WIELICZKA CASTLE, VIEW FROM THE WEST
ON THE RIGHT YOU CAN SEE THE TOWER OF ST. KLEMENS CHURCH

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he cas­tle and the town are strong­ly con­nect­ed with rock salt ex­plo­ration car­ried out in this re­gion of Ma­ło­pol­ska. The first traces of this ac­tiv­i­ty can be found in the 13th cen­tu­ry mine shaft lo­cat­ed with­in the me­dieval cas­tle court­yard. Ac­cord­ing to tra­di­tion, the founder of the cas­tle was Duke of Cra­cow, Hen­ryk IV Pro­bus (d. 1290), who, soon af­ter the dis­cov­ery of rich salt lodes, cre­ated the nec­es­sary in­fras­truc­ture to de­vel­op and pro­tect the in­ter­ests of this very prof­itable ven­ture. It was then that the Wie­licz­ka cas­tle was built. For o­ver 650 years it func­tioned as the seat of the salt mine man­age­ment and var­i­ous work­shops con­nect­ed with the ex­trac­tion of white gold, its stor­age and pro­cess­ing. Work­ers were sum­moned to work from the cas­tle tow­er, tools and ma­te­ri­als were stored in the cas­tle ware­hous­es, as well as some of­fi­cials lived here.

NARROW COURTYARD BETWEEN THE MIDDLE (ON THE RIGHT) AND THE NOTHERN CASTLE (ON THE LEFT)

THE SALT MINE AND THE TOWN OF WIELICZKA ON THE MAP FROM 1645

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he cas­tle was built on marshy ter­rain near the small riv­er Sra­wa, which made very dif­fi­cult to dig tun­nels to seize it. At the end of the 13th cen­tu­ry the stronghold had a form of a two-storey res­i­den­tial tow­er built on a rect­an­gu­lar plan with sides of 16x10 me­ters. Its ground floor was made of sand­stone, while the first floor was made on­ly of wood. The tow­er, lat­er called Dom po­śród Żu­py or mid­dle cas­tle, was sur­round­ed by a stone wall form­ing a quad­ran­gle 60 x 57 me­ters in size, which was pro­tect­ed from the out­side by a moat about 2 me­ters wide. The en­trance to the cas­tle court­yard led through a gate lo­cat­ed in the north-east­ern cor­ner of the wall. In­ten­sive growth of the town of Wiel­ka Sól (the ear­ly name of Wie­licz­ka) was stopped in the ear­ly 14th cen­tu­ry by a civ­il war, dur­ing which the Cra­cow bish­op's troops burned and plun­dered towns al­lied with the prince Wła­dy­sław Ło­kie­tek (d. 1333), among them the seat of Cra­cow salt mines.

RECONSTRUCTION OF THE CASTLE FROM THE TURN OF 13TH AND 14TH CENTURY, ORIGIN: CRACOW SALT-WORKS MUSEUM

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n 1361 Kazimierz the Great es­tab­lished the town and thor­ough­ly re­built the cas­tle as well as in­cor­po­rat­ed it in­to the town's for­ti­fi­ca­tion sys­tem. In the first half of the 14th cen­tu­ry a one-storey build­ing with a square plan was added to the res­i­den­tial tow­er from the west. It pre­sum­ably had some eco­nom­ic or mil­i­tary func­tion. Af­ter 1350 it was raised and its base­ment and first floor re­ceived vaults sup­port­ed by a sin­gle cen­tral pil­lar. The ground floor, lat­er called the Grodz­ka Cham­ber, got a rep­re­sen­ta­tive char­ac­ter, which was prob­a­bly dic­tat­ed by the fre­quent stays of the ruler, who from then on vis­it­ed the cas­tle al­most ev­ery year. By king's or­der, Wie­licz­ka was sur­round­ed by a one-kilo­me­ter-long wall, equipped with de­fen­sive porch­es and topped with crenel­la­tion. 19 tow­ers sup­port­ed this wall. Three of them be­longed to the cas­tle, which from then on be­came a key el­e­ment of the town's for­ti­fi­ca­tion from the north-west­ern side. In the Mid­dle Ages the cas­tle hosted among others the Lithu­anian duke Vy­tau­tas (in 1386), and the Czech king Zik­mund Lu­cem­burský and the Dan­ish king Erik III, who in 1424 head­ed for the coro­na­tion cer­e­mo­ny of Sofi­ja Alšėniškė - the fourth wife of Wła­dy­sław Ja­gieł­ło.

