Ogrodzieniec Castle and the Eagles' Nests

The castle at Podzamcze was rebuilt in the sixteenth century for the Boner family, a wealthy merchant house, and they built it into the limestone crags rather than on top of them, so walls and rock run into each other and it is not always clear where one stops. It stands on the highest ground of the Krakow-Czestochowa upland, a ridge of pale outcrops and juniper that carries the Trail of the Eagles' Nests, a marked route linking roughly two dozen castles and ruins between the two cities. Ogrodzieniec is the largest of them. Walkways and stairs lead through the shells of the courtyards and up onto the walls.

What to look for

• The rock and wall - masonry built straight onto and between limestone outcrops.
• The courtyards - roofless halls and cellars linked by timber walkways and stairs.
• The upland view - the ridge, the villages and the juniper slopes from the top of the walls.
• The trail - the marked Eagles' Nests route running north and south past the gate.

When to go

April to October; the walkways can be shut in ice and high wind. Summer weekends and school holidays bring tournaments, actors in costume and long queues at the ticket hut, so a weekday morning is better. Evening torchlit tours run in the warm months and are the best time for photographs.

Before you go

It is a ruin, so there is nothing furnished to see and the interpretation is thin. The site is heavily commercialised at the entrance, with stalls, a haunted-house attraction and a car park charge on top of the ticket. Stone stairs are uneven and slippery when wet, and there is little shelter or shade anywhere inside the walls.

Nearby

Other castles on the Eagles' Nests trail, including Mirow and Bobolice, are a short drive north.