Staying in a 14th Century Castle in Poland [Ep. 2]

Good morning. It's day three. I'm in Sejny in Eastern Poland. Ready to go riding today. Uh, and oh, you can actually see my bike from the window. Take a look, it is here. Oh, I'm planning to go to a fortress and the Wolf's Lair, which is one of the headquarters for, well, it's gonna be a surprise.

The guys in this hotel were extremely kind. They prepared a huge take-away breakfast for me. Alright. I gotta, I gotta see where to go because I want to take the Trans Euro trail, while going west. Beautiful location, beautiful. Absolutely stunning. They have this really good road through the countryside.

It's a pleasant ride and you can see the countryside. Having lunch! Yeah. - Where will you go after lunch? - Um, I think I'm going to go to, it's a place called, uh, something like, uh, Boyen fortress or something, and then I'm going to go to Wolf's Lair and then I'm going to stay at the, uh, at the, the castle hotel.

Right? So I just finished my lunch, which was actually meant to be breakfast even at the hotel was absolutely enormous. So it was lunch as well. Taking long road.. through many small towns over here in Eastern Poland. And I found a shrine, well, many shrines, actually, each town has a shrine like this! And it's called ribbons around it. And every single town, every single one has a shrine with ribbons. Actually don't know what the ribbons mean or why it's like that.

But, um, they do it like that. All right. I just had dinner in this fantastic castle. Over here. You can actually see my table there.

And now I'm gonna go to the local supermarket to buy some water and snacks for tomorrow. And chocolate, because life without chocolate is not life. Anyway, it's day three.

And I think it was time that I told you what I am doing and why I am in Poland. So the idea here is that I'm actually going to Italy slowly, not extremely slowly, but slowly. And I'm going to work on a project there. I can't tell much right now, but it's gonna be related with IT, obviously. That's what I do.

Alright, I checked out where I'm going and it looks like I'm going correctly. Although it's completely out of the city center. The city center was around two streets big.

So the plan is to go around Poland for around 7, 8, 9 days. I want to visit Gdansk, Warsaw, and some parts of Southern Poland. After that, I want to go to Czechia. And Austria, and then over to Italy.

But it all depends on the EU Covid certificates. That's a strange place over there. Take a look! Stones or something.

Coming back, I was inspired to check out the stones that obviously no one checks, because this is the pathway. Alright. Let's check at least one. No idea what it means, but apparently no one has cared for quite a while.

No idea. Alright, good morning. Um, I'm still in castle Reszel. I know I told you that I would visit Wolf's Lair and the Boyen Fortress yesterday, but I didn't. I was riding through smaller towns and it was a lot of fun. So I just decided to continue that way. So that I will actually do today. Uh, we are off to Wolf's Lair. Uh,

then we're go to go to the fortress. And after that, we're going to continue our ride to Gdansk. I don't think we'll reach Gdansk today, but I'm hoping to stay at a hotel somewhat like one hour away from Gdansk. Alright. I had a nice breakfast. Now it's time to go check out the castle tower. Oh, there's an exhibition here as well.

Right. The Spanish tickler. Very gruesome torture device. It's kind of a metal rake with iron spikes. The victim was hung from his hands and his flesh was ripped and torn away from the bone. That sounds quite simple, actually.

I'd say this one is, is a lot more gruesome And here's the device itself. What I don't get is why they had to build this beautiful face carving here, because if it's a torture device, I don't think anyone particularly cares about the design. Only about what's inside.

And the outside shouldn't matter that much. And the guy actually looks quite in peace instead of pain. Siege tower. Alright. Whip.

Mutilation of the hand. Alright, let's go up. Well, yeah. So there's a torture instrument exhibition as well. When I saw it, it was actually in the other part of the castle. Okay. The violin of disgrace.

Its shape reminds of the violin. Oh, right. It doesn't to me. Often small bells were attached to it, serving to attract and entertain the public. There was also a version for two people, which two convicted were directly facing each other. Right. So it's a kind of torture music instrument. Right. Impalement. This one is quite brutal.

The axe. That's old and simple. And now we gotta go up to the tower. These small steps are kind of a torture without a torture instrument. Might as well put the boots on the exhibition myself.

[inaudible] How does this work? So it's a wheel. Very popular system! Used not only for cases of whichcraft. The most common procedure was divided into two different phases, both extremely painful. The first phase consisted of fracturing the bones and joints of the accused person by means of a small wheel.

So that's that? So his bones getting fractured. That makes sense from the picture. The second phase was implemented. In case of death sentence. The convict's body, thus shattered and disjointed, was literally twined through the spokes of a large cart-wheel and then hoisted on a long pole where the victim was left till death. That doesn't sound good too. And the head crusher.

That sounds way too painful. Alright. You can go there. Let's try going there. Aha! You can see the city and the castle.

Great. So this is the city of Reszel! And that's the church over there. Uh, let's check another window.

The Noisemaker's Fife. This instrument was placed around the neck. His fingers were locked into the special vice.

It was used to punish bad musicians. Oh God. So it's for the musicians. Right! So he missed a note and he's being tortured. Excellent. The iron shoes.

Right. This one is I think the plain old thing we can see in cartoons even. Right. Cool. Let's go down.

So this is the real torture chamber. The one, the exposition in the tower was just to get you ready for this. Let me step back. It's actually a pretty cool entrance. So we came down from there. Alright. There's certainly lots of creativity in this torture industry.

Witches weigh. Alright. Priests, lawyers and physicians of the time, believed that only light women could be, witches. Aha.

As the flying broom could only lift a weight of 49.5 kilograms. Alright. Well, that's fun. I wonder how they calculated the 49.5 kilograms. Right?

So the flying room could lift 49.5. We've got to remember that. Wait, so 49.5. Alright. Okay. Torture with water. Right. Ah, swords! This is a little bit more modern.. well, not modern, but faster torture. Ah, a crossbow! What's that? A battering ram. Right.

Right. So you gotta. see it as a whole to understand. Guns over here. And who's this guy? King Arthur! That's cool. [Inaudible] oh.

Right. So let me show you. This is a prison. Right. And this apparently, well, I don't know if it's that lady over there or that lady.

Or maybe it's a witch and it's the same. But one of them is Barbara Zdunk. In the age of 30, the inhabitant of Reszel fell in love with the 22-year-old farmhand. Her beloved proved himself unfaithful and left her. In the presence of witnesses, Barbara threatened to avenge herself on this dude.

And said that he would be consumed by fire. A few days after this incident in the night from 16th to 17th September 1807, a huge fire broke out in Reszel destroying almost the whole town. Right. And of course, yeah. Then she was accused of witchcraft. That's interesting. But I still didn't get if it's that lady or is it the same lady? Well, I don't know, one of them.

Can't be the guy because apparently he died. There's Pirates of the Caribbean music, but it's not Pirates of the Caribbean. The Witches Chair. Right. And by the way,

while we're in this nice place While we're in this nice place, let me explain that this castle was actually built by the Teutonic order in the 14th century. So everything you see here is quite authentic. 14th century stuff, 14th century user experience, and design. That's how riding out of a castle in the morning looks like and feels like! There was a cannon guarding the motorcycle. Thank you. - Lucky way! - Thank you! Thank you!

2021-07-04 16:06

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