MARCIN GERMAN'S TOWN PLAN FROM 1638, ON THE LEFT YOU CAN SEE ST. KLEMENS' CHURCH,
THE CASTLE ON THE RIGHT

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t is pos­si­ble that still dur­ing the reign of Władys­ław Jagiełło (d. 1434) the Roy­al Kitchen was built in the cas­tle court­yard. It had a form of a quadri­lat­er­al tow­er with a cen­tral­ly lo­cat­ed oven, sup­port­ed by four stone pil­lars. The kitchen in Wie­licz­ka is con­sid­ered to be the old­est col­lec­tive cater­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Poland, as it was here that meals were served free of charge to the of­fi­cials and em­ploy­ees of the Cra­cow salt mines, as well as to the drivers com­ing to col­lect salt. In the years 1473 and 1475 fires broke out in the town. They were so se­vere that King Ka­zi­mierz Ja­giel­loń­czyk (d. 1492), in or­der to help re­pair the town build­ings con­sumed by fire, re­leased the burghers of Wie­licz­ka from rents and oth­er obli­ga­tions for a pe­ri­od of 10 years. Dur­ing the re­con­struc­tion of the town the cas­tle al­so un­der­went mod­ern­iza­tion. Its lay­out was en­riched by a new build­ing called Dom Żup­ny (north­ern cas­tle), cre­at­ed by join­ing two small­er build­ings stand­ing in the north­ern part of the court­yard. Its ground floor housed util­i­ty rooms, work­shops and ware­hous­es, while the first floor was used as apart­ments for of­fi­cials. Here, too, a prison called Groch was lo­cat­ed in the cas­tle cel­lars.

DOM ŻUPNY (THE NORTHERN CASTLE), SOUTH AND EAST ELEVATION

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he fires, that dev­as­tat­ed Wie­licz­ka in 1531 and 1535, stim­u­lat­ed an­oth­er re­con­struc­tion of the seat of salt­mastes, as a re­sult of which the cas­tle rooms were giv­en a more rep­re­sen­ta­tive char­ac­ter. In the mid­dle of the 16th cen­tu­ry the west­ern wing was raised by one storey and the Roy­al Cham­ber was lo­cat­ed there. At the same time, the north­ern and mid­dle cas­tles were con­nect­ed by a large wood­en room on the sec­ond floor, called Sa­la gdzie żup­ni­ki wy­ma­lo­wa­no (un­trans­lat­able: it was named af­ter 24 paint­ings with im­ages of the for­mer salt­mas­ters). On the first floor of the north­ern cas­tle the chapel of St. Sta­ni­sław was ar­ranged, so small that it could ac­com­mo­date on­ly a wood­en al­tar, a priest cel­e­brat­ing mass, and one al­tar boy. All rep­re­sen­ta­tive rooms were equipped with fire­places, paint­ed stoves, gild­ed can­dle­sticks, and even spe­cial and very ex­pen­sive win­dows dec­o­rat­ed with roy­al coats of arms. As part of a six­teenth-cen­tu­ry re­con­struc­tion, the roofs of the mid­dle cas­tle were dec­o­rat­ed with Re­nais­sance at­tics, and a watch­tow­er with a porch was erect­ed in its north­west­ern part. The cas­tle or­chard, so far used as an eco­nom­ic re­source of the cas­tle kitchen, now be­came an or­na­men­tal gar­den.

