Europe 2019 - Day 24 (Part 1)

30 May 2019, Thursday 

I would just like to mention here that Poland happens to be the 30th country that I am visiting. Pretty cool, I think.

Anyway, today we go to see a castle!!! (Love eyes) I love castles. I love the Middle Ages and all things medieval, I think it was such a romantic period with lots of lawlessness, but also lots of mystery, chivalry, adventure, Robin Hood, friars, Lord of the Rings, good fun. Of course, this is based on books and movies and it may very well have been very different from what I imagine but I still have a fond view of that period. 

The name of the castle is Malbork Castle. The name Malbork most likely originated from the German translation ‘marionberg’ which means Mary’s Town, which is to honour the patron saint of the town. To get to the castle, we had to take a tram to the main train station and then a local train to Malbork and walk for about 1.4 k.m. Malbork Castle is the oldest and largest Gothic brick castle in the world, taking some 50 million bricks to build and covering over 21 hectares (Vatican city is twice as big as the castle). It’s defensive walls are about 10 km long. It is one of a small number of castles that has never been captured. It is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. 

The castle was built in stages, beginning early in the 1270s, initially as a commander castle, and then in 1309 it became the seat of the Grand Masters of the Teutonic Knights. During the Crusades some time in 1190, a fraternity formed to operate hospitals for Christians, which was then transformed into an order a few years later, known as the Order of the Teutonic Knights of St Mary’s Hospital in Jerusalem. Later, the castle fell to Swedish invaders, and then became home to the Polish kings and still later was seized by the Jesuits. 

Until the first half of the 15th century, Malbork Castle was famous on the continent as being one of the key bases for the crusades to Lithuania and Samogitia, as well as a venue for spectacular parties, feasts and tournament, attracting knights from many European countries to Prussia. In the late 18th century it was seized by Prussia and served as a military supply base which caused its deterioration. In the 19th century, after new reconstruction about 100 years ago, it was open to the public, to tourists like me! After WW II, the castle was destroyed and had to be restored although some parts of the original castle remain.

We took altogether about 3 hours to walk through the entire castle, together with Jacob (pronounced Yacob, our audio guide who was included in our tickets for 40 zloty). We passed a Statue of Madonna which is a statue covered with some 300,000 mosaic tiles. Some of the buildings we saw just outside the castle were an armoury which was once also used as storage space for farming instruments, a stable which used to house horses, cows, pigs and even pottery and the Church of St Mary (the patron saint of the Order). Then through a drawbridge across what was once a moat flooded by a nearby river. Sometimes during the rainy seasons, the moat would overflow and flood the castle. 

Then we arrived at the middle castle, which had a big courtyard having 4 statues of 4 previous Grand Masters. A Grand Master is the head of the order of the Teutonic Knights and ruler of the Teutonic state. The middle castle consists of the East Wing which is for guests to stay (something like a hotel), the West Wing for banquets and receiving guests, buildings for baths and an infirmary for the sick and the elderly. There were also some interesting artefacts on display which were found in the castle grounds - coins, tools, a tile with a picture of Semiramis, the legendary Queen of Assyria and a painting of Our lady of Malbork. 

The middle castle also had a kitchen, which had a well for easy access to water, and the head cook’s room which had its own private toilet (it’s the only room in the entire castle with its own private loo apart from the Grand Master’s room, so that tells you how important the cook was). There were cellars underneath the kitchen for storing food and food was usually brought up into the kitchen through a hole, using a pulley of some sort.