Świętokrzyskie Hills Road

The oldest mountains in Poland, worn down to wooded ridges.

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Why this ride

From Kielce it runs 112 km to Opatów; allow about 2 h 09 of riding. The climb of the day is Święty Krzyż. The line favours views over speed.

Roadbook

1. Kielce start · 270 m

   Kielce is where the day begins.

2. Nowa Słupia scenic

   Nowa Słupia is a village that punches far above its weight in history, because it sits at the foot of the Holy Cross Mountains, the Góry Świętokrzyskie, among the oldest ranges in Europe. These hills are low, worn and wooded, rising to only a little over six hundred metres, but they have the dignity of age, with folds of rock dating back hundreds of millions of years. Beech and fir forest cover the slopes, and the road from the village climbs into them, with the smell of damp leaves and resin.

   The village has a surprising claim: it was an ancient centre of iron-making. Archaeologists found thousands of smelting furnaces in the surrounding forest, dating back to the Roman period, when the local communities produced iron on a large scale, and each year in the summer the village hosts a festival in which people recreate the old smelting process in clay furnaces. There is a small museum of ancient metallurgy, and it is worth a short stop. The legend of the mountain, meanwhile, goes back further still, to pagan rituals on the summit before the arrival of Christianity.

   Above the village stands the Benedictine abbey of Święty Krzyż, on Łysa Góra, the bald mountain, which holds what is said to be a relic of the True Cross. It has been a place of pilgrimage for centuries, and the buildings, though damaged by fire, war and neglect, still dominate the ridge. In the nineteenth century the monks were dispersed and the abbey was used as a prison, and in the Second World War it became a camp. Below the summit lies a field of huge quartzite boulders, the gołoborze, a rock river that formed in the last Ice Age and that you can walk over on a marked path.

   The roads here are gentle but pleasant, with forest bends, farm lanes and village streets, and the surface is generally decent. Traffic is light, apart from pilgrims and walkers on summer weekends. Nowa Słupia has the basics, including small shops and places to eat, but not much else, and fuel is best done in Starachowice, eighteen kilometres away, a large town with all services. The village is quiet in winter, when the roads can be icy, and at its best in late spring and early autumn.

3. Święty Krzyż pass · 590 m

   The ridge called Łysa Góra, the Bald Mountain, has been climbed for a thousand years, and what the pilgrims are climbing to is the abbey of Święty Krzyż, the Holy Cross. The hill rises to roughly six hundred metres, which sounds modest until you see how it stands above the plain, with the dark fir and beech forest of the Świętokrzyskie National Park covering its flanks. The old Poles gave these hills a supernatural reputation: popular legend placed a witches' gathering on the bare summit, and some of the same folklore turns up in Polish literature, which is why you will find the name in unlikely places.

   The abbey itself is Benedictine, and the tradition says it holds fragments of the wood of the Cross, brought here in the Middle Ages and venerated ever since. Kings and princes made the climb, and for centuries the monks were among the most powerful landowners in the region. The buildings have been burnt, rebuilt, plundered and put to strange uses: in the nineteenth century they served as a prison, and during the Second World War as a camp. Today the monks are back, and the courtyard is quiet and a little austere, with a view over forest in every direction.

   What most visitors remember is the stone. Below the summit lies the gołoborze, a vast river of angular quartzite blocks that tumbles down the slope without a single tree growing on it. It was shaped in the cold of the last Ice Age, when frost split the rock, and the blocks have lain there ever since, covered in lichen and silent. A marked path crosses the field, and walking on it is oddly satisfying, though it is slippery after rain and not a place for riding boots with smooth soles.

   The road up is a forest road, sometimes narrow and shaded, with bends that tighten as the gradient steepens, and a surface that is mostly good but can hold damp leaf litter and gravel. Parking close to the summit is limited, and you may find that the last stretch is done on foot, so check what is open on the day. Autumn is superb, with beeches the colour of copper, though weekends are crowded with school groups.

4. Opatów finish

   Opatów closes the day.

Where this sits

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