St Andrew's: the church that held out against the Mongols

In front of you is one of Kraków's oldest churches and one of the best-preserved Romanesque buildings in Poland. It was built between 1079 and 1098, and its founding is attributed to the palatine Sieciech. It was the main church of Okół, a settlement that stretched between the market and Wawel.

1A church ready for war

Notice its thick stone walls and the narrow windows low down: that's no accident. The church was also designed as a defensive refuge, and it served as one. According to the chronicler Jan Długosz, in 1241, when Mongol troops took and burned Kraków, the people of Okół shut themselves in here and held out.

2The shadow of the Tatars

That invasion, and those that followed in 1259 and 1287, left a deep mark on the city's memory. They echo in the legend of the arrow that cuts off the hejnał and in the Lajkonik festival, when a rider dressed as a Tatar parades through the streets every year, a week after Corpus Christi, from the Zwierzyniec convent to the Rynek, handing out taps of his mace that, by tradition, bring good luck.

3Seven centuries behind walls

In 1320 the church passed to the Poor Clares, enclosed nuns who still live in the convent next door. The interior is a surprise: in the 18th century it was covered in Baroque stucco by Baltazar Fontana, in contrast to the plain exterior.

Outside, an 11th-century fortress; inside, a Baroque jewel box.

4What to look for

• The narrow lower windows, designed for defence.
• The twin towers: square Romanesque bases and octagonal upper stages with later Baroque domes.
• The convent wall of the Poor Clares around it.