Organy Wielisławskie (Wielisław Organ Pipes)

On the slope of Wielisławka hill, dozens of vertical stone columns stand side by side like the pipes of a giant organ. Organy Wielisławskie, the "Wielisław Organ Pipes" in Sędziszowa near Świerzawa, are the remains of a volcano more than 250 million years old, exposed by a 19th-century quarry. The columns are made of rhyolite, a rock in which this pattern rarely forms.

Columns from inside a volcano

Organy Wielisławskie (German: Willenberg or Grosse Orgel) is an outcrop of rhyolite, once called porphyry, on the slope of Wielisławka (375 m above sea level). The rock formed in the early Permian, when volcanoes were active in this part of the Kaczawskie Foothills. As the lava cooled and shrank, it cracked into regular columns, usually four- or five-sided and 20–30 cm across. Geologists call this columnar jointing. It's most often seen in basalt, and it develops only exceptionally in acidic rocks such as rhyolite. Scientific literature describes the site as an example of Permian lavas with columnar jointing and distinct flow banding.

A quarry operated here in the 19th century, and it cut the rock face into its present shape. Today the Organ Pipes are protected as a natural monument. Heather, harebells, cinquefoil and two kinds of stonecrop grow on the rock ledges.

What to look for

Look at the cross-sections of the columns at the foot of the wall, where they form a polygonal honeycomb pattern. An educational trail circles the summit of Wielisławka in about an hour, and below the top there's a view over Sędziszowa, the Kaczawa valley and the Kaczawskie Foothills. The hill is also riddled with old mine adits. A local story claims that the "Gold of Wrocław" was hidden here at the end of the Second World War. Treat it as a legend, not a confirmed fact.

Tripto tip

• Getting there: in Sędziszowa, just past the disused railway crossing, turn sharply right onto the gravel road that leads to the foot of Wielisławka. There's space to park and camp below the hill.
• Time needed: half an hour for the Organ Pipes alone, about an hour and a half with the summit trail.
• Safety: don't climb the old quarry wall and don't go into the adits.
• Nearby: Świerzawa, Złotoryja, Wojcieszów and other sites of the Land of Extinct Volcanoes in the Kaczawskie Foothills.