Malbork Castle - UNESCO World Heritage Site

Hey everyone, and welcome to World Heritage Journey, where today we're at the Castle of the Teutonic Order in Malbork, northern Poland. Behind me you can see the incredible Malbork Castle. It's the largest brick structure in the entire world, and it's also the largest castle in the world by land area as well. It was built from the 1270s in various stages over about 150 years by the Teutonic Order, a group of German knights who were originally based in Acre in present-day Israel. There's a whole heap of really cool stuff here to see, and I'm really excited. Let's get moving. So the castle here is separated into three separate castles, the High, the Middle and the Low Castle, and they were constructed in that order as well. This is the Middle Castle, and we're in the courtyard at the centre of it, and it's the heart of life here at the castle. On this side you can see the Grand Master's Palace and the refectory as well, where there's some very important buildings, and down the far end is the infirmary where the sick were treated. So this room is the Great Refectory, and it's the largest room in the entire castle. This is where they would have banquets, give speeches, receive important dignitaries from abroad, and the typical medieval stuff, the ruler would give judgments here as well. Now it's got some fantastic details that I just love, like the beautiful frescoes on each wall at the ends that depict important scenes from the Teutonic Order's history, and there's a big fresco as well of the Virgin Mary. And I just love the colour on the ribbed arches as well, it's really, really beautiful. So we've moved now into the High Castle, and this is the absolute heart of the whole complex here in the courtyard. Now this is the oldest section here, and it's also the most religious too, because it's actually a monastery where the monks of the Teutonic Order would live. Now what I should mention as well is that although it's known as Malbork these days, that's actually the Polish name. The original name in German was Marienburg, or Mary's Castle, and that's because the Teutonic Order were devoted to following the Virgin Mary, and they named their castle in her honour. Her image appears everywhere here, in carvings and in paintings. It's really something to see. So this is the main church here in the High Castle, and it's the centre of monastic life. Unfortunately it was heavily damaged during World War II by artillery fire and by bombs, and in 1945 it was essentially just a pile of rubble. It was painstakingly reconstructed brick by brick, and the areas where you can see red bricks, stones and frescoes on the walls, those are largely original, while the whitewashed stone that you can see at one end, that's all a result of reconstruction. And it's hard to believe that the process only finished in 2016. Now when I said this castle was enormous, I really wasn't kidding. We've been wandering around here following the audio guide for about four hours now, and I still don't feel like we've seen everything, it's really impressive. And it's just in such great condition as well, the conservation and restoration that's been done here is really, really something. And it's a real microcosm of Polish history as well, because you just have all the different phases, like the Polish-Lithuanian Congress, you have the periods when it was owned by Prussia, when it was owned by the Russians as well, it's just really, really varied and really interesting. But that's it from me, thank you so much for watching, don't forget to like and subscribe, I'm Joel on the Road, and I'll see you at the next World Heritage Site.