Monastery of the Camaldolese Monks

Lonely Planet review

The hilly southern part of Las Wolski (Wolski Forest) facing the Vistula, known as Srebrna Góra (Silver Mountain), is topped with the mighty Monastery of the Camaldolese Monks. The order, part of the Benedictine family of monastic communities, was brought to Poland from Italy in 1603 and in time founded a dozen monasteries throughout the country. Today there are just two in Poland, including another in Masuria.

The order, with its very strict rules, attracts curiosity - and a few ironic smiles, particularly for its Memento Mori ('remember you must die') motto - and its members' ascetic way of life. The monks live in seclusion in hermitages and contact each other only during prayers; some have no contact with the outside world at all. They are vegetarian and have solitary meals in their 'homes', with only five common meals a year. The hermits don't sleep in coffins as rumoured, but they do keep the skulls of their predecessors in the hermitages.

Kraków was the first of the Camaldolese seats in Poland; a church and 20 hermitages were established here between 1603 and 1642, and the whole complex was walled in. Not much has changed since. The place is spectacularly located and can be visited.

You approach it through a long walled alley that leads to the main gate, the ceiling of which is covered in naive frescoes. Once you are let in, you walk to the massive white limestone façade of the monastery church (50m high and 40m wide). A spacious, single-nave interior is covered by a barrel-shaped vault and lined on both sides with eight ornate Baroque chapels. The Baroque main altar is impressive.

Underneath the chancel of the church is a large chapel used for prayers and, to its right, the crypt of the hermits. Bodies are placed into niches without coffins and then sealed. Latin inscriptions state the age of the deceased and the period spent in the hermitage. The niches are opened after 80 years and most of the remains moved to a place of permanent rest. It's then that the hermits take the skulls to keep in their shelters.

In the garden behind the church are 14 surviving hermitages where several monks live (others live in the building next to the church), but the area is off-limits to tourists. You may occasionally see hermits in the church, sporting long bushy bears and fine white cassocks.

Men can visit the church and crypt any day from 08:00 to 11:00 and 15:00 to 16:30 ; guests are allowed in every half-hour. Women can enter the complex only on certain feast days, of which there are a dozen: Easter, Easter Monday, 3 May, Pentecost (two days), Sunday after 19 June, 2nd and 4th Sundays in July, first Sunday in August, Assumption of May (15 August), Mary's Birthday (8 September) and Christmas.

The hermitage is 7km west of the city centre. Take tram 1, 6 or 32 to the end of the line in Zwierzyniec and change for any westbound bus except the 100. The bus will let you off at the foot of Srebrna Góra, then it's a 200m walk up the hill to the church.