Skull Chapel (Czermna)

A few kilometres into Poland from Náchod, in the Kudowa-Zdrój suburb of Czermna, is one of central Europe's strangest interiors: a small Baroque chapel whose walls and ceiling are entirely covered with human skulls and femurs. Some three thousand are on display; another twenty thousand or so lie in the crypt below.

The chapel keeps short opening hours and small group sizes; the warden gives a brief explanation in Polish, with a printed translation in several languages. It is easily reached as a day trip across the border, with a stop in Kudowa for the spa park and a meal.

things to do sight
A story
The chapel was built in 1776 by a local priest who had spent years collecting bones from the surrounding fields, where soldiers killed in the Silesian wars, the Seven Years' War, and outbreaks of cholera had been hastily buried.