The gate tower of the Ojców Castle, Poland

The ruins of Ojcow Castle lie on top of a 36-meter-high rock, in the middle of the Prądnik Valley.

The castle was erected by Casimir the Great, and a legend says that the name castrum Oczec was created in honor of his father Wladyslaw Lokietek, who once found a hiding place from enemy armies near Ojcow.

Originally, the castle consisted of an octagonal tower of ultimate defense perched on rocks towering above the rest of the hill, a perimeter of walls encircling the hill irregularly along its edge, and a quadrangular gate tower attached to the rocks at the foot of the donjon. A dwelling house was built along the eastern section of the perimeter walls. The promontory was cut off from the rest of the hill by a deep ditch, over which a drawbridge was thrown.

In 1400 the castle was pawned by Wladyslaw Jagiello. Subsequent starosts were representatives of many wealthy families, including the Szafraniec, Boner, Myszkowski and Korycin families.

During the Swedish Deluge, the invaders probably seized the castle without a fight and arranged it as a weapons and food warehouse.

After the partition of Poland at the end of the 18th century, the castle began to be neglected and fell into disrepair, eventually the inhabitants abandoned it in 1826.

At present, the gate tower, octagonal tower, the base of the walls of the southern building and remnants of the perimeter walls are preserved here. A well is also preserved in the courtyard.

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Rabsztyn Castle, Poland

Not far from Olkusz, in the village of Rabsztyn - Poland, on a rocky hill towering over the whole area, there are the ruins of a knight’s castle. Perhaps the original castle already existed here at the turn of the 13th and 14th centuries, erected by the Toporczyk family of Morawica. However, the creator of the walled castle was Casimir the Great. The castle occupied a high rock promontory and was a typical Gothic building on an irregular plan built of limestone with bricks.

The history of the successive owners of the castle and the functions the building served is very eventful. It is not short of bloody family conflicts. One of them was the murder of the castle’s owner Andrzej Tenczynski by his own brother. One of the principals of this act, who was a councilman and former mayor of Krakow Marcin Bełza, later served his sentence here.

In the early years of the 17th century, the lower castle was rebuilt into a three-winged two-story non-defensive palace. It had as many as 40 rooms for the court and servants! The entrance to the castle led from the north through a drawbridge and a gate tower called Slawkowska. As a result of these transformations, the Gothic stronghold took on the character of a Renaissance grand palace.

In 1657 the retreating Swedes plundered and then set fire to the poorly defended Rabsztyn. From that moment the castle began to fall into ruin. Although some of the surviving rooms were used until the beginning of the 19th century, the starost’s seat was moved to a manor house built nearby. The work of destruction was completed by treasure hunters who in the mid-19th century blew up the tower of the upper castle and some of the surviving rooms.

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Tenczyn Castle, Poland (part 5)

The lower castle was built by Jan Tęczyński - Queen Jadwiga’s guardian and advisor.

In the 16th century, and more precisely in the years 1579-93, the nobles of Tęczyński transformed the castle into a magnificent Renaissance residence, called Little Wawel, because it resembled the Wawel Castle with its cloisters.

Tenczyn was often visited by: Mikołaj Rej from Nagłowice, Jan Kochanowski and other outstanding representatives of the Polish Renaissance.

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Tenczyn Castle, Poland (part 4)

The upper castle was built around the perimeter of a volcanic cone, which gives it the shape of an almost regular oval, and the buildings of the lower castle, surrounding its slopes from the west and south, together with powerful artillery towers, additionally emphasize the monumental size of the building.

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St. Mary's Basilica, Kraków, Poland

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