Kwidzyn Castle

Kwidzyn was the seat of the Pomesanian chapter under the Teutonic Order, and the castle joined to the cathedral is best known for a single feature: the gdanisko, a latrine tower set about fifty-five metres away from the main building and connected to it by a covered gallery carried on five tall brick arches over the ground, so that the waste fell into the river channel below and the tower could also serve as a last redoubt. It is the largest surviving structure of its type. A second tower over a well stands on similar arches. The cathedral alongside is fourteenth-century brick, with a mosaic on the east gable and the tombs of three grand masters in the crypt below. Dorothea of Montau, a fourteenth-century mystic, had herself walled into a cell against the cathedral wall in 1393 and died there; the cell is marked.

The main sights

• The gdanisko - a latrine tower fifty-five metres out on five brick arches.
• A well tower - a second gallery on arches, for water.
• Grand masters' tombs - three of them in the cathedral crypt.
• Dorothea's cell - where a mystic had herself walled in during 1393.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Good to know

Only two wings of the castle survive - the rest was dismantled in the eighteenth century, before restoration began in 1854. The museum, a branch of the Malbork castle museum, is modest. The town has little else of interest.

Nearby

Malbork is thirty-five kilometres north; Gniew is west across the Vistula.

Key facts