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ohjentravels · 8 years ago

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11 Castles from The Trail of the Eagles' Nests, Poland

David and I haven’t been the best planners during this whole trip and have always left things to the last minute. Infact, we didn’t plan on where we would go in Poland till we were in Krakow! And even then, it wasn’t till the last day we were in Krakow that David decided it was time to do some research, however I started a whole two days before him.

During my search of castles to visit while in Poland, I bumped into a trail called, “Trail of the Eagles' Nests”. In the Summer it’s a popular hiking trail for keen walkers, but that was not how I intended to check out this trail. It’s about 170km, the actual length varies between website to website.

The Trail of the Eagles’ Nests were once a chain of 25 medieval castles built to protect Poland’s western frontier during the 14th century. Many of them are located in a protected area known as Eagles’ Nests Landscape Park.

They have been named the "Eagles' Nests", as most of them are located on large, tall rocks and limestone cliffs.

Of the 25 castles, 16 still remain (including Wawell in Krakow that I didn’t visit); in various conditions, some in ruins and some have been restored to different extents. Some restoration work has been amazing, you wouldn’t have known it was once a ruin, where as some have been pretty tragic!

Above is a map of the 16 hours, you can visit this page here to explore the map. We visited 11 out of the 16 castles.

Castle #1: Zamek Korzkiew After picking up our rental car and doing a big supermarket shop, we headed to our first castle which was a disappointment. We couldn’t explore Zamek Korzkiew Castle because it’s not a boutique hotel, there wasn’t a lot in terms of “grounds” which we could explore to get a better look either, it’s surrounded by forest which is pretty cool.

Castle #2: Zamek Ojcowie Not far from the first castle is Zamek Ojcowie, hidden in the Ojcowski National Park, is the more exciting, Zamek Ojcowie. Because of the time restrictions we had (11 castles in two days is no easy task!) we didn’t walk around the national park. It’s only two towers that remain from the castle now (one being the entrance gate) and some (very few and short) walls. There was a very small museum in the main tower which remains (about 5m2) but it was all in Polish.

What remains is the tall tower and the gate one, but below you can see what it would’ve looked like before.

A few hundred metres from Ojcow Castle is this little chapel, “Chapel On The Water”. Fashioned in 1901 from what was originally a bathhouse. You’re allowed to have a peek inside when there’s a service but there wasn’t one while we were there.

Castle #3: Pieskowa Skała Castle This was one of those castles that you look around as freely as you can and avoid paying a cent to go into to, especially as these days it’s an art gallery and we were not there for the art! The restoration of it was great!

Beside Pieskowa Skała is the infamous Maczuga Herkulesa, a 30m tall rock.

Below is a photo of an oil painting of the castle from the 19th Century, now down the valley is a road.

Castle #4: Rabsztyn Castle Our last stop for our first day was Rabsztyn Castle. We got there at 4:00pm and unfortunately for us we had no idea that daylight saving had ended (or started?) the day we left Krakow so we were really confused when it was getting dark as we arrived.

We went up to the drawbridge but we were welcomed by closed gates, it turns out that they had just closed and they were now closed for the Winter (it was 31st October) as of 1 November. We jiggled the gate but no luck, then as we were walking off we heard voices and a man came out and asked if we wanted to look around and we excitedly said yes, despite the darkness already fully kicking in. He explained that a lot of the smaller and less popular castles (attractions in general) close over Winter (November to April). He let us have a look around the little museum and then let us walk around as much as we could, which wasn’t a lot as the maintenance and restoration work had already begun!

It was clear it was time to leave when I took this photo and couldn’t really make out David on the back of the camera. Plus, there was a lot more construction than we thought there would be!

Day number 2 of our castle exploration was the first of November, which is All Saints' Day in Poland, but noticeability it’s also Day of the Dead, as many people remember dead family and friends on this day. People visit the graves of family and friends and lay flowers, so from the 1st November, all grave stones are covered with flowers and candle lights. I found it really creepy to drive past them at night and seeing all the candles.

Castle #5: Mirow Castle This castle was down the road from our accomodation which was handy, as it too was closed (for Winter and what looked like maintance/restoration). It was a quick cross off the list for us as we couldn’t explore it, even after an attempt to find a gate to climb. It’s been abandoned since 1787. This castle was owned by the twin brother of the guy who owns another castle further down but I’ll write about that in another post.

Castle #6: Ogrodzieniec Castle This was probably one of our favourite castles during our exploration of the trail, it’s also the largest. It’s a restored castle, but now a full restoration.

Castle #7: Smolen Castle We don’t know much about this castle as there was zero signage, there also wasn’t much for us to look at. David climbed through a gate to try and climb the tower and succeeded, however I didn’t see him do this and as I edit the photos asked me if I took a photo of him up there. Opps.

Castle #8: Bydlinie Castle

This is a very small ruin, the smallest one we’ve seen on the trip I think (so far). I found an aerial shot of it here which makes it look a lot bigger than it really is. If you’re interested in the history, you can read some here.

On the way to castle #9 David was overwhelmed by all the orange as we drove through a forest and had to pull over for photos.

Castle #9: Bąkowiec Castle This one was an interesting ruin, it was located in the grounds of a holiday resort, about 150 metres across from the main building of the resort (which is a ski resort in the Winter, I saw all the ski lifts 100 metres from this ruin). We couldn’t explore any of it and it appears that it was once restored but then abandoned, as shown by the fallen wall in the second photo.

We could sense that the sun was setting soon so we had to decide between Bobolice and Castle Olsztyn, we went with Bobolice which turned out to be David’s favourite castle in the trail.

Castle #9: Bobolice Castle This was David’s favourite castle in the trail. The restoration work on it was amazing and the rooms were beautiful. The brother of the guy who owned Castle #5: Mirow Castle, owned this castle. I’ll post more photos and information on this castle in it’s own post.

Castle #11: Castle Olsztyn Our last castle before we headed off to Zakopane. With it’s well marked paths, it’s clear that this is a popular ruin. From what we could see from the top, looks like people probably have to pay in the Summer time as we saw several kiosks near the car parks (I just did a quick Google and yes, you have to pay, haha).

#Europe #Poland #Krakow #Trail of the Eagles' Nests #Castle

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