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CZESTOCHOWA |
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To get an understanding of the central role that Catholicism still
holds in contemporary Poland, a visit to CZESTOCHOWA is essential and,
for many people, an extraordinary experience. The hilltop monastery of
Jasna Góra (Bright Mountain) is one of the world's greatest places of
pilgrimage, and its famous icon, the Black Madonna , has drawn the
faithful here over the past six centuries - reproductions exist in
almost every Polish church.
The special position that Jasna Góra and its icon hold in the hearts and
minds of the majority of Poles is the product of a rich web of history
and myth. It's not a place you can react to dispassionately, indeed it's
hard not to be moved as you overhear troupes of pilgrims breaking into
hymn as they shuffle between the Stations of the Cross, or watch
peasants praying mutely before the icon they've waited a lifetime to see.
One thing that will strike you here, as the crowds swell towards an
approaching festival, is the number of excited teenagers in attendance,
all treating the event with the expectation you'd find at an
international rock concert.
Central to this nationwide veneration is the tenuous position Poland has
held on the map of Europe; at various times the Swedes, the Russians and
the Germans have sought to annihilate it as a nation. Each of these
traditional and non-Catholic enemies has laid siege to Jasna Góra, yet
failed to destroy it, so adding to the icon's reputation as a
miracle-worker and the guarantor of Poland's very existence.
The regular influx of pilgrims to Czestochowa means that you might have
problems finding somewhere to stay in town. Luckily it's an easy
day-trip from Kraków thanks to good rail connections. Buses also run
daily from Katowice, Kraków, Lódz and Warsaw
The town
Other than Jasna Góra, Czestochowa has very few sights, although the
broad tree-lined boulevards at least give the heart of the city an
agreeably spacious, almost Parisian feel. On pl. Bieganskiego, just off
al. NMP, is the district museum (Tues, Thurs, Fri & Sat 8.30am-4pm, Wed
10.30am-5.30pm, Sun 10am-4pm; 3zl), which has a decent archeology
section plus the usual local history displays. If you want to continue
with the ecclesiastical theme, you can visit the small Baroque Kosciól
sw. Barbary (St Barbara's Church) to the south of Jasna Góra, allegedly
the place where the Black Madonna was slashed; Kosciól sw. Jakuba (St
James's Church), opposite the town hall on al. NMP, a tsarist-era
Orthodox building converted into a Catholic place of worship following
the attainment of independence in 1918; and the cathedral , east of the
train station on ul. Krakowska, a vast, soulless neo-Gothic structure
built - but never fully completed - in the early 1900s.
Near the suburban station of Raków, reached by any southbound tram, is
an important archeology reserve (Tues-Sat 9am-3pm, subject to random
closures), with 21 excavated graves from the Lusatian culture of the
sixth and seventh centuries BC.
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