GROUND FLOOR PLAN OF THE CASTLE BY JOSEPH FLECKHAMMER, 1780

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he end of the 16th cen­tu­ry and the fol­low­ing great eco­nom­ic cri­sis, in­ten­si­fied by epi­demics and armed con­flicts last­ing for decades, start­ed the col­lapse of the Wie­licz­ka cas­tle. As a re­sult of an­oth­er fire, the Roy­al Cham­ber was de­mol­ished be­fore 1620 and the main rep­re­sen­ta­tive room be­came the Grodz­ka Cham­ber. Cracks in the cas­tle walls caused by col­laps­ing mine work­ings and vi­bra­tions from heavy salt wag­ons pass­ing near­by were al­so not­ed. The oc­cu­pa­tion of the town by the Swedish and Tran­syl­va­ni­an armies in the mid­dle of the 17th cen­tu­ry led to fur­ther degra­da­tion of the salt­mas­ter's seat, which was robbed of its valu­able fur­nish­ings and dev­as­tat­ed. In years 1670-85 the mid­dle cas­tle (which was in dan­ger of col­lapse) was re­built, as a re­sult of which the Grodz­ka Cham­ber has been di­vid­ed in­to four small­er rooms. The west­ern wing of the north­ern cas­tle was al­so ren­o­vat­ed. Ma­ria Ka­zi­mie­ra So­bie­ska (d. 1716), queen of Poland, lived up­stairs there when she stayed in Wie­licz­ka for a short time in 1685.

NORTH ELEVATION OF THE CASTLE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE XIXTH CENTURY, M. A. SEYKOTT

VIEW OF THE TOWN AND THE CASTLE IN DRAWING BY KARL RYBIčKA, 1843

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he North­ern War (1700-21) left its mark on Wielicz­ka cas­tle, which de­clined again. Its in­te­ri­ors have been re­stored in the 1720s and 1730s, and the wood­work, stoves and floors have been re­placed. One of the rooms of the mid­dle cas­tle was as­signed for the mag­is­trate's court, and sev­er­al oth­er rooms housed se­nior of­fi­cials. Rooms for of­fi­cials were al­so lo­cat­ed on the sec­ond floor of the north­ern cas­tle, the ground floor of which was oc­cu­pied by a guard­house, cashier's of­fice, kitchen and store­rooms. In lat­er years it housed al­so a laun­dry rooms with man­gle, chan­cellery and chancery. The wall con­nect­ing the tow­er with north­ern cas­tle was mod­i­fied: a new wall equipped with loop­holes re­placed the old­er, par­tial­ly wood­en struc­ture. While the walls and the tow­er were be­ing re­paired, a sec­ond prison, called Głęb­szy (the Deep­er One), was ar­ranged un­der the tow­er for those con­vict­ed of se­ri­ous crimes.

IN FRONT OF THE CASTLE, 1912

SCENE WITH THE CASTLE IN THE BACKGROUND, 1930S

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f­ter an­nex­a­tion of Małopol­ska by Aus­tria (1772), the cas­tle was adapt­ed for the needs of ad­min­is­tra­tion of the mine and the apart­ments of its gov­er­nor, which con­sist­ed of sev­en liv­ing rooms, two rooms for ser­vants as well as a hall­way, kitchen and pantry. Around 1780, the wood­en hall sus­pend­ed be­tween the middle and north­ern cas­tles was dis­man­tled, and a lit­tle lat­er new stair­cas­es were built, and the roofs mod­i­fied. In the fol­low­ing years the pur­pose of in­di­vid­u­al rooms was changed de­pend­ing on cur­rent needs, for ex­am­ple, for some time the north­ern cas­tle was used by the army and po­lice, and the for­mer car­pen­ter's shop was oc­cu­pied by a jail. In 1834-36 the wood­en out­build­ings sep­a­rat­ing the cas­tle from the gar­den were re­placed with a one-storey clas­si­cal pavil­ion, known as the south­ern cas­tle, with a care­tak­er's cham­ber, coach house and fire sta­tion. The cas­tle com­plex sur­vived in good con­di­tion un­til Jan­uary 1945, when the So­vi­et air force de­stroyed the mid­dle cas­tle. The build­ings in the west­ern part of the court­yard were al­so heav­i­ly dam­aged. Af­ter the war the en­tire area fell in­to ru­ins and on­ly the part of it that sur­vived the war func­tioned for some time as a med­i­cal clin­ic and a kinder­garten. In 1976, restora­tion of the mon­u­ment be­gan and was ful­ly com­plet­ed twen­ty years lat­er.

