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Of the three streets leading north off the Rynek, the easternmost, ul. Florianska is the busiest and most striking. In among the myriad shops, cafes and restaurants are some attractive fragments of medieval and Renaissance architecture. At no. 5, for example, a beautiful early Renaissance stone figure of the Madonna and Child sits in a niche on the facade of the Brama Florianska (Florianska Gate; see below). At no. 14, Pod Roza , the oldest hotel in Krakow, has a Renaissance doorway inscribed in Latin, "May this house stand until an ant drinks the oceans and a tortoise circles the world" - it doesn't seem to get much attention from the moneyed revellers who flock to the hotel's reopened casino. Famous hotel guests of the past include Franz Liszt, Balzac and the occasional tsar. Further up the street, at no. 41, is the sixteenth-century Dom Jana Matejki (Matejko House; Tues-Thurs & Sat-Sun 10am-3.30pm, Fri 10am-6pm; 5zl, free on Sun), home of painter Jan Matejko until his death in 1893. An opulent, slightly gloomy three-storey mansion of the type favoured by the wealthy turn-of-the-twentieth-century Krakow bourgeoisie, it houses a museum with a range of Matejko family memorabilia, parts of the man's extensive personal art collection and a number of his own paintings and assorted other artistic outpourings. The first-floor parlour and a couple of other rooms remain pretty much as the Matejko family kept them, attractive old fireplaces included. The second and third floors house Matejko's private art gallery, notably a number of Renaissance pictures and triptychs. The rest of the exhibition is mostly Matejko's own work, including the sketches of the windows he designed for the Mariacki Church. There's also a collection of old costumes and armour that he used as inspiration for several of his more famous pictures, notably Sobieski at Vienna. Not a wildly exciting museum, it's a popular enough place with Matejko freaks, of whom there still seem to be plenty in the country. Further along, Western fast-food culture has come to town in the form of the McDonald's at no. 55, more or less welcomed by local residents depending on who you speak to, though plans to build another restaurant right on the revered main square are proving a good deal more controversial. The Brama Florianska (Florianska Gate), at the end of the street, marks the edge of the Stare Miasto proper. A square, robust fourteenth-century structure, it's part of a small section of fortifications saved when the old defensive walls were pulled down in the early nineteenth century. The walls lead east to the fifteenth-century Haberdashers' (Pasamonikow) Tower and west to the Joiners' (Stolarska) Gate, which is separated from the even older Carpenters' (Ciesli) Gate by the Arsenal. The original fortifications must have been an impressive sight - three kilometres of wall ten metres high and nearly three metres thick, interspersed with 47 towers and bastions. The strongest-looking defensive remnant is the Barbakan , just beyond Florianska Gate. A bulbous, spiky fort, added in 1498, it's unusual in being based on the Arab as opposed to European defensive architecture of the time. The covered passage linking the fort to the walls has disappeared, as has the original moat - all of which leaves the bastion looking a little stranded.
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