin towers of St. Mary's Basilica and the bugler's broken-off tune played from its tower every hour, and the story of Kraków's very own dragon, said to have terrorized the city from a cave beneath Wawel Hill. The walk finishes at the Wawel complex, with time to take in the castle and cathedral where centuries of Polish history are buried.