THE RUINED CASTLE AFTER WORLD WAR 2

NEGLECTED BUILDING ON A PHOTOGRAPH FROM THE 1970S

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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he cas­tle con­sists of: Dom Pośród Żupy (cen­tral cas­tle), Dom Żup­ny (north­ern cas­tle), the south­ern cas­tle, relics of the Roy­al Kitchen, a Goth­ic tow­er and a de­fen­sive wall. Dom Po­śród Żu­py is the old­est part of the com­plex as its east­ern section hides the walls of the thir­teenth-cen­tu­ry res­i­den­tial tow­er. This is the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive part of the cas­tle; here the Grodz­ka Cham­ber was lo­cat­ed, as well as the rich­ly fur­nished Roy­al Cham­ber with por­traits of kings on the walls and their coats of arms paint­ed on the win­dow panes.

DOM ŻUPNY (ON THE LEFT) AND DOM POŚRÓD ŻUPY, FOUNDATIONS OF THE ROYAL KITCHEN IN THE FOREGROUND

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long and nar­row court­yard sep­a­rates Dom Pośród Żupy from Dom Żup­ny, which was built of stone and brick in the 15th cen­tu­ry, on an L-shaped plan with the use of old­er build­ings and an oval de­fen­sive wall. This one-storey build­ing was placed on a steep slope, which caused the base­ments in the north­ern and west­ern parts to be above the ground. Over the cen­turies it had var­i­ous func­tions: it housed a tal­low (as a light source) ware­house, a store­house for min­ing tools, a laun­dry, a kitchen, a mine cash of­fice, a guard­house, al­so apart­ments for mine of­fi­cials, a chapel and even a prison. In the past, the cen­tral and north­ern cas­tles were con­nect­ed at the lev­el of the first floor by a wood­en hall used for com­mu­ni­ca­tion. Af­ter it was de­mol­ished in 1780, the on­ly link be­tween two main build­ings of the cas­tle com­plex is a nar­row porch added to the first floor of the south­ern el­e­va­tion.

GOTHIC TOWER IN THE WESTERN PART OF THE CASTLE

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n the west­ern part of the cas­tle the Roy­al Kitchen stood, built of stone on a rect­an­gu­lar plan. It served meals free of charge to ad­min­is­tra­tion em­ploy­ees, min­ers and carters com­ing to col­lect salt. The build­ing stopped per­form­ing its orig­i­nal func­tion in the 16th cen­tu­ry and was de­mol­ished at the end of the 17th cen­tu­ry. To­day we do not know much about its ap­pear­ance and lay­out ex­cept that in its cen­tral part there was an oven, of which the foun­da­tions have sur­vived. The kitchen was sit­u­at­ed next to a Goth­ic tow­er, which in the past formed a part of the town's for­ti­fi­ca­tion, con­sist­ing of stone walls, nine­teen tow­ers and two gates: Kra­kow­ska in the north and Kło­sow­ska in the south. To­day, this ir­reg­u­lar quadri­lat­er­al build­ing, built of bro­ken stone, re­mains the on­ly sur­viv­ing el­e­ment of these for­ti­fi­ca­tions.

