Góra Świętej Anny Landscape Park

Góra Świętej Anny (St Anne's Mountain) Landscape Park protects 5,051 ha of the Chełm Ridge, the westernmost part of the Silesian Upland, which rises above the flat Opole Plain. It is one of the smaller landscape parks in Poland, yet it holds orchid-rich beech woods, ravines, an 18th-century Calvary, an amphitheatre in a former quarry and a sanctuary on a summit 404 m above sea level.

A protected landscape

The park was created on 26 May 1988. It lies in Strzelce County (Leśnica, Strzelce Opolskie and Ujazd municipalities) and Krapkowice County (Gogolin and Zdzieszowice). The landscape is mainly agricultural, with rolling fields and avenues of limes and cherries, while forests cover only 21% of the area. The bedrock is Triassic limestone and marl, where karst has formed sinkholes, dry valleys and small caves. Because of its geology the area was declared a National Geopark in 2010. The most valuable beech woods, including the very rare orchid beech forest, are protected as nature reserves, and the woods are home to the large white helleborine among other plants. The rare smooth snake lives here, as do the edible dormouse and hazel dormouse, while woodpeckers and flycatchers nest in the old beeches.

St Anne's Mountain and its monuments

The park's highest point is St Anne's Mountain (404 m), known for the Sanctuary of St Anne, visited by hundreds of thousands of pilgrims every year. The mountain's designed cultural and natural landscape was declared a Monument of History in 2004. A Calvary covers its slopes: in 1700–1709 Count Gaschin funded 33 chapels, later added to, and in 1912–1913 a replica of the Lourdes grotto was built next to the monastery. A former quarry holds an amphitheatre and the Monument to the Insurgent Deed by sculptor Xawery Dunikowski, with a mid-19th-century shaft lime kiln nearby. The neighbouring quarry, where nephelinite and limestone were extracted until 1946, is now a geological reserve.

Tripto tips

• The easiest starting point is the village of Góra Świętej Anny. The sanctuary, Calvary, amphitheatre and geological reserve are close together, so 2–3 hours is enough for a walking loop.
• The park office at 10 Leśnicka Street runs an information point with maps and guidebooks. Educational activities currently take place in the Pilgrims' House at 7 Jana Pawła II Avenue.
• The A4 motorway cuts the park in two. You will find quieter beech woods and ravines, such as the Krowiok Valley, in its forested corners.
• On major pilgrimage days the village and its car parks get very crowded, so choose ordinary days for nature walks.