Zamek Książ- Come storm the castle!

Zamek Książ .
History, mystery, romance, great wealth, skill and pillaging... a castle sets the scene for all sorts of our imaginings, on a grand scale.
The majestic Zamek Książ perfoms these tasks beautifully.

Książ , as seen above, is a massive place, built in three different eras over 700 years  on a hill top in Lower Silesia in what is now Poland. For a thousand years or more, the area was snatched up and claimed by different powers at a dizzying pace.  Bohemian, Piast, Czech, Hungarian, Silesian Prussian, Nazi, Soviet, who knows, maybe some Viking in there...the history of this area seems to be a tangle of ownership.
Earliest record show the hilltop was a strategic holding and fortification that protected trade routes. Around 1288 the fortification was replaced by a castle fortress. This was done by Bolko The Strict. Oh, the history has some rich, rich names.  I think that oldest part is the part with the three great arches and stone topped with the Tudor-style beam framework. For the next 250 years the ownership bounced around until the early 1500's when it came into the ownership of the Hochberg family. They owned it until the 20th century. During that period they ended up with a bunch of different titles, including "Prince" and "Archduke" and a good bit of wealth. By the 18th century, the Hochbergs found the castle to be too small and wanted a more modern representation of their wealth. So they, shall we say, "added- on." They made the moat and defense areas into terraced formal gardens, put on massive baroque  living space- there are some 480 rooms now- and added the whole free-standing gate, baths, library structure. And, The Stud. I can't wait to show you The Stud!
Eventually, they lost most of the fortune, and the Nazis were dancing around, Hitler wanted it (greed-driven crazy bird), so took it and it became a Nazi sleep-away camp until the Soviets bashed them up and moved in, determined to scrape off any beauty as you would attack a scratch-and-sniff.
In the last 50 years the Soviets got tossed out. They left the castle in rough shape, and thus Książ has been under repair (as with the rest of Poland) since.
As for the Mystery, there is mystery everywhere as centuries of humans made decisions about the place. It oozes mystery.
 Like, who is this woman?

 I've no idea. I just didn't have the patience to wait for her to get out of the shot. But there are real mysteries here. Such as;

Is this Hagrid's Hut?

 They called it the Gunpowder Tower, but since that is a translation into English from Polish, I'm retaining hope.

 This is the "Black Courtyard". Mystery? Why is it called that? I never figured it out. Because it is hidden in the center of the castle and it's dark?

 There is a functional well in the Black Courtyard. I guess it is helpful to have water on a hill top. From the castle you can hear a waterfall, so there is water nearby, but a hike for sure. Who used this well? The wall on the left of the photo is covered in crests. Each one is a crest of an owner of Książ.

 Did Rapunzel ever let down her hair from that window? Did anyone ever recite a sonnet from the rounded stone balcony?

This is where many ideas come together. The older fortress-type castle on the right, the newer Renaissance Revival addition on the left. With this crevasse between the two. Does this not cause drainage problems? Where does the water go?

 How many faces looked out this glass to see who was coming through the gates and to the entrance of the castle?

 Did this statue of a baby ever have a head? Where is it now?

Was the wall around the castle, with the guard stands and arrow windows ever useful? Who spent hours walking around this wall, peering out into the wood?

Here, Huz is touching a large exposed portion of the mountain on which the castle is built. The mystery is why were the Polish tourists kissing the rock? Ew. It is hand worn from thousands of touchers, or, I suppose kissers? And when you put your hand to it (or presumably, your lips) a little box above makes a harp sound and flashes some colored lights.

But the biggest mystery, perhaps is the mystery of the Project Riese.
In 1941, the Nazis confiscated the castle from the Hochbergs. Then, because the Nazis were, well, Nazis, they started a maniacal (another maniacal) project. The so called "Riese", which, in German, means "Giant".
Riese is a sprawling series of tunnels under the castle, extending into the Góry Sowie mountain range. Naturally, the work was done with slave labor, and due to it's massive scale, drained Nazi resources. As Albert Speer later wrote in his memoirs, the project consumed more concrete than the entire population used for air raid shelters. And, here is the mystery...
No one knows what purpose the tunnels were to serve. They were never completed, and there is no record as to why they built miles of tunnels.

