Culture & Arts
Banská Štiavnica is a town where history meets a rich cultural and artistic scene.
Its lanes breathe history, yet pulse with contemporary life. The town has plenty of museums and galleries that bring its rich history and art closer to visitors – from the Open-air Mining Museum, where you can experience the authentic atmosphere of mining life, to modern galleries showcasing contemporary art. Throughout the year, Banská Štiavnica hosts numerous festivals celebrating music, theatre, literature and film.
The historic town centre is inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List and is home to many monuments, such as the Old Castle and the New Castle, St Catherine’s Church and the Calvary. Each of these buildings tells its own story and adds to the town’s unique atmosphere. If you’re looking for interactive experiences, there are exhibitions such as the Bank of Love, where you can discover the longest love poem in the world, or the Glanzenberg Hereditary Adit, which takes you underground right beneath the town. Banská Štiavnica is a place where everyone finds something to enjoy – whether you are a history or art lover, or just looking for new experiences.
Carved from Yugoslav marble in 1938, the statue of the Slovak polymath is full of symbolism. The robe represents his calling as a priest, the book […]
This Roman Catholic church is an important Slovak monument thanks to its richly decorated portal. Historians cannot explain how a small village came to have a […]
This Roman Catholic church is the oldest of the seven churches in Hodruša-Hámre. From the original 14th-century church, the vaulted presbytery with its altar, the sacristy […]
This Roman Catholic church, originally dating from the 15th century, is the oldest architectural monument in the village. Beside it stands a masonry bell tower with […]
In the 15th century, miners had a small chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Mount Carmel built here, directly above the shaft in which they had […]
The Baroque Holy Trinity Column (plague column) in Banská Štiavnica is the tallest of its kind in Slovakia. It was erected in thanksgiving for the end […]
Piarg Gate was built at the same time as the New Castle to protect the road into Banská Štiavnica from Pukanec against the Ottomans. Fortification walls […]
The most visited is the old Evangelical cemetery, home to the grave of Marína Pischlová, Andrej Sládkovič’s unrequited love. Frauenberg Cemetery is considered the oldest; several […]
Church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary: the parish church, originally the 13th-century St Nicholas’s Church, was one of the largest church buildings of its […]