Category: Poland

In the centre of this photo of Malbork Castle is Dansk Tower, which is the toilet block. It’s not known why it has taken the name of Gdansk, it was suggested that there are a number of reasons including:

(i) The castle owners hated Gdansk and mocked it

(ii) The men who constructed the tower were from Gdansk

(iii) It’s on the Gdansk side of the castle

Without any historical knowledge about the matter (although that won’t stop me from commenting) I’d guess that the truth is as mundane as it’s just on the Gdansk side of the castle. It was constructed in the late thirteenth and early fourteenth centuries and would have made matters much easier for the residents of the castle (or the staff employed to deal with such things).

There’s a long tunnel to get to the toilet tower, it’s a bit like an arrangement that Wetherspoons would have.

It’s been built like this so that the toilet tower can hang over the wet moat, and the corridors could easily be destroyed internally if the castle came under attack. The modern brick arrangement is more modern and dates to the nineteenth century, with twentieth century repairs, as this passageway was a more simple wooden construction during the medieval period.

The main chamber of the Dansk Tower, with the caged off section on the right dropping down straight into the moat.

This is a recreation of one of the toilets (although they’re guessing a little with what they looked like), with another one having cabbage leaves as this was the medieval toilet paper. There’s a tale that there was a lever that sent anyone the castle owners didn’t like down into the ditches, but that seems to be entering the realms of fantasy. If there was someone the owners didn’t want in the castle, they wouldn’t be getting in. Unless the Teutonic Knights liked pranks, but I can’t imagine they spent a lot of time constructing their castle for that purpose.

The tower was also there to be used as the location of last resort if there was a siege at the castle, with provisions stocked in the attic of the structure. If the main castle had been lost then there wouldn’t have been much hope left, but it would have at least bought them a little time.

One positive element about walking around Malbork Castle with no other visitors nearby was that I could look at decorative features without getting in the way or being in the photos of around ten other people. Even the audio guide noted that you should look in depth at this gateway if you were fortunate enough to have the space and opportunity, as it’s a highlight of the castle. It’s the only surviving original gateway that is left within the castle and dates to the late thirteenth century (or early fourteenth century, depending on what source you prefer).

The Gothic gateway is the entrance to St. Mary’s Church, which has recently been repaired following the rapid repairs that were undertaken following the destruction during the Second World War.

The details of some of the figures, and this gateway into the chapel is impressive today, so it must have made for quite a site for the visitors to the castle in the thirteenth century. The church was within the original hub of the castle complex and so the monks would have regularly walked through this doorway for their prayers and devotions. The colours are vibrant as well, that’s one thing I’ve never understood about many modern day cathedrals and churches, they’ve become quite drab in their decoration, but they weren’t usually constructed to be like that in the medieval period.

And when they walked through that door they entered this chapel, with its newly restored roof. All really quite beautiful.

There aren’t a huge number of exhibits at Malbork Castle, not least because most had already been lost before the Second World War saw the end to most of what was left. However, towards the end of the tourist route (or the tourist route that I took, which I suspect differed from the route that everyone else took) is this collection of architectural features from the castle’s history.

These are all elements from the early stages of the castle’s construction, when the Knights of the Teutonic Order were in charge. Clicking on the above photo makes it larger, and I particularly liked the item in the centre at the top, which is a figure of King David playing the harp dating from 1300.

For completeness, the item at the top-right is a support which has the image of a monk (dating to before 1300), the two pillars at the bottom-left are vault supporters from Chapter House (dating to the thirteenth or fourteenth centuries) and the bottom-right is a vault supporter designed to look like a monster (dating to the fourteenth century).

More sections of stone dating to the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries.

Decorative pieces dating back to the fourteenth century.

They carried on the theme over the centuries, the two on the left are from the nineteenth century. The third and fourth ones along are from the fourteenth century, although I think the one on the far right is from another castle.

