Today we set off for the Tri-cities of Poland: Gdansk-Sopot-Gdynia. This is where Konrad, Artur's brother lives. On our way, we stopped to visit the biggest Teutonic Knight's Castle in Poland - Marlbork Castle. We arranged to have a tour of the castle, but the soonest tour available was in Polish. Luckily, the tour group consisted only of the two of us, so Artur had enough time to translate.
First, we saw the Refrektarz, which is the huge hall where the Teutonic Knights held their meetings. The walls of the hall are covered in colourful frescoes, and the ceiling had beautiful, traditional arches. The big room had been through several metamorphoses. Once during the Prussian occupation, it was even used as a room for riding horses in! Later on it was used for storing grain.
We also saw the chamber of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order. It had a small window that he could use to peek in to the great hall, to see what was happening. His room also had its own private chapel adjoining it.
Diagram in Malbork, of all the the places on the body that can be injured by particular weapons.
Some of the other rooms that we saw, were the dining hall, the rooms where the knights slept, and the adjoining room where they went to chill out and entertain themselves.
One of the really cool rooms that we saw, was an entertainment hall, which was targeted for an assassination attempt at one point. The idea was to shoot a cannon ball into the centre pillar of the hall, and the whole building would collapse, killing everyone. However, their calculations were wrong, and it landed in the wall, and is still there today.
We also saw a Gdanisko - toilet built in the direction of Gdansk - like the one we saw in Torun. There was a funny gargoyle outside the entrance, with a guy with a wrinkled up, tortured look on his face. She said it was because it was freezing at night, and the knights had to come all the way out there to go to the toilet. It could also be someone struggling to get to the toilet in time, or many other interesting scenarios.
The castle also had a big exposition on Amber. Amber is a very common semi-precious stone found in many regions in Poland. It is made from sap that has become petrified. Sometimes you can find entire insects inside a piece, because they got trapped in the sap when it was still sticky.
There were some incredible sculpted pieces of marble, as well as mosaics of different kinds of amber. Intricate jewelry boxes were carved, with little drawers and pictures shaped on the outside. There were even huge dressing tables, mirror frames, lots of jewelry and so much more. 
One of the last things that we saw on our tour, was the old chapel, which had been destroyed in WWII. A lot of it had been restored, but most of the sculptures and decorations had been broken into many pieces. This is because the Germans were using the castle as a base, and the Russians bombed them when they came to take over.
We climbed up the big tower in the castle, and had a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. It was spectacular. The Nucat river stretched out below us, with a huge bridge crossing it.
It was also great to see a bird's eye view of where we had been already. Apparently Malbork has more bricks than any other castle in Europe! This was quite evident from above.
No comments:
Post a Comment