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Wieś Wapiennik (gmina Lipie)
The Szachownica nature reserve lies in the Silesian Voivodeship, in the Kłobuck district, on land managed by the Kłobuck Forest District. It was established in 1978 on an area of not quite thirteen hectares and was later included in the European Natura 2000 network as a special area of conservation. It protects the limestone hill of Krzemienna Góra, covered with acidic lowland beech forest, and the cave system hidden inside it.
The underground labyrinth formed during the glaciations, and its age is estimated at about ten and a half thousand years. The total length of the corridors reaches a kilometre, which makes Szachownica one of the largest caves in this part of Poland. Five separate caves numbered from I to V have been distinguished within the reserve, reached through more than a dozen openings in the walls of a former quarry and a vertical shaft from the plateau above.
The caves are a site of mass winter hibernation for bats and for that reason remain closed to visitors. The second reason is the condition of the ceiling, weakened by former limestone extraction. The underground can therefore only be viewed from the outside, in front of the barred openings, and quiet in the reserve is protected here just as much as the rock itself.
The walk through the reserve has its own charm, however. The walls of the old quarry and the beech forest create a raw woodland landscape, and among the protected plants growing here are columbine, martagon lily, umbellate wintergreen, common twayblade, broad-leaved helleborine and large white helleborine. A visit takes about an hour and works best outside the bat hibernation season.
