Malbork: the charade of crusade

Tourism really is a game of qualifying superlatives to sell novelty. Malbork Castle, compared to those we've seen thus far on this trip (Tallinn, Sigulda, Vilnius, Warsaw), is very large. It also happens to be the largest Gothic, brick castle in the world. It's why we've come to visit.

Below: Mary shows off the castle that bears her name. Malbork in German is Marienburg - Mary's Castle.

The charade of crusade

Malbork sits squarely within the Baltic historical theatre in which we've been journeying since our arrival in Tallinn. Situated in what was once West Prussia, it was the headquarters of the Knights of the Teutonic Order. At its zenith, the Order's territory extended to present-day Estonia, even absorbing into its fold the Brothers of the Sword in Livonia whom we met in Sigulda earlier. More than a half-millennium after its last Master wound up the Order (to become the first Duke of Prussia, from which the eighteenth-century Prussia of Frederick the Great was descended), its crusading past continues to spawn a series of historical legends and counter-legends. In darker times, the Knights have been mythologized as intrepid pioneers of Germandom who carried Christianity and civilization to the pagan east. Its enemies saw them as German invaders bent on mastery and massacre, and resistance to them celebrated in triumphant, nationalistic tones.

These deserve a second look.

Below: King Casimir IV of Poland, a scion of Jogaila's line whose defeat of the Order brought it under Polish overlordship, points his sceptre triumphantly towards Marienburg.

While German polities regularly supplied men and money, Englishmen, Frenchmen (when they weren't fighting each other), Flemish, Bohemians, Danes and Swedes also took part in the fighting. The purported pagans they fought numbered the Catholic Poles, the Orthodox Novgorodians and the recently converted Lithuanians. The Novgorodians blocked eastward expansion from Estonian by the Order and its allies into the Russian hinterland. The Poles and Lithuanians held strategic lands that would have connected the Order's base around Malbork with its possessions in Latvia and Estonia.

National resistance celebrates the Order's decisive defeat at Grunwald (known also as Tannenberg and Zalgiris) in 1410 by combined Polish-Lithuanian forces (these were commanded respectively by the cousins Jogaila and Vytautas, grandsons of the Gediminas who founded Vilnius). This precipitated a decline which saw the Order subsequently recognise Polish-Lithuanian suzerainty and give up its West Prussian lands around Malbork. We should also recall that both Jogaila and Vytautas (remember he also rebuilt Trakai's Island Castle in stone) sought the Order's alliance as they tussled for power in a civil war between 1389 and 1392.

So both sides fight crusades, which was really a charade for political manouevring and the rewriting of history.

Below: The only geopolitical battle in Malbork today takes place on the river, where niftier mallards edge heavier swans to get to precious bread crumbs on the ice.

Emptiest Gothic, brick castle in the world

The 45-minute train ride took us past yellow fields, distant wind farms and most memorably the hilltop old town of Tczew, which lingered on the horizon for many miles after we passed. We sat opposite an elderly man who stopped us from getting off a station earlier at Malbork-Kaldowo, saving us a 45-minute traipse to the castle.

Given that it was New Year's Eve, it was quiet when we got to the castle. The grounds were vast. All was brick, and it felt like Legoland, except the builders used only red. We crossed the Nogat on the footbridge just behind the castle to get the best views, and lunched at a riverboat restaurant called U Flisaka moored on the far bank. The castle walls were bathed in the mellow glow of the westering sun when we were done.

Above: A vast Legoland in red, which the above collection of panoramas can hardly do any justice to. Look how empty the grounds were too.

Below: Mary goes to swansee.

We crossed the bridge to the castle just after three, to find the gates locked. Oh yes, New Year's Eve - they shut earlier. The only other tourists in sight were a Polish couple in town for a fancy dress countdown party and a German family who approached us to have their photograph taken. The streets were as empty. Only makeshift stalls sell fireworks to youths stocking up to give 2015 a rousing farewell. The train back to Gdansk, though, was full, and we had to stand between carriages. There was hardly room to move, partly because one youth refused to lift her jacket off the adjacent seat.

It would have been nice to not end the year on a note of discourtesy.

Logistics

There are frequent trains from Gdansk Glowny to Malbork (even if you can see the castle from Malbork-Kaldowo, it isn't that stop). The town centre is a short walk from Malbork station itself. Turn right upon exiting and follow the signs. The best views of the castle are on the far bank of the river, reached via a footbridge near the castle.

Above (top to bottom): Even the railway station in Malbork looks like a castle; U Flizaka, the riverboat restaurant moored along the Nogat. The food's good and affordable, with impressive views of the castle to be had.