Town Hall Tower (Wieża Ratuszowa)

The Town Hall Tower (Wieża Ratuszowa) is a 70-metre Gothic tower on Kraków's Main Market Square, the only surviving part of the city's old town hall, which was pulled down in 1820 to clear the square. People visit to climb roughly 110 stone steps to an observation deck for a high view over the Old Town, and to see the odd fact of a building that leans: its axis was pushed 55 centimetres out of true by a storm in 1703, which is why locals call it the Leaning Tower of Kraków.

A staircase of about 110 stone steps winds up the tower to an observation deck, where the reward is a view across the Main Market Square, the Cloth Hall and the rooftops of the Old Town. The climb is up an old, narrow stairway rather than a lift, so it suits visitors happy on their feet. Down below, the cellars tell a darker story: they once held the city prison and a torture chamber, a reminder that this tower was the working core of medieval Kraków's civic power.

For centuries the tower stood attached to Kraków's town hall, the seat of the city council. In 1820 the main building was demolished to open up the Main Market Square, and the tower alone was left standing, which is why it now rises on its own in the middle of the square. That survival makes it a rare direct link to the medieval civic buildings that once filled this space, and it is now cared for by the Museum of Kraków.

The nickname the Leaning Tower of Kraków is not a marketing line. A storm in 1703 shifted the structure so that its axis now sits about 55 centimetres off vertical, a tilt small enough to be easy to miss at a glance but real once you look for it. Set against the tower's Gothic brickwork and height, it gives the building a quiet quirk that separates it from the grander landmarks around the square.

The tower sits on the Main Market Square in the Old Town, so it is a short detour rather than a separate trip, easy to pair with the Cloth Hall, St Mary's Basilica and a walk around the square. Climb it early in a visit for a sense of the layout below, then explore at street level. For planning the wider area, see our Kraków guide.