Vambeřická poutní cesta Set of small monuments

Vambeřická poutní cesta is a historic Marian route that connects Police over Metájte with the pilgrimage point of Vamberice in Lower Silesia. This uncomplicated journey began from the end of the 17th century and developed mainly in the 18th and 19th centuries. It surpasses the Broum walls and the foot of the Table Mountains and is lined by numerous sacral monuments.

The beginnings of Marian reverence in Vamberice are linked to the legend of the blind John of Ratno, who was supposed to be miraculously healed by the lime tree in the 12th century. In this place, called Sijón, a stone altar was built in 1218 and there was allegedly a wooden building here since 1263. The love gothic statue of the Virgin Mary, 28 centimeters tall, became the patron saint of the Klad land. Historically documented stone temple was built in 1512 by Knight Ludvík Pannwitz, but in 1645 it was destroyed by Swedish troops. The importance of the pilgrimage site rose rapidly after 1718, when Pope Kliment XI. awarded a bull for the pilgrimage festival.

The architectural character of the route was influenced by the late Baroque Marian cult. The journey was not created as a single project, but gradually as an uncompounded link, which the landowners continuously supplemented with small sacral objects. The set of statues and crosses, mainly from the late 18th and 19th centuries, served as a spiritual stop and a place to relax during the difficult crossing of the mountain. The parts of this file at the village Suchý Důl and the town of Velka Ledže are today protected by the monument.

In the 18th century, the pilgrimage route fulfilled the role of the instrument of local reCatholisation within the royal hradec diocese. The organized procession had clear rules and rules. The most important one was the five-day procession of 1738, initiated by the Odolfo Rudolf Josef of Collored, who was attended by approximately 4,500 pilgrims. But the tradition was disrupted by the Silesian wars between 1740 and 1742, followed by the Teresian and Yosephin church policies, which restricted the multi-day pilgrimage. Although tradition remained at local level, it never achieved its original baroque pomp.

At present, Vambeřická poutní cesta is part of a wider network of European pilgrimage routes. Since 2014, its Klad section has been linked to the Sudeten Svatoyakoba Road and since 2017 it has been linked to the East Bohemian Svatoyakoba Road route. The route passes through the territory of CHKO Broumovsko and connects the cultural landscape of Policka with the area around the Polish town of Radków.

Vambeřická poutní cesta is an important document of historical piety and cultural connection of the Czech and Silesian regions. Visiting this route offers the opportunity to know the landscape that has been shaped by pilgrimage traditions and baroque art for centuries.