Two kilometres west of the centre, the wooded ridge of Karczówka rises steeply above Kielce. At the top stands a small Baroque Bernardine monastery, founded in 1624 by the Kraków bishop Marcin Szyszkowski as a thanksgiving for the city's deliverance from a particularly bad outbreak of plague. The church is plain on the outside but holds two surprises inside: a Madonna and Child carved entirely from a single chunk of galena (lead ore), said to be the largest such piece anywhere; and the spare, white walls that make for a calm escape from the sometimes overdone Baroque elsewhere in town.
The walk up takes about thirty-five minutes from the centre, mostly through quiet pine woods. From the terrace in front of the monastery the view stretches across the Silnica valley to the centre of Kielce and east to the long ridge of the Holy Cross Mountains. A good place to be at sunset.