I was intrigued by these, as although I had nearly three hours walking around a castle looking at a lot of stone, it was hard to know what was old and what was more modern. Even before the reconstruction after the Second World War there had been much change over the centuries, but it’s known that these two stone and brick structures were from the second quarter of the fourteenth century. The sections are all from the ambulatory and would have been in this building in the first 75 years of its existence. Incidentally, these are also some of the earliest bricks (if we ignore the Romans), the practice of building in brick in this style reached this part of Northern Europe in the twelfth century.

To see such early bits of stone still in the castle I find in many ways quite assuring. The castle has changed hands on numerous occasions and it’s been in different countries over the centuries. Even just 100 years ago this castle , then Ordensburg Marienburg, was actually on the border between Germany and Poland, the section of East Prussia next to the Polish corridor. Anyway, they might just be bits of stone, but I thought that they were quite interesting bits of stone.

I came to Malbork primarily as its castle is the largest in Europe and it’s one of Poland’s major tourist attractions. I noticed from reviews that the castle got very busy, but when looking to buy tickets on-line in advance they appeared to have sold nearly none on the cold Saturday morning that I intended to visit.

I think it’s fair to say that I didn’t quite judge the demand for this historic attraction accurately. I turned up just before the ticket office opened so that I could join the queue, but I was the only person there other than the staff. I’ll add now that I didn’t encounter another visitor during my entire visit, although I saw some from afar. For a site where sometimes the queues are over two hours, my impressions of this castle are very different to others.

The price to get into the castle is very high by Polish standards, coming in at £11. This includes an audio guide, something which I found a completely bloody nuisance. It’s meant to work by GPS tracking your movements inside the castle, but it doesn’t work effectively. It takes you on a journey around the site, but it misses chunks out and it’s also generally impossible to hear something twice if it does go wrong. This would be much easier if there were crowds of other people as it would be evident where to go, but when you’re the only visitor, it’s rather more challenging because entrances were rarely signed. I’m not sure that I missed very much during my visit, but I suspect I missed a few rooms, and only saw some parts of the complex because I ignored the audio guide.

This is the gatehouse of the castle and this would on its own be a difficult entrance to get through for any invader. As a quick history, this castle was constructed by the Teutonic Order who kept on expanding it during their time of occupation between 1280 to 1457. Between 1457 and 1772 it was the residence of Polish Kings and its defences were never broken during that time. From 1772 until effectively 1945, the castle was occupied by the Prussians, but it returned to the Poles in 1945 following the redistribution of lands following the end of the Second World War.

Although the Nazis very much liked this castle as it reminded them of what they considered to be their Teutonic heritage, it was badly damaged during the Second World War as this photograph shows.

Below are photos from my visit, and I’ll save some highlights for later posts, but these give an indication of the variety of the rooms and also the size of them. I was fortunate not to have to battle for space during my visit, having the freedom to visit the castle interior was enjoyable, even if it did mean I perhaps missed a small portion of what there was to see. Everything was certainly peaceful. The outdoor areas were also extensive and it was possible to walk around many of the buildings, including a chance to visit the graveyard from the Teutonic period.

In terms of general comments about the structure of the visit, I thought it was all a bit muddled. Not least the signage was terrible and the audio guide basic, meaning that there was nearly no written material to read. I suspect they’re trying to avoid needing to translate material into numerous languages, but things felt unstructured and disorganised. An audio guide system where visitors typed in the number of where they were on the site would have been better than one which was trying to, wrongly, work out where visitors were. However, as I mentioned, I doubt this is a problem when it’s busy, which seems to be most of the year.

Like with many things, the destruction during the Second World War was very unfortunate, but it’s positive that so much has been recreated. They could keep expanding this museum for many years to come given the space that they have, as the building is of a huge size and there are what seem like endless out-buildings. Although I didn’t encounter any visitors, there were staff in most rooms, but they tended to be in the corner and out of the way, which was helpful when taking photos.

To be able to explore a UNESCO World Heritage site nearly alone was really quite a treat, so a very memorable day in Malbork.