Lubiaz Abbey

The Cistercian abbey at Lubiaz has a main facade two hundred and twenty-three metres long and a floor area that puts it among the largest monastic complexes anywhere - the figure usually quoted is around three hundred rooms. It was founded in 1163 and rebuilt on this scale in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries when Silesian Cistercian houses were extremely rich. Then it stopped: dissolved by Prussia in 1810, used as a stud, a hospital, a psychiatric institution, a wartime factory and a Soviet military hospital, stripped of its furnishings, and left largely empty. What is restored and open is the Prince's Hall, a two-storey ceremonial room with ceiling painting by Christian Philipp Bentum and marble columns, and the summer refectory. The rest is bare shell under long-term conservation, and walking it is the point: enormous corridors with nothing in them. Michael Willmann, the Silesian baroque painter, worked and is buried here.

What you actually see

• A 223-metre facade - among the largest monastery buildings in the world.
• The Prince's Hall - two storeys, marble columns, painted ceiling.
• Empty corridors - most of the complex a bare shell after two centuries of other uses.
• Willmann's abbey - the Silesian baroque painter worked and is buried here.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

Most of the building is unrestored and closed; the visit covers a small fraction of it. Interiors are cold and bare. Visits are guided and seasonal. The church is generally not part of the standard route.

Nearby

Wroclaw is fifty-five kilometres south-east; Trzebnica is north-east.