Explore on Your Own
Discover our recommended routes around Banská Štiavnica – with the Smart Guide app right there on your phone.
The UNESCO site
When people in Banská Štiavnica talk about UNESCO, residents, visitors and even local authorities still tend to picture the protected site as the town itself plus a handful of separate technical monuments nearby. In reality, UNESCO protection in the region reaches much further.
Under the World Heritage Convention, a far larger area is protected: besides Banská Štiavnica, it takes in the entire cadastral areas of the villages of Banská Belá, Banský Studenec, Hodruša-Hámre, Ilija, Svätý Anton, Štiavnické Bane and Vyhne. The UNESCO site is completed by parts of the cadastral areas of Baďan, Beluj, Dekýš, Počúvadlo, Prenčov, Repište and Voznica.
The ‘Historic Town of Banská Štiavnica and the Technical Monuments in its Vicinity’ is the largest UNESCO site in Slovakia by area (the core zone covers 20,632 ha).
Mining here relied on water from the tajchs (historic mining reservoirs), which, together with their collecting ditches, formed an ingenious water-management system. The Región Banská Štiavnica has as many as 24 surviving tajchs, and visitors seek them out all year round.
Smart Guide
Recommended routes
3.6 km60 min
Banská Štiavnica in a Nutshell
This walk of about an hour starts at the former Mining Court (Berggericht) and ends on the campus of the Mining and Forestry Academy. It takes you past the most important monuments and the finest views in the centre of Banská Štiavnica, and at each stop it suggests other places of interest nearby. In Štiavnica, everything is either uphill or downhill, so choose appropriate footwear.
2.1 km25 min
On foot to the Open-air Mining Museum
You don’t need a car to get to the Open-air Mining Museum. It’s about a 25-minute walk from the centre, and along the way you’ll discover a few curiosities from the town’s history and a lovely view of the Calvary – while avoiding the main road and the parking hassle, and sparing the environment too.
4.5 km150 min
Štiavnica from Above
The route starts on Holy Trinity Square and finishes in the centre of Banská Štiavnica. It has a longer and a shorter variant, both marked with wooden signposts, and takes approximately 2.5–3 hours. Along the way you pass the Dežo Hoffmann Museum, devoted to the photographer of such famous stars as the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe…
6.5 km180 min
Štiavnica from Above 2
The route starts on Holy Trinity Square and finishes in the centre of Banská Štiavnica. It has a longer and a shorter variant, both marked with wooden signposts, and takes approximately 2.5–3 hours. Along the way you pass the Dežo Hoffmann Museum, devoted to the photographer of such famous stars as the Beatles and Marilyn Monroe…
2.9 km30 min
On foot to the Calvary
One of the finest Baroque calvaries in Europe stands on a conical hill at the very heart of the crater of the SUPERVOLCANO ŠTIAVNICA, visible from every direction. Scharffenberg Hill (Ostrý vrch) was the last vent through which glowing lava rose from deep inside the Earth to the surface. The land for the Catholic Calvary was donated to the Catholics by a Lutheran family…
3.0 km150 min
Glanzenberg educational trail
A walk along this educational trail blends the quiet of nature and the bustle of the town in just the right measure. It leads you above the azure waters of tajch Veľká Vodárenská to the ruins of the long-vanished royal mining castle on Glanzenberg hill, which once guarded the nearby surface workings and the town below, and past a cleft in a massive rock face through which rich ore veins once ran…
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