Alwernia is a town situated some west of Kraków in the Chrzanów County,

Lesser Poland Voivodeship Lesser Poland Voivodeship or Lesser Poland Province (in pl, województwo małopolskie ), also known as Małopolska, is a voivodeship (province), in southern Poland. It has an area of , and a population of 3,404,863 (2019). It was created on 1 ...

, Poland. The town has an area of , and as of December 2021 it has a population of 3,310.

History

The name of the town is taken from that of the Franciscan hermitage of La Verna ( la, Alvernia) in Tuscany, Italy. It was bestowed on the locality in 1616 by the castellan Krzysztof Koryciński. A monastery of the order of the Stigmata of

Saint Francis of Assisi Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, better known as Saint Francis of Assisi ( it, Francesco d'Assisi; – 3 October 1226), was a Mysticism, mystic Italian Catholic Church, Catholic friar, founder of the Franciscans, and one of the most vener ...

was built on high ground between 1625 and 1656. The church dates from the period between 1630 and 1676. Below the monastery a settlement developed which in 1776 received the right to hold a market. In 1796 Alwernia is mentioned as being a small commercial and administrative centre. After the Third Partition of Poland, the town became a part of the Austrian Empire, and since 1867 of Austria-Hungary. In the newly-reborn Poland, Alwernia administratively belonged to

Kraków Voivodeship Kraków Voivodeship may also refer to: *Kraków Voivodeship (14th century – 1795) * Kraków Voivodeship (1816–1837) *Kraków Voivodeship (1919–1939) *Kraków Voivodeship (1945–1975) *Kraków Voivodeship (1975–1998) The Kraków Voivodeshi ...

. After World War II, the town once again became a part of Kraków Voivodeship until 1998. On 15 September 1993 Alwernia received its town charter.

Economy

Chemical works "Alventa" is located in the town. The works was built in 1923–1924 in the interwar period. It mainly focuses on producing phosphorus and

chromium Chromium is a chemical element with the symbol Cr and atomic number 24. It is the first element in group 6. It is a steely-grey, lustrous, hard, and brittle transition metal. Chromium metal is valued for its high corrosion resistance and hardne ...

compounds, as well as fertilizers.

Transport

Road transport

Voivodeship road 780 directly passes through the town. The A4 motorway, which is a part of the European route E40, passes through the village of Rudno, located about north of the town.

Rail transport

The Trzebinia–Wadowice railway, opened in 1899, passes through the town, however in October 2002 passenger service ceased. In 2017, a tourist draisine started operating on the closed railway. The railway infrastructure manager in Poland,

PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe PKP Polskie Linie Kolejowe S.A. is the Polish railway infrastructure manager, responsible for maintenance of rail tracks, conducting the trains across the country, scheduling train timetables, and management of railway land. The company was found ...

, is planning to reconstruct the railway.

Tourist attractions and monuments

Alwernia's tourist attractions and monuments include: *

Baroque The Baroque (, ; ) is a style of architecture, music, dance, painting, sculpture, poetry, and other arts that flourished in Europe from the early 17th century until the 1750s. In the territories of the Spanish and Portuguese empires including t ...

Bernardine monastery and church; * Saint Florian chapel; * the oldest firefighting museum in Poland - Małopolskie Muzeum Pożarnictwa.

References

External links

*
Jewish community of Alwernia
on Virtual Shtetl {{Authority control Cities and towns in Lesser Poland Voivodeship Chrzanów County Kraków Voivodeship (1919–1939)