Collegium Maius (Jagiellonian University)

Collegium Maius is the oldest university building in Poland and one of the oldest in Europe, built in the 15th century for the Jagiellonian University — which itself was founded in 1364, making it the second-oldest university in Central Europe after Prague. Copernicus studied here. So did Pope John Paul II. The building wears its intellectual pedigree with appropriate gravitas.

The Gothic arcaded courtyard is one of the most beautiful small spaces in Kraków — red brick arches on three sides, a well in the centre, and a gallery of pointed arches that belong more in a cloister than a university. Every day at noon, a mechanical clock above the courtyard plays a student song while carved wooden figures of university rectors parade across the clock face — a charming piece of academic self-celebration.

The museum inside contains the university's collection of scientific instruments, including what's claimed to be the oldest surviving astronomical globe to show the Americas — the Jagiellonian Globe, made around 1510, just 18 years after Columbus. There are also medieval astronomical instruments, academic maces, and the lecture rooms where Copernicus sat in the 1490s working out that the Earth was not, in fact, the centre of the universe. Tours are required for the museum interior but the courtyard is free to enter.