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n the south­ern part of the for­mer court­yard stands the so-called south­ern cas­tle, a clas­si­cist build­ing erect­ed in the 1830s on the site of wood­en out­build­ings. Its in­te­ri­ors were used as a chan­cellery, a car­riage house and a ware­house for fire-fight­ing equip­ment and, in more re­cent times, as a kinder­garten. On the south el­e­va­tion of the build­ing, a stone por­tal has been pre­served in place of the his­toric pas­sage to the cas­tle gar­den. This gar­den was es­tab­lished in the 1560s to sep­a­rate the cas­tle from the burgher hous­es, which was sup­posed to pro­tect it from fire.

PLAN OF WIELICZKA CASTLE, BLACK COLOR MARKS THE WALLS OF THE XIII-CENTURY CASTLE:
1. DOM POŚRÓD ŻUPY (MIDDLE CASTLE), 2. DOM ŻUPNY (NORTHERN CASTLE), 3. ENTRANCE GATE,
4. ROYAL KITCHEN, 5. GOTHIC TOWER, 6. CURTAIN WALL, 7. SOUTHERN CASTLE (NOT SHOWN ON THE PLAN)

HISTORY OF THE CASTLE

DESCRIPTION OF THE CASTLE

SIGHTSEEING

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owa­days, this care­ful­ly ren­o­vat­ed cas­tle hous­es a mu­se­um. Since 2013, to­geth­er with Wie­licz­ka mine, it be­longs to the pres­ti­gious UNESCO World Her­itage List, which em­pha­sizes the great his­tor­i­cal val­ue of this place and is a trib­ute to the ef­fort that was put in­to its restora­tion. In the in­te­ri­or of Dom Po­śród Żu­py, his­tor­i­cal ex­hi­bi­tions were or­gan­ised, which are strict­ly con­nect­ed with the past of this place as the seat of the salt­mas­ters, as well as the pro­duc­tion of salt and its use in ev­ery­day life. In the four­teenth-cen­tu­ry cas­tle cel­lars there is an ar­chae­o­log­i­cal ex­hi­bi­tion. One of its the­mat­ic mo­tifs are ar­chi­tec­tural de­tails of the me­dieval strong­hold, can­non balls found dur­ing ar­chae­o­log­i­cal re­search, and a mod­el of the cas­tle show­ing its old­est, still tow­er-like form.

AN ARCHAEOLOGICAL EXHIBITION

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he ground floor of the build­ing is oc­cu­pied by the Goth­ic Hall, whose vault, like those in church­es, is based on one cen­tral pil­lar. This room, the most rep­re­sen­ta­tive in the whole cas­tle, is dec­o­rat­ed with im­ages of salt­mas­ters, ad­min­is­tra­tors and high salaried of­fi­cials, among oth­ers: Se­ba­stian Lu­bo­mir­ski, Jan Got­fryd Bor­lach and Jó­zef Rus­seg­ger.

IN THE GOTHIC HALL

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ext to the Goth­ic Hall there is the Re­nais­sance cham­ber with a small ex­hi­bi­tion doc­u­ment­ing the be­gin­nings and his­to­ry of Wie­licz­ka. It con­tains in­for­ma­tion about the town's for­mer crafts­men's guilds and the old town ed­u­ca­tion sys­tem; there is al­so a splen­did mod­el of Wie­licz­ka made on the ba­sis of 19th cen­tu­ry plans. The top floor is oc­cu­pied by the tem­po­rary ex­hi­bi­tion room and the ex­po­si­tion with which the mu­se­um is iden­ti­fied, and of which it is most proud. It is, of course, Poland's largest col­lec­tion of salt shak­ers, salt cel­lars and spice dish­es from all o­ver the world. These tiny works of art in­clude ex­am­ples of dec­o­ra­tive craft, ce­ram­ics, glass, stones, bone and the nacre. The old­est ex­hib­it in the Wie­licz­ka col­lec­tion is a goth­ic salt cel­lar in the shape of a cup, dat­ing back to the turn of the 15th and 16th cen­turies. There is al­so a large num­ber of prod­ucts made of world-renowned Meis­sen porce­lain and com­ing from the well-known Pol­ish porce­lain fac­to­ry in Ćmie­lów.

