Częstochowa

The most important pilgrimage site in Poland, and mobbed during mass and Marian festivals. Main entrance is south side, and the Black Madonna is in her own chapel. The main basilica is 17th century Baroque. Within the monastery north side, you visit the Knights Hall, sacristy and arsenal and can climb the tower. A replica Madonna shows you the painting without its riza covering.

Iron ore mining here started in medieval times, much later than elsewhere in Poland as the ores lie 75 m deep, in a strip 120 km long by 20 km wide. A mixture of open-cast and deep mining was used, ramping up in the industrial 18th century, but hampered by a shortage of timber for charcoal to smelt steel, then shattered by the partition of Poland. It revived in the 20th century - the communists were keen on mining and metal bashing - but became uneconomic and collapsed in the 1970s. The museum admits at 30 min intervals and shows old equipment, techniques and tunnels.

This is the main site of the museum, exhibiting history of the city and its citizens. There's a viewing gallery atop the clock tower. However vandals ripped open a water valve and flooded the place: the exhibits were saved, but it's not known if the building will be reparable.

Built as an Orthodox church in 1870, it passed to the Roman Catholics in 1914.

Halina Poświatowska (née Myga, 1935-67) was a poet and writer, whose lyrical but melancholy works remain popular today. At age 9 a streptococcal infection exacerbated a congenital heart condition, so she was an invalid with heart failure for her short life in spite of two operations. At 19 she married a similar young invalid, Adolf Ryszard Poświatowski, who died two years later. Her brother Zbigniew Myga curates this museum of her life and work.

The oldest church in town, from early 15th century.

The medieval town had a large Jewish population, and in the 18th / 19th century was a hotbed of Frankism, an anarchic Jewish sect. Almost all 30,000 were wiped out in 1941, events depicted in Art Spiegelman's graphic novel Maus.

Built from 1901 to 1927 in sturdy Neo-gothic redbrick, with the towers added in 1997, it's cavernous inside.