Szczytno – Castle

There has been a castle (zamek) in this location since the mid-fourteenth century and it was initially constructed out of wood. This was a little problem when the Lithuanians came along in 1370 and burned it down. So around 100 years later, after the civil engineers had drunk some tea and faffed about, they built another one. This time they built it out of stone.

So, with their new stone castle all was well. Until the Teutonic Order came along and knocked it down. This was irritating as the new castle had been built up to three storeys and it wasn’t meant to be knocked down. So at the end of the fifteenth century they built an even stronger castle, and this did the trick, the town wasn’t defeated again.

All was well with this new castle, other than it has slowly fallen down. Bits were chopped off it for three hundred years, and then the local authorities built a lovely town hall over a chunk of it. But, some has survived, and now is the time for it to be restored. As a site it’s fascinating, although there isn’t much narrative around the site, other than for one information board.

Some wooden figures.

There used to be a moat.

The castle has received some EU funds to try and improve accessibility to this site, and to build a new bridge across to it across the moat which no longer exists.

For anyone wanting to visit the site, it’s freely accessible.