The Church of Peace at Świdnica is one of the most unusual churches in Europe, because the law demanded it be built cheaply and fast. After the Thirty Years' War, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 gave Silesia's Lutherans, who lived under Catholic Habsburg rule, permission to build three churches, and only three, in the whole province, at Jawor, Głogów and Świdnica. They were not allowed to use stone or brick, nor to build a tower or a spire, and they had to be outside the town walls and finished within a year. The builders responded with timber, clay and straw, and with astonishing ingenuity. The church at Świdnica, completed in 1657, is a vast half-timbered building that can hold around seven thousand people, and its interior is a baroque wonder of galleries, painted panels and a gilded pulpit, more like a theatre than a church. UNESCO listed the churches of Świdnica and Jawor in 2001.
The wooden walls have a warm, honeyed tone, and the sound inside is soft. The galleries rise in tiers to a painted ceiling with scenes from the Bible, and the vault is held up by bare oak beams. A great organ stands at one end, and the whole structure feels like the hull of an upturned ship. The story of how a minority community with few resources built something so big in so short a time is a part of the fascination.
Świdnica is a calm old town, laid out around a market square, and its Catholic cathedral has the highest tower in Lower Silesia. The roads around it lead south to the Sowie mountains, the Owl Mountains, and the castle of Książ, a great palace on a rock above a gorge, a short ride away. The country is gentle, with rolling fields, wooded hills and small villages, and the roads are generally in good shape, though the surface can be patchy in the villages and cobbles are common in old town centres. Autumn colours in the Sowie hills are very fine, and winter can be snowy.
Świdnica, with sixty thousand people, has fuel on the ring road, and Jaworzyna Śląska, a smaller town nearby, has some too. The market square has cafes with cake and Polish pierogi.
The church is a modest walk from the square and sits in a park, and it is a good place to slow down.