Červený Kláštor — Carthusian monastery in the Pieniny

A monastery of “silent” monks on the Dunajec

Červený Kláštor (“Red Monastery”) is a village and former monastery on the Slovak bank of the Dunajec, right opposite the Three Crowns cliffs in the Pieniny. The monastery came about through a dramatic story: a Spiš nobleman named Kokoš killed the son of a rival family, and in 1307 an arbitration court in Levoča ordered him, among other things, to found or support six monasteries. In 1319 he gave the village of Lechnica to the Carthusians, and in 1320 King Charles Robert confirmed the foundation charter. For a long time it was therefore called the Lechnica Charterhouse; the present name probably comes from its red roof tiles.

The Carthusians lived in strict silence, each in his own hermitage house with a small garden. The monastery held rights to fish the Dunajec, run a mill and brew beer. The monks left in the 1560s, and in the early 18th century the Camaldolese arrived and rebuilt the house in Baroque style. Two figures of Slovak culture are linked with them: Father Romuald Hadbavný, translator of the Camaldolese Bible, and Brother Cyprian, an apothecary and herbalist who compiled a herbarium. Legend says Cyprian built a flying machine and took off from the Three Crowns, but an angel struck him down with lightning — and so, supposedly, the Monk rock was formed. In 1782 the monastery was dissolved under the reforms of Joseph II, and in 1907 it burned down. Today it is a national cultural monument — one of the few surviving examples of Carthusian and Camaldolese monastic architecture in Slovakia and one of the easternmost sites of these orders in Europe.

What to see

• The Gothic Church of St Anthony the Hermit with Baroque stucco and wall paintings by Italian masters; the tower was added only in 1750, as Carthusian churches had no towers.
• A monk’s house inscribed “1719” — bedroom, oratory, a workroom with an 18th-century pharmacy exhibition, and a woodshed.
• The archaeological exhibition in the prior’s house, the bell tower with a Baroque sundial, and the medieval refectory with wall paintings.
• The museum exhibition on the history of the monastery and the life of the Gorals of Zamagurie, with an audio guide.

Practical information

The museum is open all year, every day: in summer from 8:00 to 18:00 or 19:00, in May 9:00–18:00, in spring and autumn 9:00–17:00 (Sundays and Mondays until 16:00) and in winter 9:00–16:00; last entry is one hour before closing (as of October 2026). Tickets cost €7 for adults, €5 for seniors 65+ and students, €4 for children aged 6–17; under-6s go free.

There is no railway in the village. Buses stop right by the monastery (stop “Červený Kláštor, múzeum”) — from the direction of Stará Ľubovňa, Poprad, Spišská Stará Ves and the Lysá nad Dunajcom border crossing. Drivers park at private paid car parks along the main road; parking inside the monastery grounds is forbidden. The courtyards are level, so the visit suits families and older people.

Next to the village the Slovak Dunajec raft trips on wooden rafts begin (boarding at Majere and at the start of Červený Kláštor, season roughly April to October), and along the river runs the Pieniny path for walkers and cyclists through the Dunajec gorge to Lesnica. Check raft prices on site.

Nearby

From the Polish bank you can see the Three Crowns, and the Polish Dunajec raft trip ends in Szczawnica. To the east, above the Poprad, is Ľubovňa Castle with its open-air museum.

Official website: muzeumcervenyklastor.sk

Photos: PPawel, CC BY-SA 3.0, Wikimedia Commons; Kamorek, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Pavol Svetoň, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Jakub Hałun, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Ing.Mgr.Jozef Kotulič, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons; Peter ivancik, CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons.