Castle in the Mountains

Today I walked a trail into the Pieniny Mountains. In the summer it's usually crowded with people, but because it is not holidays for most people, and it is starting to get cold, the trails were quite empty of people.

One of the main reasons I came to the Pieniny mountains was to take another look at the old crumbling castle hidden away in the forest.



The ruins are so old that it's hard to tell where the rocks of the mountain end and the castle begins.


It's actually two castles, one right above the other (though, to be honest, it looks just like one big ruin to me). One is called Pieniny Castle and the other, which is above it, is called Castle Mountain (Góra Zamkowa).

The castle has been around since the 13th Century, which means it is over 700 years old! Princess Kinga lived there and hid from the Mongols when they attacked the countryside (in 1287). Princess Kinga had the castle built for her in the middle of the tall Pieniny mountains so that it would be hard for enemies to attack it. Many years later (in the 15th Century), the castle was abandoned. I guess the Mongols must have gone away by then and members of the royal family were tired of walking up and down the mountain whenever they wanted to go shopping (just joking).

At the moment, the main problem is to stop the castle from crumbling away completely. I just hope that when workmen fix things up that the castle doesn't lose it's olden-day looks.

The walk up the mountain and through the forest was very beautiful. Trees are losing their leaves, which are changing colour before the winter.



There are many trails to walk here, and I have walked most of them, but although they are very pretty, they are not interesting to write about, except for perhaps the most photographed tree in Poland, which is hanging off the edge of the peak called Sokolica (say "Saw-kaw-lee-tsah")...



...and another peak called "Three Crowns" or Trzy Korony in polish (do you really want to know how that's pronounced? Feeling adventurous? OK, say "T-shih Ko-ro-nih").


Beneath all these peaks, way, way down below, is a big river that flows through the mountains. You can raft down this river if you like. It's generally quite gentle, not at all like white-water rafting. And a highland man looks after you the whole way, using a pole to control the raft.



These highland men generally wear a special black hat and other traditional clothes that set them apart from other Polish people. Highlanders even speak Polish slightly differently (not that I can tell the difference!). The highlanders of southern Poland are called the Górale (Goo-rah-leh).


Tomorrow, I head back to Kraków, ready for school to start on Monday morning.



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Location:Ul. Główna, Gmina Szczawnica, Poland