Czersk Castle

Czersk was the seat of the dukes of Mazovia before Warsaw was, and the castle they built here in the fourteenth century still stands as three cylindrical brick towers linked by a curtain wall on a low bluff, with a long brick bridge running to the gate over what was once the ditch. Two things ended it. The Vistula shifted its channel away from the bluff in the sixteenth century, which took the river trade with it, and the dukes had already moved their residence to Warsaw. Swedish troops burned the place in the 1650s and it was never seriously rebuilt, so what survives is a ruin that has been stabilised rather than restored - walls, towers you can climb for the view over the old riverbed, and empty ground inside where the buildings were. Below, the flat land is orchards; this stretch of Mazovia is one of the biggest apple-growing districts in Europe.

What you actually see

• Three brick towers - fourteenth-century, linked by curtain wall on the bluff.
• The approach bridge - a long brick span over the former ditch to the gate.
• An abandoned riverbed - the Vistula moved away in the sixteenth century.
• Orchards below - one of Europe's largest apple districts on the flat ground.

When to go

April to October. Two hours.

Honest expectations

It is a stabilised ruin, not a furnished castle - there are no interiors. Tower stairs are steep and close in bad weather. Opening is seasonal and shorter in winter.

Nearby

Gora Kalwaria is three kilometres away; Warsaw is north.