One of the most important architectural landmarks in the Old Town, and one of the most important Gothic towers anywhere in the country, St. Florian’s gate was once joined by a bridge to the Barbican as part of Krakow’s medieval fortification system. The original gate was built in stone before 1307, heightened in brick in the 15th century and acquired its Baroque roof around 1660 (estimates of the date vary). The tower is thirty three and a half metres tall and is the only one remaining of the original eight, the other seven having been ‘modernised’, like so much else, out of existence in the 19th century.

St. Florian himself, who is the patron saint of Poland (as well as of parts of Austria), was a Christian commander of the imperial Roman army who refused to make sacrifice to Rome’s pagan gods and was tortured and executed for his pains. Some of the relics of St. Florian were presented to King Casimir II by Pope Lucius III in 1184, and lie interred in St. Florian’s Church in Old Kleparz. Florian, during his time on earth, was responsible for the organisation of Roman firefighting brigades, and is therefore often appealed to in parts of Central Europe to intercede against the dangers of fire. He is , unsurprisingly, also the patron saint of firefighters and, at something perhaps of a stretch, of chimney sweeps (though anyone who has had the sweeps in to run a ‘safety check’ on their home will know that stretches of one kind or another are par for the course with these charmed beings).