Goslar's market square is a small, dense space hemmed in on every side by buildings worth a long look. On the north side, the late Gothic Rathaus (town hall) hides a hand-painted council chamber, the Huldigungssaal, whose walls and ceiling are covered in early sixteenth-century Biblical scenes. Diagonally opposite stands the Kaiserworth, a guildhall of the cloth merchants with comic stone figures crouching at the buttress tops — including the famous Dukatenmännchen, a small man defecating gold coins.
In the centre, the bronze Marktbrunnen fountain dates from the twelfth century and carries a copy of the imperial eagle that once topped it; the original sits in the town museum. A glockenspiel above the Kämmereigebäude on the eastern side plays four times a day, with mechanical figures showing the discovery of the Rammelsberg ore. Stand on the square at noon and the show is brief, but it is a Goslar fixture.