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Despite its dilapidated state the Krzyztopor castle , near the village of Ujazd, 15km southwest of Opatow on the road to Staszow, is one of the most spectacular ruins in Poland (buses from Opatow cover the route). Nothing in the surrounding landscape prepares you for the mammoth building that suddenly rears up over the skyline. Even then, it's not until you actually enter the castle compound (Tues-Sun 10am-4pm, often longer during summer months) that you really begin to get a handle on the scale of the place, a magnificent ruin still bearing many hallmarks of the considerable architectural ingenuity that went into designing and constructing the complex. The history of the castle is a textbook case of grand aristocratic folly. Built at enormous expense for Krzysztof Ossolinski, the governor of Sandomierz province, by Italian architect Lorenzo Muretto, and completed in 1644, only a year before Ossolinski's death, the castle was thoroughly ransacked by the Swedes only a decade later, a blow from which it never really recovered, despite being inhabited by the Ossolinski family up until the 1770s. Plans to resurrect the castle have come and gone over time, the latest initiative being a somewhat uncertain bid to revive the place as a tourist attraction. The basic layout of the castle comprises a star-shaped set of fortifications surrounding a large inner courtyard, and within this, a smaller elliptical inner area. The original architectural conception mimicked the calendar at every level: thus there were four towers, representing the seasons, twelve main walls for the months, 52 rooms for the weeks, 365 windows for the days, and even an additional window for leap years, kept bricked up when out of sync with the calendar. Ossolinski's passion for horses was accommodated by the network of stables, some 370 in all, built underneath the castle, each equipped with its own mirror and marble manger. While remnants of the stables survive, the same can't be said for the fabled dining hall in the octagonal entrance tower, originally dominated by a crystal aquarium built into the ceiling. Carved on the entrance tower before the black marble portal are a large cross ( krzyz ) and an axe ( topor ), a punning reference to the castle's name, the former a symbol of the Catholic Church's Counter-Reformation, of which Ossolinski was a firm supporter, the latter part of the family coat of arms. Inside the complex, you're inevitably drawn to wandering around the rather unstable nooks and crannies of the castle. The longer you stay, the more the sheer audacity and expanse of the place hits home, in particular, the murky ruins of the cellars, which seem to go on for ever. With the high inner walls towering above as you descend into the bowels of the building, it's easy to understand why the castle has generated its fair share of legends, notably that of the lady and knight said to prowl the ramparts by moonlight, the knight being Krzysztof Baldwin, the second lord of the castle killed by a Tatar archer. Most people move straight on after visiting, though such is the magic of the place, that don't be surprised if you end up spending longer here than you planned. If you want to stay the night, the building in front of the castle entrance offers basic overnight accommodation and snacks , and there's the additional option of camping in the castle grounds.
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