For The Love of Travel

The Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork is the largest medieval brick fortress in the world measured by land area.

It was built between the 13th and 15C by the Order of Brothers of the German House of St Mary in Jerusalem (aka Teutonic Knights). The Knights were initially founded as a military order around 1190 to aid Christians in the Holy Land and in the Baltics in the Middle Ages, and to establish hospitals. “To help, defend and heal”was their motto.

Poles and Germans have fought wars for centuries but the origins of Malbork castle display a rare example of their military cooperation – albeit one that backfired. In this case, a 13thC Polish prince, Konrad Mazowiecki, asked the Knights to help his soldiers defeat the Prussians, a Baltic people who blocked Poles access to the sea. The Knights moved their headquarters out of Venice and set out to convert or kill thousands of Prussians. By the early 14thC they were ruling their own expanding state from Malbork, fighting both the Prussians and Poles who finally defeated them at the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

 In 1466, both castle and town became part of Royal Prussia, a province of Poland. It served as one of the several Polish royal residences, interrupted by several years of Swedish occupation, and fulfilling this function until there were 3 partitions by Russia, Austria and Prussia -which divided up the Polish/Lithuanian Commonwealth lands among themselves progressively in the process of territorial seizures. These resulted in the elimination of sovereign Poland for 123 years.

With the rise of Adolf Hitler to power in the early 1930s, the Nazis used the castle as a destination for annual pilgrimages of both the Hitler Youth and the League of German Girls. In 1945, during World War 2 combat in the area (Soviet Red Army driving east), more than half the castle was destroyed.

Renovated in the second half of the 20th century and most recently in 2016. Nowadays, the castle hosts exhibitions and serves as a museum.

To explore the whole site inside and outside would take days…I had time to experience the large high square castle within the ramparts – comprising meeting halls, huge wooden doors on draw bridges, cloisters, refectory, sleeping quarters, chapel, rose garden – different levels of the castle being linked by internal steep and somewhat hidden stone and wooden staircases, quite a rabbit warren. But ably guided around by my GPS enabled audio guide that switched its description depending on the passageway or room I entered. Amazing technology.

And as an aside… I couldn’t believe how rail-thin Polish women walked easily in heels, HIGH HEELS, over the extensive cobblestone pathways…and then there’s me, with my sensible walking shoes (read hiking boots), stumbling about in the drizzle. 🙂

Incredible paintings, sculptures, frescos,  ceiling and fireplace decorations, including “Jesus at Gethsemane”, a masterpiece of Gothic sculpture (c. 1390) originally from Torun, which is on display at the Castle. 

Bydgoszcz, located between the Vistula and Oder rivers, is the seat of Casimir the Great University, and hosts the Pomeranian Philharmonic concert hall and the Opera Nova opera house.  It’s an architectural rich city with neo gothic, neo baroque, neo-classicist , modernist AND … Art Nouveau styles present. Its got a nickname because of this, “little Berlin”! Lots of sculpted tree trunks left on street corners….

“The Man Crossing the River” sculpture by Jerzy Kedziora is fantastic – unveiled in  2004 to commemorate the Polish entry into the EU.

I loved Mill Island (Wyspa Mlynska) – very atmospheric and spectacular – the water, the foot bridges, historic red-brick tenement houses and the beautiful chestnut trees! Older dude trying chin-ups, only just made it. And a concert in the back ground…multi sensory experience all around!! 

‘Garden of Loves'( Kochanowskiego), was in colourful bloom as I walked to take a pic of the female archer statue…designed by Ferdinand Lepke and unveiled in 1910.  

The delightful ‘Deluge Fountain’, a monumental 6m tall sculpture, made of bronze, has stood with all its elements between 1904 and 1943. Needed to be rebuilt after the war….portrays the culmination of a flood, people and animals  who are left because they did not find shelter in a barge! 

Hotel pod Orlem (Eagle Hotel), an icon of 19thC of neo Baroque, was designed by the distinguished architect, Josef Swiecicki, who lays claim to designing about 60 buildings in the city. 

A lovely street , Cieszkowskiego, associated with the dynamic development of the city in the second half of the 19th century.  Its lavish buildings were erected during an economic boom and the consequent revival of construction activity in Bydgoszcz. New frontages were built on a grand scale, using the Art Nouveau design. 

Lots of ‘caryatids’ on buildings  (a sculpted female figure serving as an architectural support taking the place of a column or a pillar supporting a lintel on her head).

Golub Dobrzyn castle – a 4 winged conventional Teutonic castle built at the turn of the 13th and 14thC, in a Gothic Renaissance style. Many a war with different ownerships over 300+ years, but between 1611—1625, the castle was in a time of magnificence under the Polish Swedish princess Anna Wazowna. Pity that there’s no English translation of exhibits. You rely on there being no Polish tourist group going through, for the young woman to give you a translation. Whattttt??? Really bizarre.

Anyway, I know enough Polish to understand that the Teutonic order was a Catholic Order founded 1190, to aid Christians on their pilgrimages to the Holy Land  and to establish hospitals. The Teutonic Knights served as a military order to protect Christians in the Holy Land and the Baltics through the Middle Ages.  Check out the 18thC Bar (dark black-arched building), the only kind of building in town – literally 4 x 4 metres.

I discovered that George Sand was a lover of Chopin! Had no idea. Those intellectuals!!! Chopin visited Szafarnia, staying with his friend Juliusz in the summers of 1824 and 1825, as an adolescent.  He was introduced to the history of folklore, listened to peasant girl songs and wrote down melodies. He started composing masurska’s soon after. BTW, Chopin loved Torun’s gingerbread! Gorgeous property to wander around, beautiful lake.