SALT SHAKERS AND SALT CELLARS EXHIBITION

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he north­ern cas­tle now hous­es the ad­min­is­tra­tion, work­shops, stor­age rooms and an ar­chive with a car­to­graph­ic col­lec­tion of o­ver 3,000 vol­umes. This part of the cas­tle is not open to the pub­lic, but it does not mean that our tour is o­ver. It is now worth to go to the out­er court­yard, and then to the Goth­ic tow­er, whose in­te­ri­or is dec­o­rat­ed with an ex­hi­bi­tion doc­u­ment­ing the changes in its ar­chi­tec­ture and func­tion o­ver cen­turies. When we stand on the porch of the tow­er, we can look from a slight­ly dif­fer­ent per­spec­tive at the en­tire cas­tle with relics of the roy­al kitchen in the fore­ground.

INSIDE THE GOTHIC TOWER

Free en­trance to the cas­tle court­yard and the tow­er. To en­ter the mu­se­um, you need to buy a tick­et.

Pho­tog­ra­phy for non-com­mer­cial pur­pos­es is free; this in­cludes mu­se­um ex­hibits (we don't use flash).

Pets are not allowed in the castle (including the courtyard).

The cas­tle is lo­cat­ed in the cen­ter of town, so be care­ful not to fly o­ver gath­er­ings of peo­ple. Prob­a­bly the best time for this ac­tiv­i­ty is ear­ly morn­ing.

GETTING THERE

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he cas­tle is sit­u­at­ed on Zam­ko­wa Street, about 200 me­ters north of the Mar­ket Square and about 400 me­ters east of the Da­ni­ło­wi­cza Shaft, where the main en­trance to the mine is lo­cat­ed. Wie­licz­ka-Ry­nek-Ko­pal­nia train stop is on­ly 300 me­ters away from the cas­tle gate.

Most park­ing spaces are lo­cat­ed near the mine. The park­ing lots are marked with num­bers. The big­gest one, park­ing lot no. 2 (near the train stop) is the clos­est to the cas­tle.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. P. Cembrzyński: Przyczynek do studiów nad funkcją zamków w średniowiecznych miastach..., 2019
2. E. Giżycka, I. Pawłowska-Pich: Tajemnice Zamku Żupnego w Wieliczce, 2009
3. L. Kajzer, J. Salm, S. Kołodziejski: Leksykon zamków w Polsce, Arkady 2001
4. K. Ochniak-Dudek: Zamek Żupny w Wieliczce - historia i architektura
5. R. Sypek: Zamki i obiekty warowne Jury Krakowsko-Częstochowskiej

VIEW FROM THE TOWER, ON THE RIGHT WE CAN SEE THE SOUTHERN CASTLE

Castles nearby:
Kraków - Wawel Royal castle, 14 km
Niepołomice - the Royal castle from 14th-16th century, 15 km
Dobczyce - the ruin of Royal castle from 14th century, 16 km
Tyniec - fortified Benedictine abbey from 11th century, 22 km
Myślenice - gothic tower ruin from 14th century, 27 km

IT IS WORTH SEEING ALSO:

Be­ing in Wie­licz­ka you must vis­it the fa­mous salt mine. Af­ter de­scend­ing to a depth of 130 me­ters we en­ter a world of un­der­ground cor­ri­dors, salty lakes, mys­te­ri­ous ex­ca­va­tions and beau­ti­ful cham­bers with a huge War­saw Cham­ber and ex­traor­di­nary St. Kinga's Chapel. Dur­ing the walk along the 3.5 km route we can al­so learn about old min­ing tools and meth­ods of min­ing and trans­port­ing salt. We can al­so find out that the walls of the mine are in­deed salty :-)

text: 2021
photographs: 2008, 2020
© Jacek Bednarek