Visiting Malbork Castle – home of the Teutonic Knights

Visiting Malbork castle, perhaps better known internationally as Marienburg, is perfect for a daytrip from Gdansk or as a layover when crossing Poland in any direction. Malbork a relatively sleepy town in the Pomerania province. It conveniently benefits from a large station where most high-speed trains call. However, if it weren’t for its UNESCO listed Teutonic castle, Malbork would most likely be overlooked by the crowds.

We arrived in the afternoon on the train from Gdansk. The connection is great. Multiple trains run every hour taking between 30 minutes and an hour. The plan was to spend on night there to break up the long journey to Warsaw. We decided this fairly last minute, but nonetheless we easily found an AirBNB flat that was just perfect.

Malbork is small. From the station it took us less than 15 minutes by foot to reach the high street where the flat was. We dropped the luggage, freshened up and hit the town. The high street has got all convenience stores, a few cafes and a small shopping mall. IF you are looking for a good selection of stores though, hold your horses until Warsaw.

Exploring Esperanto Skwer & churches

Apart from the Teutonic castle, there is one other interesting sight for those visiting Malbork. It is Esperanto Square (Skwer). The square is merely a small stretch of green in between grey apartment buildings that breathe communist legacy. We stumbled on it more or less by accident. Nonetheless this little oasis in honour of the global language invented by Ludwig Zamenhof is quite interesting. Perhaps being a linguist means my thinking is skewed, but seeing the explanatory signs in Esperanto was fascinating. The memorials to Esperanto speakers from all over the world (as far away as Congo) give an idea of the size of the Esperanto project.

Like any Polish town, Malbork is packed with Catholic churches. The prettiest one is the Church of Holy Mother of Eternal Help. Dating from the 13^th century and having been occupied by Christian orders of many flavours, the now Polish Catholic church is still beautiful. I observed the lively Catholic tradition on my previous visits to Poland, but when I saw the large crowd gathering for evening Mass a random weekday, I was impressed. We joined the congregation and even though none of us speak any Polish the service was a nice experience.

Visiting Malbork Castle

The next morning, we headed for the highlight of our visit to Malbork, the Teutonic castle. In case you are not familiar with the Teutonic order, this is a Catholic order of crusaders who made it their mission to provide shelter and protection to Christians on pilgrimage to the Holy land. The order exists up to today and conducts charitable works. Their coat of arms, the iron cross, is a well-known symbol, although this comes in many variations. Do not mix it up with the Nazi symbol that saw a swastika added on top of the cross!

Even though we visited Malbork Castle outside the high season and it was a weekday, packed buses with tour groups arrived. Around lunchtime the castle got significantly busier. Starting early meant we managed to avoid these crowds.

The castle is actually a fortified monastery dating from the 13^th century. Throughout the centuries it fell in decay and additionally suffered damage during the World War II. However, it is now beautifully restored.

The excellent audio-guide explains all the history of the order and the castle. I am not normally a big fan of audio-guides, but this one was excellent and innovative. It uses GPS technology to define your location and then automatically jumps to the right section. It was surprisingly accurate. No fiddling with buttons, just take a stroll. Bear in mind that the castle is a labyrinth. If you don’t want to skip places, it is good to stay somewhat tuned. The castle consists mostly of vast empty rooms with delightfully pretty architecture. There is also a collections of weapons and military paraphernalia used by the Teutonic knights.

Ending with lunch

One thing to remember when visiting the castle: you will need time. We spent about five hours in the castle, although this included lunch in the Gothic Café in the basement and a stroll amongst the amber shops in the courtyard. Options for eating in Malbork are rather limited to snack bars and sweet items in bakeries, so we decided the Gothic Café was a good option for a nice sit-down lunch to end our visit. Remember that the portions are huge. I had a potato soup and fancied a little extra, so I selected the Ukrainian pancakes from the dessert menu. The stack of huge cheese pancakes topped with berries, fruit sauce and cream was delicious. Sharing is imperative if you decide to order this item!