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A few kilometres west of the city brings you to the Bielany district. Perched high up on the southwest edge of the Las Wolski, overlooking the river, is the monumental Camadulensian church and monastery (8am-6pm). The only way to get here if you don't have your own transport is to take tram #2 from the train station to the Zwierzyniec terminus, and change to bus #109, #209, #229 or #239, alighting at the Srebrna Gora stop, from where it's a fifteen-minute walk up the hill to the church complex. It's a popular place for outings, so follow the crowds if in doubt. A walled walkway brings you to the entrance to the complex, through which you're confronted by the huge, crumbling facade of the monastery church, the high central section flanked by a pair of equally imposing square towers. The spacious interior of the church consists of a soaring barrel-vaulted nave lined by a series of ornate chapels, the most notable of which, the chapels of sw. Benedykta (St Benedict) and sw. Romualda (St Romuald), feature a lavish series of paintings by the artist Tommaso Dolabella depicting the lives of the saints. A little behind the entrance is the tomb of the church's founder, Mikolaj Wolski, crown marshal of Poland in the early 1600s, placed here, it is said, so that churchgoers will walk over it - a stirring example of the humility the Camadolese aim to inculcate among their members. The monks follow a strict routine of prayer and worship, so the chances are you'll catch them intoning plainsong from the raised, partially hidden gallery behind the altar. With the monks chanting in the background, a visit down into the crypt , where the bodies of deceased hermits are stored in coffinless niches, sealed and then exhumed eighty years later for their skeletons to be displayed, is an eerie, not to say chilling experience. Bear in mind, too, that the church complex is supposedly only open to men, except during Sunday Mass and on religious holidays, although this doesn't seem to deter the unisex crowd of visitors, mostly Poles, you'll find trekking around the place throughout the summer. Despite its relative proximity to the city, the Bielany complex feels light years away from the world at large.
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