Beneath the Old Town's tenement houses is an unparalleled accumulation of Gothic corridors and vaulted rooms, home to numerous restaurants, clubs, theatres and cabarets, led by the famous Piwnica pod Baranami or the Pod Ratuszem stage of Kraków's Teatr Ludowy. There are more than 100 such cellars in the Main Square area, with a total area of around 75,000 square metres.

Walking between the Cloth Hall and St. Mary's Basilica, one may not realise there is a real treasure trove of knowledge about Kraków's past hidden several metres underground. To discover it, all you have to do is go down to the Market Underground (enter through the Cloth Hall from the side of St Mary's Basilica). The underground museum was created in 2005, preceded by archaeological research, which yielded many new discoveries and historical artefacts.  Walking along the underground tourist route ‘Tracing the European Identity of Kraków’, we can feel the atmosphere of the medieval market square and discover the connections between the former Polish capital and the most important centres of trade and culture in medieval Europe.

The vaults of the Town Hall tower also have an interesting history, once housing two completely different establishments. One was the famous Piwnica Świdnicka, where numerous types of beer and wine were served. Its name derives from the name of an exquisite Silesian beer imported from Świdnica, which was popular among the townspeople. Right next door, barely separated by a wall, was the most horrific place in all of Kraków: the prison torture chamber, where the executioner and his assistants extracted confessions from evildoers.