Via Sacra tschechische Radpilgerroute - Etappe von Zittau nach Hejnice

The pilgrimage church of the Visitation of Mary in Hejnice/Haindorf has its origins in a Marian legend: A seriously ill woman and her child were miraculously healed because the father of the family had followed the call of an angel and attached an image of the Mother of God to a lime tree, made by a carver from Zittau. The tree and later its stump with the statue of Mater Formosa ("The Noble Graceful Mother") quickly became a pilgrimage site. From 1211 onwards, the statue was covered by ever larger chapels and churches. Haindorf became an important place of pilgrimage and was often referred to as the Bohemian Mariazell. Today, the church at the foot of the Jizera Mountains is one of the most important places of pilgrimage in Bohemia.
Zittau was elevated to the status of a town in 1255 by the Bohemian King Ottokar II and was particularly promoted as a bridgehead north of the border mountains. The town acquired considerable wealth through beer exports and the cloth and linen trade and was even able to compete with Leipzig in the 17th and 18th centuries. In the League of Six Towns, it was nicknamed "the rich". A hint of this still remains in the cityscape, even if the city's coffers no longer have much to offer. The idea of the Via Sacra was born here because of the two Lenten cloths, which are now famous far beyond Germany. The 8.20m high and 6.80m wide Lenten cloth from 1472 - unique in Germany and presented in the largest museum display case in the world - can be admired in the "Church of the Holy Cross" museum. The second cloth, which can only be called "small" in comparison with the larger one, is on display in the Franciscan Monastery Museum of Cultural History. The epitaph treasure on display in the monastery church is also unique.