Frombork © Sybille Yates
On the morning of Saturday 17th October, after our visit to the ‘Wolf’s Lair’ and the remains of the incomplete Masurian Canal, we then set out to drive westwards to continue our Polish adventure. Over the next few hours, using our recently purchased Polish road atlas, Sybille very successfully navigated us along a series of secondary roads, all the way to the Baltic Sea coast at Frombork.
The journey took us through a variety of small towns and villages, interspersed with areas of both agricultural land and forests. Some road surfaces were excellent, whilst others did leave something to be desired 🙂 No doubt helped by it being the weekend, traffic was fortunately quite light.
After about three hours of driving, we reached the slightly larger town of Braniewo, where we were only six kilometres from the border with the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad. Unless I do get to visit St. Petersburg, (which is on my ‘bucket list’), this may well be the closest that I will ever get to Russia! On the outskirts of Braniewo, we were held up for at least ten minutes at a railway level crossing, by a Russian freight train being manoeuvred onto the correct tracks for its onward journey to Kaliningrad.
The Baltic Sea at Frombork © Sybille Yates
After that, it was only a short onward journey to Frombork, where for the first time in my life, I saw the Baltic Sea. In many ways, I would liked to have spent more time in Frombork. But as we walked around the small harbour, spots of rain began to fall, so we decided to drive on to Malbork where Sybille had pre-booked us overnight accommodation.
As we drove, the weather deteriorated with the rain becoming much heavier, together with the daylight rapidly fading. When we reached Malbork, despite the darkness and the bad weather, we fortunately found our accommodation without too much difficulty. But the promised panoramic view of Malbork Castle, directly across the Nogat river from where we staying, was almost impossible to see, because of the mist and rain 🙁
Malbork Castle at night © Sybille Yates
After an enjoyable meal in a nearby restaurant, Sybille suggested that the rain had eased somewhat and that we should therefore go for a walk to see the castle. This atmospheric photograph is the only record we have of that evening. My memory is that of wearing the wrong shoes and ending up with two very wet feet!
Photographic panel showing Malbork Castle as it was in 1945 © Sybille Yates
The next morning, the rain had finally stopped but, as you can see in the photographs that follow, it was still quite misty. This photograph above shows was the castle looked like in 1945, badly damaged during the Second World War. Restoration work continues, but it is now back near to how it looked when built by the Teutonic Knights in the 13th and 14th centuries.
Malbork Castle © Sybille Yates
The moat at Malbork Castle © Sybille Yates
Some of the amazing architecture of Malbork Castle © Ricky Yates
Malbork Castle reflected in the Nogat river © Ricky Yates
It’s quite fascinating to compare Malbork to Trakai in Lithuania, which dates more or less to the same time, as far as I know, and was also reconstructed back to its original form… and was built by the other side in the Baltic conflict at that time. It’s quite fascinating to see how, to a certain extent, it follows the same architectural principles.
And it’s actually quite fascinating to see photos of it taken in mist, because tourist-geared publicly accessible photographs of famous places usually aren’t!
Hello Hana – very nice to have you commenting here again! I’ve not been to Trakai, (the Baltic States are still on my ‘bucket list’), but from the online photographs I’ve just looked at, the architectural style is as you say, very similar to Malbork. Glad you like the misty photographs – they are quite atmospheric.
Hi Ricky,
Excellent post, as ever. Malbork was on our wish-list for our trip to Poland this summer but because of arrival and departure times of flights to or from Dublin, it wasn’t possible – as you say it remains on our bucket list along with a wish to visit the Baltic States just like you. I can only second Hana’s comments on your wonderful photographs of the castle – they convey an air of tension or even of menace. Love them or hate them, see them as harbingers of civilisation or ruthless invaders; the Teutonic Knights knew how to build castles! I hope your bucket list wishes are successfully accomplished and you give us your own inimitable take on each of those destinations on your blog. Thank you, Sean.
Hi Sean,
Glad you enjoyed the post but sorry to hear that you weren’t able to visit Malbork yourself during your own recent Poland trip. Yes – the Teutonic Knights did know how to build castles 🙂 And many thanks for the compliments on the atmospheric photos.
[…] were away, we were only affected by rain twice – in the late afternoon and evening when we drove from Frombork to Malbork, and the bulk of the day when we sought to explore Wroclaw on […]
I know the weather isn’t what you would have wished for your holiday, Ricky, but the photos of the wonderful Malbork Castle in the mist are immensely impressive and atmospheric.
As you will see from previous comments, Perpetua, you’re not alone in liking our atmospheric photos 🙂 Likewise, as I’ve said in my concluding summary post, overall we were very fortunate with the weather. But it would have been nice to see Malbork Castle in sunshine – sigh 🙁