Pieskowa Skala Castle

Pieskowa Skala stands on a rock spur over the Pradnik valley in Ojcow National Park and is the best preserved of the Eagles' Nests, the chain of fortresses built along the Krakow-Czestochowa upland in the fourteenth century under Kazimierz Wielki. It was rebuilt in the 1540s and later for the Szafraniec family into a Renaissance residence, and its centrepiece is the arcaded courtyard - two storeys of loggia with grotesque-carved masks - which is the closest thing in Poland outside Wawel to an Italian palace courtyard of the period. The interiors are a branch of the Wawel royal collections, furnished as period rooms from the medieval through to the nineteenth century. Below the castle, standing free in the valley, is Maczuga Herkulesa, the Club of Hercules: a limestone pillar about twenty-five metres high, wider at the top than the bottom, and the most photographed rock in Poland.

History

Kazimierz the Great built the castle in the first half of the 14th century, and in 1377 King Louis of Hungary gave it to Piotr Szafraniec; the Szafraniec family received full rights to it in 1422. In 1542-1544 Niccolò Castiglione rebuilt it in Mannerist style for Stanisław Szafraniec, the arcaded courtyard was added between 1557 and 1578, and in 1640 Michał Zebrzydowski built the bastions with a baroque gate and a chapel; in 1903 the Pieskowa Skała Society bought it (Wikipedia, Pieskowa Skała).

What to look for

• An arcaded Renaissance courtyard - two storeys of loggia with carved masks.
• Period interiors - furnished rooms from the Wawel collections.
• A rock spur setting - the castle on limestone above the Pradnik valley.
• Maczuga Herkulesa - a twenty-five-metre pillar below, wider at the top.

When to go

April to October. Half a day.

Before you go

The castle has undergone long restoration campaigns and sections can be closed - check before travelling. Parking below fills at weekends. The valley road is narrow and busy in summer.

Nearby

Ojcow castle and the Lokietek cave are down the valley.

Key facts