The tour of the castle is a bit sad. There are some photos and renderings from the history of the place, which means there is some record of what was once there, but much of the splendour is gone, and then patched up. The grandest room in the house, just at the front of the castle, is the Maximilian Room.  The soaring ballroom is the jewel of the center of the grand addition added by Maximilian Ernst Conrad Hochberg in the early 1700's. It seems to have mostly survived the Nazi and Soviet occupations.

The friezes that used to be in the oval above the fireplaces are gone, but the rest of the marble and ormolu remain. Unlike the other rooms, in which most of the decoration was removed.

Much of the castle is still closed and under repair. But, you do wend your way around the place, following a series of photographs, mostly centered around Princess Daisy. She is the romanticized young English wife who married John Henry Hochberg at the age of 18. There are pictures of Daisy, John Henry and their three sons. Daisy with her sons in the snow, wearing an ermine wrap. Daisy with a son, posing on the terraces. On what used to be a part of the estate is the Palm House, a Victorian greenhouse built by John Henry for his seemingly unhappy English wife. But, the story presented at Książ is not complete! There are teasing bits of facts that are left unexplained. Daisy was beautiful, English, and unhappy. The couple were divorced, and as I read about the time (yes, I had to find a biography of Daisy) is seems divorce was amazingly commonplace at the time! And then the story becomes the stuff of "Days of Our Lives", or another soap opera, missing only a return from the dead and a multiple personality disorder.
Here is what I gathered. Daisy and JHH divorce. JHH remarries a young Italian Countess. Italian Countess falls in love with the youngest son of JHH and Daisy. JHH and Italian Countess divorce, and she marries youngest son, Bolko. They have two children. But Bolko's date of demise is two years after their marriage, when Bolko was in his mid-twenties. See how I am intrigued?
And, I can't tune in tomorrow, but must read what I can find.
The history told in the tour centers mostly on the early days of Daisy. But that would be like touring Buckingham Palace and only hearing about Diana.
I did find one little tidbit that needs further exploration. On the side of a painting was a long Polish paragraph that had been translated into English. And, boy, do I want to find out more about these folks. Sadly, my Polish may have to improve greatly in order to read the history of Lower Silesia.

IN about 700-ish, the area was ruled by the first Bohemian Dynasty, begun by Premysl the Plowman. His wife, Princess Libula founded Prague. Their grandson, or maybe great grandson, Vratislav I, founded Wrocław( so, here is where I first start questioning translation, as Wrocław was supposedly founded in 1000 ad., and that is 300 years of life from The Plowman to Vratislav I...so...). Anyway, Vratislav I had two sons- and we can hope the nicknames were hindsight and not a childhood designation- Vaclav I The Saint and Boleslaus I The Cruel. Now, there was a dust-up between Boleslaus I The Cruel, and Henry I The Fowler, and that, somehow, led to Boleslaus offing his brother, Vaclav. Now, Boleslaus had a daughter, Dobrava, and he married her to a Polish Prince and they had a son, Boleslaus The Brave, who became the first king of Poland. They also had a daughter, Świętosława, who had some connection to Queen Sigrid The Haughty and Gunhild of Welden who may have been a consort, and a wife of King Sweyn The Forkbeard and mother of Cnut The Great.

If you have read Game of Thrones, it doesn't seem so far fetched now. There are probably dragons in this story too.

 Huz below the castle, on one of the terrace gardens.

 The terraces wind around one side of the castle, and then to the back of the massive structure.

This is the back of the Zamek. Imposing and impressive!

Huz, looking back at the castle, contemplating being the Lord. On the plus side, there isn't much grass to mow on the top of the mountain. On the negative side, cleaning the gutters looks tough.