Ninety seconds on Wrocław Old Town Hall
Look past the facade to the rooms inside, where you walk through one of Europe's finest late-Gothic civic buildings to a Great Hall of more than 650 square metres under a net vault.
The building is the museum's main exhibit. It grew over two and a half centuries of building, so Gothic rooms of different ages sit side by side. The Museum of Bourgeois Art fills them with work from the city's craft workshops.
Upstairs, stop longest in the Great Hall and look up at its net vault, the ribs crossing in a mesh over the whole ceiling. In the former chapel beside it, now the Prince's Room, cases hold silver made by Wrocław goldsmiths over several centuries.
On the same floor, the Room of the Elders has a star vault and a group portrait of the city's councillors and aldermen by Georg Scholz the Younger. Elsewhere in the building, the Council Chamber is the most richly decorated room, with the plainer Council Chancellery beside it.
The Burghers' Hall is the oldest part of the building, used for public gatherings and ceremonies around 1300. It now holds the Gallery of Famous Wrocławians: 30 busts carved from Silesian marble by Wrocław sculptors. They show well-known former citizens of the city, of several nationalities.
Two parts make up a visit: the outside of the building, then the rooms inside. Start outside: walk past the clock on the east facade to the south side, where comic scenes of tavern life are carved above the door down to the cellar.
Then go in by the main entrance, on the side with the statue of Aleksander Fredro. Unless you have booked a group tour, you go round on your own.
Head upstairs to the Great Hall first, then the Prince's Room and the Room of the Elders on the same floor. Finish in the Burghers' Hall with its marble busts. Ask at the desk what temporary exhibition is on: past shows have included Dalí, Miró and Warhol.
Guided tours are for groups only: up to 40 people, booked through the museum at least three weeks before the visit. A school or society trip can arrange one. A couple or a family follows the route above on its own.
The beer cellar beneath the building, Piwnica Świdnicka, is run separately from the museum and takes its own bookings by phone, email or contact form. Reserve a table ahead, especially at weekends and from May to August.
If you eat downstairs, wear flat shoes: the cellar floors are uneven and the thresholds worn from long use.
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