Marija Bistrica

The shrine at Marija Bistrica is built around a small carved wooden statue of the Virgin, dark with age, which according to the tradition recorded here was walled up twice during the Ottoman threat in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries and found again both times. Pilgrimage grew from that, and the site is now the principal Marian shrine of the Croatian church, receiving several hundred thousand pilgrims a year, with a large open-air altar and an amphitheatre added for crowds. John Paul II came here in 1998 and beatified Cardinal Alojzije Stepinac at the site. The church itself was rebuilt in the nineteenth century by Hermann Bolle.

What you actually see

• A dark wooden Madonna - walled up twice and rediscovered, by tradition.
• The main Croatian Marian shrine - hundreds of thousands of pilgrims a year.
• An outdoor altar and amphitheatre - built for the crowds.
• A papal visit in 1998 - the beatification of Cardinal Stepinac.

When to go

May to October, with the largest pilgrimage in July. Half a day.

Honest expectations

This is a working shrine and behaviour is expected to match; the biggest days are extremely crowded. The village around it is given over to devotional shops. Outside pilgrimage season it is quiet and plain.

Nearby

Zagorje's castles are around it; Zagreb is forty minutes south.