Semester Trip 2024 (13 Jul) - 3 - Poland

Despite the warm night, we got a decent night sleep and we up a little late the next morning for our next stop - Chojnik Castle (Zamek Chojnik) (pronounced Hoy-Nick).  This had been on my original plan for our first Poland trip, but we'd skipped it as we didn't have enough time.

When we arrived, we realized that we'd definitely not have had enough time... The castle sits atop a 627m tall hill in the Karkonosze National Park. The suggested time to walk up to the castle was about 30-45min, but in the 30 degree heat, with about 50% humidity it was a decent hike. There were two options to head up to the castle, the red path and the black path. We chose to take the red path as it was the easier of the two, but it was still a big hike in the heat.

The castle sits above the the town of Sobieszów, which is now a part of Jelenia Góra and overlooks the Jelenia Góra Valley.

The castle was first built by the Silesian Piasts who were one of the Polish dynasty lines that formed in 1138 after the death of Duke Bolesław III Wrymouth. Upon his death, his lands were split between the elder Władysław II the Exile (who was given Krakow and Silesia), and his half brothers: Bolesław IV the Curly (who recived Masovia), Mieszko III the Old (who received Greater Poland) and Henry of Sandomierz (who recieved Sandomierz). The brothers soon began fighting, with Władysław trying to claim all of Poland.

The fortress was built by, and held for most of the time, by the Schaffgotsch noble family. It was originally built by Duke Bolko I the Strict in 1292 to replace a hunting lodge built by his father. The purpose of the fortress was to protect the Dutchy of Jawor against Bohemia.

When Bolko II died without an heir, his wife sold the castle to one of the knights from the court - Gotsche Schoff, who expanded the castle and built a chapel. The castle was attacked by the Hussites and Hungary, but was not taken. The inheritance passed to the Schaffgotsch line, but they were executed for treason in 1634 during the Thirty Year war after their general was assassinated. Emperor Ferdinand II took over the castle and used it to defend against the Swedes before gifting it back to the Schaffgotsch line. In 1675 the castle was struck by lightning and burnt down. It was never rebuilt, and the Schaffgotch line held the ruins, which became a tourist attraction in the 1700s, until 1945 when it was taken over by the Polish state.

There are several legends of the castle, the foremost is the story of Kunegunda, who was the Lord's daughter. To avoid marriage, she set a challenge that anyone wanting to court her needed to ride the entire way along the castle walls on horseback. Having seen the slope that the castle is built on, it was obvious that a this was a death sentence. Eventually one of the Kunegunda fell for one of the suitors and tried to cancel the challenge, but he took it anyway and succeeded. Instead of marrying her, he called her cruel and left. She ended up killing herself by leaping from the walls.

Chojnik Ruins from the bottom of the hill

Kris made it about 2 minutes before the shoes came off

Finally at the top!

The coat of arms of Silesia

The view during the walk was impressive (and a good excuse to stop and catch our breath - we're not puffed, we're just taking photos honest...)

Heading in

Tree growth inside the walls

Main Courtyard

The Whipping Post

Heading up to the lower tower

View from the lower tower

Chapel inside the castle

Looking down over the courtyard

More stairs heading up

We headed up to the main tower, which was originally accessible only via a drawbridge on top of the wall. The lower entrance was hollowed out in the 1800s to allow for stairs to the base of the tower. The tower was used as a look-out, for defense and also as a prison.  The view from the top was awesome:

The new stairs were narrow and quite low, so I ended up having to duck most of the way down.

Schaffgotsch Coat of Arms

We decided to head back down the black path, which was a bit quicker, but a lot more rugged:

When we got to the bottom, we had a quick break for lunch (ham, cheese and salami sandwiches) and headed off to our next destination - Parafia Wang.

Parafia Wang, or the Wang Stave Church, was an interesting destination for many reasons, not least of all as it was a Norwegian stave church in Poland. Its history was pretty interesting, it started its life as the "Mountain Church of Our Saviour" in Vang, Norway:

The church was built in the 1200s and was slated to be demolished in 1832 as it was too small and not structurally sound. A local painter, Johan Christian Dahl petitioned to save the church and ended up convincing the council to auction it off, where he purchased it. Dahl had a friendship with King Frederick William IV of Prussia (who was still the Crown Prince at the time) and managed to convince the Prince to pay to erect the church in Potsdam, just outside Berlin. The church was flatpacked IKEA style (marking and packing each piece) and shipped to Berlin, where it was stored in the Altes Museum. The installation site changed in the two months the church was at sea and the next year the parts were shipped up the Oder on a barge and then taken by wagon to the village of Karpacz. It was re-erected in 1842.

I had originally expected the church to be sitting in a quiet little town, a bit off the beaten track, but we were majorly surprised. Karpacz is not a sleepy little mountain town, it is a major ski and spa resort and one of the biggest ski areas in Poland. It is also site of the 1,738ft long Tor Saneczkowy toboggan run (unfortunately we didn't have the time to do this as we didn't find out about it until we arrived.)

We ended up eventually finding a park near one of the segments of the toboggan run and then faced more uphill walking to the church:

 

Looking out from the church we could also see Sněžka, a mountain that sits on the Czechia\Poland border and is the highest mountain in Czechia (at 1.6km tall). At the top sits the Polish Meteo Observatory - containing a weather station and restaurant, which was visible with Kristine's camera zoom:

We had originally planned to also check out a nearby Uranium mine, but we found ourselves tired and low on time, so we headed back to our cabin to get a decent sleep before heading to Czechia the next day.