Wrocław is one of Poland's most beautiful cities, successfully combining cosmopolitan decadence and avant-garde ideas with conservatism

The 12th-century Market Square, the best place to start a walk around the city, is a feast for the eye, with the rich colors and forms of the houses that surround it and the elaborately decorated town hall at its center.

Rising in the center of the market square, the Wrocław town hall is one of the finest examples of secular Gothic architecture in Europe. Built between the late 13th and the early 16th century at the crossroads of major trade routes, it was the city's showpiece, attesting to its power and wealth. The eastern facade features a 16th-century clock with only one hand, which shows the phases of the Moon. The finest of its Gothic and Renaissance interiors include the huge Burgher Hall, offices of the City Council and- upstairs-the sumptuously decorated Great Hall.

The entrance to the Świdnica Cellar, the lowest level of the building, now occupied by a restaurant, is topped with the figures of a drunkard and a burgher woman who's waiting for him with a shoe in her hand. As early as the 13th century the cellar was a popular beer hall, its name recalling the beer-brewing traditions of the town of Świdnica. The delicious Biały Baran is brewed on the premises according to an ancient recipe.

Outside the town hall stands a whipping post, a greyish sandstone pillar topped with an intricate openwork lantern, an exact replica of the original, whose surviving fragments were moved to the Museum of Architecture.

The main part of the market square, next to the town hall, is occupied by mansions lining three short lanes-Przejście Garncarskie, Przejście Żelaźnicze and Sukiennice-and the Przejście Poprzeczne, which cuts them at a right angle.

The decorative facades of the houses are paragons of Mannerist grace (no. 5, known as Dwór Polski; no. 2, Pod Gryfami) and Baroque beauty (no. 8, Pod Siedmioma Elektorami; nos. 15 and 18 as well as nos. 8 and 9 in the central row).

The 14th-century Garrison Church of St. Elizabeth is the second biggest church in town. Inside, note the beautiful late-Gothic sacramentarium that dates from 1455 (next to the high altar), the Renaissance tombstone of the counselor Heinrich Rybisch (1484-1544) and the Mannerist monument of Nikolas Rehdiger, completed in 1585 by Friedrich Gross (1540-1598) from Dresden, who was also responsible for the Renaissance memorials to Marta Egk (1588) and the Pfizing family (1575-1580). At the top of the 84m tower is a breathtaking panorama of Wrocław and its surroundings.

Kuźnicza Street leads from the market square to the university campus. The main portico is decorated with the allegories of Justice, Valor, Wisdom and Moderation while above, in the corners of the Tower of Mathematics, four statues represent the departments of theology, philosophy, medicine and law.

Upstairs is the main assembly hall known as Aula Leopoldina, a Baroque masterpiece adorned with trompe l'oeil paintings, gilded stucco and sculpture. The ceiling frescoes in the stairwell, depicting the apotheosis of the Silesian duchies, were completed between 1734 and 1735 by Felix Anton Scheffler from Munich.