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Churches & monasteries
Wieliczka
St. Sebastian's Church in Wieliczka (say "vyeh-LEECH-kah") is a 16th-century larchwood church hidden among old trees on Babina hill, on the southeastern edge of the town famous for its salt mine. Plain on the outside, it surprises inside w…
Churches & monasteries
Świniary
The Peter's Pence register of 1326 contains the entry "Nicolaus, plebanus ecclesie de Swiniar" – the oldest written mention of the parish of Świniary. Today's wooden Church of St Stanislaus the Bishop stands in this village in the Ponidzie…
Churches & monasteries
Korczew
In the small village of Knychówek, in the Korczew municipality not far from the Bug River, stands a brick church founded by an aunt of King John III Sobieski. It took 37 years to build, in a style transitional between Gothic and Renaissanc…
Churches & monasteries
Janowiec
For several decades of the 16th century, two denominations worshipped side by side in this church: Catholics in the old Gothic part and Calvinists in the new section added by the Firlej family. Only towards the end of the century were arch…
Churches & monasteries
Wiślica
St. Stanislaus Church in Nowy Korczyn is a 13th-century Gothic church founded in 1257 by Duke Bolesław the Chaste and his wife Kinga, later canonized as St. Kinga. It stands in a small town in the Ponidzie region of southern Poland, near t…
Churches & monasteries
Żarki
On Laskowiec hill above Żarki stand the roofless walls of a church, and beneath the grass around them lie burials more than five centuries old. The Ruins of St Stanislaus Church in Żarki are the conserved walls of a small Baroque church bu…
Churches & monasteries
Łapsze Niżne
Below the parapet of the church tower in Frydman, wooden beams stick out of the wall – all that is left of a watch gallery that burned down in the 18th century. The church dates from the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries and is considere…
Churches & monasteries
Żarki
At first glance the parish church in Żarki looks like a 19th-century building – and in part it is. Beneath its eclectic exterior, however, stand the walls of a church built in 1518–1522 and funded by Marcin Myszkowski, castellan of Wieluń.…
Churches & monasteries
Korfantów
From the outside, Holy Trinity Church on Opolska Street in Korfantów looks like an early 20th-century building. That is only half the story: the building remodelled in 1909 hides a granite portal from around 1300, and the parish has existe…
Churches & monasteries
Nowy Korczyn
The façade of the parish church in Nowy Korczyn reads like a book in stone: a three-tier gable with statues of saints, a relief of the Virgin and the coats of arms of the town, Kraków and a bishop. Poland's National Heritage Board (NID) ca…
Churches & monasteries
Ruda Śląska
Around 1900 the number of parishioners in Kochłowice grew tenfold, as coal mines drew thousands of workers to Upper Silesia. The small Baroque church from 1806 was no longer big enough, so a twin-towered Holy Trinity Church rose right next…
Churches & monasteries
Witaszyce
Locals in Witaszyce simply call it "the Little Church". The white Neoclassical Holy Trinity Church dates from 1808 and stands on a site where a church already existed in the 14th century; on its outer walls hang memorial plaques to the Gor…
Churches & monasteries
Dąbrowa
On a rise in Dąbrowa, about 11 km west of Opole on the edge of the Niemodlin Forest, stands the Church of St Lawrence, partly ringed by old lime trees. The parish is one of the oldest documented in Upper Silesia: the local priest – "Nicola…
Churches & monasteries
Głuchołazy
The twin-towered parish church of St Lawrence stands by the market square in Głuchołazy, and its oldest feature dates back to the medieval town. The Early Gothic portal has survived every rebuilding and ranks among Silesia's notable monume…
Churches & monasteries
Wiślica
The August church fair held in front of this church made it into a song – the folk band Wolna Grupa Bukowina immortalised it in "Nuta z Ponidzia". The Church of St Lawrence itself is older than any ballad: the stone church on the hill at G…
Churches & monasteries
Koźmin Wielkopolski
The parish Church of Our Lady and St Lawrence on ul. Kościelna in Koźmin Wielkopolski is one of the most richly furnished churches in southern Greater Poland. Its 15th-century Gothic core was given a Baroque dress in the 17th century, and…
Churches & monasteries
Nowa Słupia
For centuries the pilgrims' road to Święty Krzyż (Holy Cross) has run through Nowa Słupia – and it was here, at the stone Church of St Lawrence, that they stopped before climbing Łysa Góra (Bald Mountain). At the entrance to the churchyard…
Churches & monasteries
Zabrze
On Church Hill in the Mikulczyce district of Zabrze stands the neo-Gothic Church of St Lawrence, but the parish is far older than its brick walls. A collection of Peter's Pence was recorded here as early as 1326, and a late-18th-century pa…
Churches & monasteries
Sierpc
Set into the walls of Sierpc's parish church are millstones, built in alongside fieldstones and brick. This is the oldest monument in Sierpc — the Gothic church of Saints Vitus, Modestus and Crescentia from the 15th century, standing in th…
Churches & monasteries
Szydłów
In stone-built Szydłów, where the walls, castle and synagogue were all raised from local limestone, the parish church of St Ladislaus stands out by its colour alone: it is a brick Gothic church from the mid-14th century. It was founded by…
Churches & monasteries
Modlnica
In 1553 the nobleman Jakub Śladkowski of Zabierzów built a new wooden church in Modlnica, and in return received the annual tithes, the crops from the parish fields and – according to the parish chronicle – the right to use the parish prie…
Churches & monasteries
Jeleśnia
On the road from Żywiec to the Slovak border crossing at Korbielów, in the upper part of Jeleśnia, stands the Baroque Church of St Adalbert (św. Wojciech). Its tower is topped with a domed cap that looks more like the churches on the Slova…
Churches & monasteries
Międzyrzecz
St Adalbert's Church on the market square in Międzyrzecz is one of the notable church designs of Karl Friedrich Schinkel, the most famous Prussian architect of the 19th century. The plain rendered building with a tall tower topped by a gil…
Churches & monasteries
Szydłowiec
Four centuries ago someone carved a knight in armour, buildings with pennants and a house topped with a ball into the sandstone blocks of Szydłowiec's parish church. This graffiti from around 1600 is just one reason to walk all the way rou…