Spiritual Czechia: 17 pilgrimage sites, sacred hills and legends

One of the most important Marian pilgrimage sites in Bohemia: a Baroque complex on a hill above Příbram, built around a medieval statue of the Virgin and reached by a long covered stairway from the town.

A Baroque church built against a limestone cliff in the Bohemian Karst, over the cave where, legend says, Ivan, the first Czech hermit, lived in the 9th century. A steep path climbs to the cross on top of the rock for a view down the valley.

Legend says an army of knights led by St Wenceslas sleeps inside the hill and will ride out when the Czech lands are in their greatest need. A short climb through beech woods leads to a wooden lookout tower on the summit of Velký Blaník.

The tallest menhir in Czechia, about three and a half metres of stone standing alone in the fields near Klobuky. Local legend says it moves one step closer to the village church with every ring of the bell – and when it gets there, the world will end.

One of the Czech lands' most important pilgrimage sites, linked with St Methodius and Great Moravia: a Cistercian monastery founded in 1205 and a vast Baroque basilica that Pope John Paul II visited in 1990. Thousands come for the feast of Sts Cyril and Methodius on 5 July.

A hilltop basilica in the Hostýn Hills, among Moravia's most visited pilgrimage sites. Legend says the Virgin Mary saved people sheltering here from the Tatars in 1241 with a bolt of lightning; the Way of the Cross up the slope was designed in folk Art Nouveau style by Dušan Jurkovič.

Baroque sculptures carved straight into sandstone boulders in a forest near Kuks: in the 1720s Matthias Bernard Braun cut a Nativity scene, hermits and saints into the rock for Count Franz Anton Sporck. A rare open-air gallery, on UNESCO's tentative list.

A Baroque pilgrimage church near Sokolov looked after by the Knights of the Cross with the Red Star, the order founded by St Agnes of Bohemia. The present church and cloisters were built around 1700, probably to a design by Christoph Dientzenhofer.

One of the oldest pilgrimage sites in Bohemia, at the foot of the Jizera Mountains: legend dates it to 1211, and the vast Baroque basilica was consecrated in 1725. A small 14th-century statue of the Virgin still stands on the high altar.

The sacred mountain of the Beskydy: the ridge path from Pustevny passes a statue of the pagan god Radegast, and the summit has a wooden chapel of Sts Cyril and Methodius from the 1890s. Legends of old gods and Christian missionaries meet here.

A Baroque pilgrimage basilica on a hill above Olomouc, built from 1669 where, legend says, a local burgher saw a vision of the Virgin. Pope John Paul II visited in 1995 and made it a minor basilica; the terrace looks out over the Haná plain.

A Baroque pilgrimage monastery on a hill above Králíky, founded by Bishop Tobiáš Becker to fulfil a childhood vow; the foundation stone was laid in 1706. A tree-lined avenue with the Stations of the Cross climbs to the church and its cloisters, with views to the Králický Sněžník massif.

A 14th-century village church abandoned after part of the ceiling fell during a funeral in 1968. In 2012 the artist Jakub Hadrava filled the pews with 32 ghostly plaster figures of the former parishioners, and the visitors they drew have paid for a new roof.

A small wax-coated statue of the Infant Jesus, brought from Spain and given to the Carmelites in 1628, draws pilgrims from all over the world to the Church of Our Lady Victorious in Malá Strana. Its robes are changed through the church year from a wardrobe of more than a hundred.

A 17th-century pilgrimage village south of České Budějovice: a copy of the Holy House of Loreto, begun in 1648, and a Way of the Cross of 25 chapels winding about 5 km through the fields and woods around Římov.

Under St James' Church lie the bones of an estimated 50,000 people from the old town cemetery. Rediscovered in 2001 and opened in 2012, it is said to be the second-largest ossuary in Europe after the Paris catacombs.

The lone hill rising from the Elbe plain where, legend says, Forefather Čech looked out over the land and claimed it for his people. On the summit stands the Romanesque Rotunda of St George, rebuilt in 1126.