Poland 2024 Day 7

Hopefully, this will have been the most driving I’ll have to do in one day. Leaving Toruń at 06:30 I arrived at my first destination of Castle Ogrodzieniec around 11:00. I went to this castle for two reasons. One was to try and break up the drive, it ended up making it longer. Two was because this castle appeared in the Netflix show Witcher and I thought it’d be neat to see.

The castle is in a state of ruin with no intention of restoring it, just preserving it. In its last incarnation, it was supposedly comparable to the royal castle in Krakow. Unfortunately, it ran afoul of the Swedish Deluge, I’d never heard of that before. This was an invasion by the Swedish Kingdom in an expansion attempt. They burned parts of the castle down while trying to take it and no one bothered to rebuild it afterwards. It is part of a series of castles along what is locally known as the Eagle’s Nest trail. If you follow it you can see a whole bunch of castles built on rocky hilltops. If I had to do it again I’d probably have stayed nearby and done the trail.

The castle had the craziest path through I’ve ever experienced. Most routes take you through a level at a time. This castle had you going up and down multiple flights of stairs multiple times. I was pretty tired by the end of it.

Then it was back in the car for another 3 hour drive to Zakopane. Zakopane is basically Poland’s Aspen, Colorado. The whole area is built up around skiing. In the warmer seasons there’s a lot of hiking. I’m not sure if it really has an off season. It seemed really crowded as I was driving into town. The last 7 miles took over 30 minutes to drive.

For the next three nights I’ll be staying in a chalet in Zakopane itself. I did splurge a bit on this lodging but it looks to be worth it!