An atmospheric wood-paneled apothecary stood near the main square. A tiny bell chimed as I opened the door. High on a shelf rested black iron scales. The language barrier was a problem so I just pointed at my head and said “Boom!”, the universal expression of headache.Armed with a couple of tablets I walked back through the old town to the castle under a deep blue November sky.
Then, the mist rolled in. That deep blue sky from a paragraph ago quickly blanked and smudged. From a clear view of smoky chimneys, you suddenly couldn’t see the hand on the end of your arm. The mist lay thick and low and as the streetlights flickered on, dim yellows swirled into the mix.
Bordered by the Russian exclave of Kaliningrad to the east and buffeted on the north by the Baltic Sea, this remote Polish region of lakes and giant brick churches is quiet in the winter months. The castle dates back to the 14th century but battered by wars and requisitioned by Prussians and communists, what’s left is a medieval keep surrounded by crumbling stone walls. The remaining rooms have been converted into a lovely hotel.
Our room was an atmospheric circular guard tower. Wooden stairs twined around the inner wall and each floor had its own microclimate. Old arrow slits looked across the town’s twisting river and a squadron of mosquitoes hiked over to feast on us at night. The castle’s furniture had been carved by the Polish sculptor Boleslaw Marschall and fitted snugly against the curved tower walls. A television and downstairs toilet muted the medieval atmosphere and we bathed our six month old baby in the Jacuzzi.
In the evening, branches flitted against the skylights and threw shadows around the walls. We walked to the church. Inside a lone figure rocked back and forth in the pew, eyes closed, hands clasped. We tiptoed out, passing a woman in rags poking into litter bins with her walking stick.
The last woman hanged in Europe for witchcraft supposedly haunted the castle, but we never saw her. Instead we bolted the door and watched a scarily bad Jean-Claude Van Damme film, dubbed into Polish. We drank Hungarian Tokai and cheap Latvian sparkling wine. In the morning I was back at the apothecary, pointing once more at my head and saying “Boom!”
