Malbork Castle

Monday, October 13, 2008

I think I’m beginning to like traveling more than I ever have before. We made another little trip this past weekend. We rode the train from Warsaw to Malbork. We had a four-hour trip and we only planned to stay one night. Great! We each packed in our backpacks, hopped the tram, boarded the train and we were off! We arrived in Malbork and walked from the train station to our hotel—approximately two kilometers or 1 ¼ miles for Americans. The weather was beautiful and just right for a little walk. Our hotel was the Hotel Zamek. (Zamek is a Polish word for castle.) Our hotel was part of the castle complex that we had traveled to see and was at one time a hospital. The inside of the hotel was very nicely done, although we didn’t spend very much time there.

The castle complex itself was very much what I had pictured a castle to be. Although I must say it was much larger than anything I had imagined! This place was huge! Before I get into describing all the things we saw, I should mention a little bit of history.
The castle at Malbork—in German it is called Marienburg—was built by the Teutonic Knights. I won’t go into their history other than to say they started out as a “hospitaller” brotherhood in the Holy Land during the crusades and became a chivalric order a few years later. They were invited to help defend a duchy in Poland from Prussian invaders and by 1276 were beginning construction of their castle. They were a great power until they were defeated in the Battle of Grunwald in 1410.

This place was absolutely amazing! On the river side of the castle, there were at least four walls between the river (part of the defensive system) and the “High Castle”. On the land side of the castle there were at least five walls that I could count and I believe there was another around the town of Malbork. If someone made it to the main gate through the outer bailey, they still had to get through five gates and doors and a portcullis or two. If they managed that, they were only in the courtyard of the “Medium Castle” and still had a drawbridge and several more doors and gates to get into the “High Castle”. The castle was never taken and stood for about 500 years, until methods of warfare changed.

By the end of the eighteenth century, the castle had fallen into disrepair but in the 1800’s an effort began to restore it. A great deal of time, money and effort went into repairing great halls that had been used as granaries and bringing back the Gothic beauty of the castle. It was a grand attempt to return the castle to some of its former greatness. Then the world went to war. In my pictures, I have two photos that show the devastation done to the castle during World War II. It is so exciting to see all the restoration work that is going on at the castle. Everywhere you go, there are glimpses of the past and of the lifestyle of the Teutonic Knights.
Easel and I walked around the outside of the entire castle complex on Friday (including our trip from the train station, we walked about 5.6 miles on Friday in Malbork) and then spent several hours looking at the inside of the castle on Saturday—paid admission plus the charge for taking photos! We had a great time. Breakfast was even a fun thing because we were among very few other people staying in the hotel—three tables were set for breakfast. No one else entered the dining room while we were there so we very much enjoyed our cozy breakfast for two served by a friendly waiter.

While seeing the castle was the focus of this trip and we enjoyed that tremendously, we had a couple of things happen that were very nice and one thing that was not so nice. We came across a cashier in a small store who was very friendly and smiled at us! We had dinner at a restaurant in town where the owner came and spoke to us and was very friendly! Those were unexpected bonuses on this trip because we have come to be surprised by smiles and friendliness from cashiers, waiters, or shop owners. The “not so nice” thing happened on the train home. Easel had ordered our train tickets online and, following the instructions on the website, had printed out our tickets—one for going and one for returning. On the way home, after the conductor had checked the ticket, another conductor entered our compartment to reprimand me (it really was my fault, I was stretching my leg and had my foot resting on the cup holder space between two seats) and then asked Easel for our tickets. Easel handed him the form and this conductor immediately began to fuss at Easel demanding tickets! Easel said, “That is the ticket.” The conductor said, “No, this is the reservation! Tickets!” It took a few minutes but Easel was eventually able to convince this man that we were, indeed, paying customers. Amazing. He didn’t care that the other conductor had stamped the form. I’m not sure he even saw the stamp. Apparently, this was his first encounter with an “e-ticket”. Oh, well.