In 1600, Mikołaj Zebrzydowski, a Polish nobleman, began to build a chapel on a hill south-west of Kraków, modelled on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem. Over the following decades, he and his descendants added dozens of chapels and churches spread over the hills, laid out to recreate the Passion of Christ and the life of the Virgin, with the landscape itself standing in for Jerusalem. The result, Kalwaria Zebrzydowska, is one of the most important pilgrimage sites in Poland and a UNESCO World Heritage site since 1999.
The Bernardine monastery at the heart of the complex is a Baroque building with a basilica, and around it, over several kilometres of paths through woods and fields, stand some forty chapels in a variety of architectural styles, from Mannerist to Baroque. During Holy Week, the site hosts one of Europe's oldest Passion plays, with thousands of pilgrims following the actors from chapel to chapel. The pilgrimages in August, for the Assumption, also draw huge crowds.
Karol Wojtyła, who became Pope John Paul II, grew up in Wadowice, about fourteen kilometres away, and visited Kalwaria often as a boy. Wadowice has a museum in his family home, and the town is famous for the kremówka, a cream cake that the Pope fondly recalled from his youth.
The riding in this part of Lesser Poland is pleasant. The hills of the Beskid Mały and Beskid Makowski rise to the south, with roads that wind through forests and villages, and further south, the Tatra mountains and Zakopane are within reach for a longer ride. The roads around Kalwaria are generally good, but traffic can be heavy on the main routes to Kraków, and village roads may be rough. Polish drivers can be impatient, so ride defensively.
Kalwaria Zebrzydowska has fuel and food, and Kraków, about thirty kilometres away, has everything. Local food includes pierogi, dumplings, żurek, a sour rye soup, and oscypek, a smoked cheese from the mountains. Late spring and early autumn are the best seasons.