The best traffic-free bike rides around gmina Kętrzyn

Churches are always worth a visit. They offer travelers a place to relax and rest.

The Masurian Canal is an unfinished, impressive project that was intended to connect Mamry with Łyna and the Baltic Sea. Today, it runs through Poland and the Kaliningrad Oblast and is closed to navigation. On the Polish side, it's worth seeing the monumental locks in Leśniewo and the only operational lock, Piaski. Along the canal are embankments and former towpaths, perfect for walking or cycling.

Beautifully situated, small and cozy, it's the perfect place to relax and unwind in peace. After a bike ride, you can watch the boats for a bit. Unfortunately, there are no restaurants.

Better not to have the need to look here:)

One of the few elements of the former railway.

Since the State Forests took over the facility in 2017, this place has become more and more attractive.

The church in Czerniki (in the Gothic style) was built at the end of the 14th century on the site of the sacred grove of the Prussians. It is a hall-type building, with a sacristy and a porch on the north side and a tower on the north side. The church was rebuilt in the years 1749-1750 and 1771-1772, in 1886 a neo-Gothic tower was added, while the sacristy and porch were added at the end of the 19th century. After the Reformation, the church in Czerniki became an evangelical church until 1945. The first Holy Mass in Czerniki after the church was consecrated for Catholic worship took place on December 27, 1945. The church was consecrated under the invocation of St. John the Evangelist and Our Lady of the Scapular by Fr. Wacław Radziwon. Necessary renovations were carried out in the church. The main altar was changed - in place of the surviving stained glass window, a crucifix from the end of the 15th century was mounted, the origin of which is unknown.

The basilica, built on the site of a former watchtower from 1359, expanded until the early 16th century, is the best-preserved defensive church in Masuria. Initially, it was a hall-type, single-nave building located in the southwestern corner of the city. Defensive porches and a tower topped with battlements were built in the crown of the walls. At the beginning of the 15th century, a second tower (bell tower) was built, and at the end of the century, the building was rebuilt into a three-nave pseudo-basilica (the northern side nave was added, the central and southern naves are located within the outline of the hall church). After a fire in 1500, during the reconstruction, the existing and characteristic deviation of the church's axis was created. In the church, the following are worthy of attention: the crystal vaults from 1515 by Master Matz from Gdańsk, the 16th-century pulpit, the organs from 1721 (Josue Mosengel, the creator of the organs in Święta Lipka) were rebuilt - the current one from 1975 has 43 voices, the tombstone of Krzysztof Schenk von Tautenburg from 1597 and the prison (entrance from the church) located under the high tower. After the Germans were expelled in 1945, the church was used by the Kętrzyn Evangelical parish. A year later, in 1946, the building was requisitioned by the communist authorities and immediately transferred to the Roman Catholic Church. Since then, the small "Polish church" of St. George, built next door in the mid-16th century, has been the only Evangelical church in the city. As a Roman Catholic temple, the church of St. George has held the title of minor basilica since 22 July 1999, and since 7 June 1992 it has also served as a collegiate church. In the church, the former chapel of St. James served as a baptistery after the Reformation, which after 1946 was architecturally shaped on the model of the Gate of Dawn in Vilnius. Within the preserved defensive walls, adjacent to the church of St. George, there is a former rectory (14th/15th–16th centuries), built in the Middle Ages, and later a pastor's house (16th century – 1817), converted into a gymnasium in the 19th century (1817–1907), until 1945 it functioned as the so-called Widow's House – a place of residence for the wives of deceased priests. The gate at the western façade leads to the area between the walls, where a lapidarium has been arranged, containing a collection of historic tombstones, monuments, epitaphs and cast iron crosses. http://bazylika.ketrzyn.pl https://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bazylika_kolegiacka_%C5%9Bw._Jerzego_w_K%C4%99trzynie