Jawor's Church of Peace is a miracle built out of necessity. After the Thirty Years' War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 left Silesia under the Catholic Habsburgs, who allowed their Protestant subjects to build only three churches, under strict conditions. They had to be outside the town walls, built of perishable materials, with no tower, no bells and no brick or stone, and they had to be finished within a year. The Lutherans of Jawor responded by building a church of timber, clay and straw, with a roof of thatch, beginning in 1654, and completing it in 1655.
The result is astonishing. It is one of the largest timber-framed churches in Europe, with room for several thousand worshippers on benches and in galleries, all inside a modest-looking building that hides its immense interior behind plain walls. The inside is richly painted, with biblical scenes and decorated galleries piled one above the other, in a way that lifts the spirit and makes you wonder how such a thing was achieved. Because the wood and clay are perishable, the church has required constant care, and UNESCO listed it in 2001, along with the Church of Peace in Świdnica.
The setting is quiet. Jawor, a small town of about twenty-four thousand people, lies in Lower Silesia, in a gently rolling farmland landscape with the Sudetes visible on the horizon. The old town has a market square and a Gothic church, and the area was once part of the Piast duchy of Jawor. The ride's second stop, the Centennial Hall in Wrocław, is a very different building, a vast reinforced-concrete dome designed by Max Berg and completed in 1913, which UNESCO listed in 2006.
Riding here is easy, over flat or lightly rolling roads through fields of wheat, rapeseed and sugar beet, with many small villages and orchards. The surface is good in general, but the local roads can be narrow and patched. Traffic is light, except on the main roads, which carry heavy trucks. In summer, the heat can be fierce, and in winter the roads can ice up.
Fuel and food are no problem in Jawor, with stations on the main roads and cafes near the market square. Fill up there before heading to Wrocław.
Visit the church with an hour to spare, and remember that it is a working place of worship. Silence is the right response.