Wambierzyce Basilica

Wambierzyce is a village of a few hundred people with a basilica the size of a cathedral standing over it, approached by a monumental flight of thirty-three stone steps - one for each year of Christ's life - up to a broad baroque facade. The church was built at the end of the seventeenth century around an older shrine holding a small carved figure of the Virgin, and it is one of the main Marian pilgrimage sites in Silesia. The village around it was laid out as a Calvary in the same period, with chapels and stations placed on the hills and given the names of places in Jerusalem, so the lanes carry biblical labels. The other thing to see is the moving nativity: a mechanical crib built by a local craftsman over decades in the nineteenth century, with several hundred carved figures, many of them animated, filling a room in a house beside the church.

What you actually see

• Thirty-three steps - the monumental stair to the baroque facade.
• A pilgrimage basilica - built around a small carved Virgin in the 1690s.
• A village as Jerusalem - chapels on the hills with biblical place names.
• The mechanical nativity - hundreds of carved figures, many of them moving.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Honest expectations

The church closes to visitors during services and pilgrimages, which are frequent. The nativity display keeps its own hours and is a separate ticket. The village is tiny with limited food. The stair is steep.

Nearby

The Table Mountains and Szczeliniec are west; Klodzko is north-east.