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Some 60km east of Kielce on the Lublin road, beyond the outer reaches of the Swietokrzyskie Mountains, the little town of OPATOW is as somnolent a place as you would expect in these parts. Yet the town has known better days, originally developing out of its position on one of the major medieval trading routes east into Russia. Badly mauled during the Tatar raids of Poland (1500-1502), Opatow was purchased and subsequently fortified by Chancellor Krzysztof Szydlowiecki. The Stare Miasto complex grouped around the long square at the top of the hill and surrounded by walls is what remains of the chancellor's development of the town. As often, the most notable building is the parish church on the main square, dedicated to St Martin, a towering three-aisled Romanesque basilica raised in the mid-twelfth century and remodelled in later centuries. A few features of the original Romanesque decoration survive, notably the main doorway, the dual windows in the south tower and some frieze decoration on the facade. These aside, the thing to look out for is the group of Szydlowiecki family tombs , especially that of Chancellor Krzysztof. Executed, like the others in the group, in the 1530s by a duo of Italian architects from the court at Wawel, the tomb has a powerful bronze bas-relief of the citizens of Opatow mourning the chancellor's death - a moving tribute to a man whose family name had died out by the end of the century owing to a persistent failure to produce male heirs. One section of the square is crisscrossed by a honeycomb of underground tunnels and cellars , a throwback to the town's merchant past, originally used for storing goods sold in the local market. It's now possible to visit the cellars - ask at the PTTK office on the square, which organizes guided visits underground when demand is sufficient. Ten minutes' walk away, back down the hill, through the Brama Warszawska (Warsaw Gate) and across the River Opatowka, is the Bernardine church , an ornate late-Baroque structure with a fine high altarpiece that replaced the earlier fifteenth-century church destroyed by Swedish troops during the invasions of the mid-1650s. The bus station , in the centre of town, has good connections to nearby Sandomierz and reasonable ones to Kielce. The only accommodation options to speak of are a basic PTTK hostel, ul. Obroncow Pokoju 16 (tel 015/868 2778; under 60zl/GBP11/US$15) and a seasonal youth hostel at ul. Cmielowska 2 (tel 015/868 2374), while for simple meals there are a couple of restaurants on the main square.
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