What meant long distance journeys if don’t know places near you. I believe that visit interesting places in my area is more important than visiting places on other side of globe. I came back to my hometown to meet my friend and relatives, but last Sunday I used beautiful afternoon to visit Grunwald’ Fields, just before it would be full of people on medieval battle reconstruction. Every year on 15th July, there is reconstruction of Polish-Lithuanian army, lead by King Władysław II Jagiełło and Grand Duke Vytautas, victory over the Teutonic Knights lead by Great Master Ulrich von Jungingen in 1410.
This year reconstruction will be run on Saturday at 1400, so if you would be in Northern Poland and you have free time it worth to see, battle is very spectacular, many reconstruction group are coming not only from Poland but from whole Europe.
In front of the monuments hill there is a parking where you could park during normal visit, but on Saturday I know that there will other parking created a few hundred meters away due to number of visitors.
From the parking lot, a wide road leads to the Grunwald monuments and museum, at the beginning we are immediately greeted with souvenir stalls, you can buy a sword or knight suit to better feel the climate of the fight. We have forgiven this element. On the right hand side there are elements of former Grunwald monument from Cracow, destroyed by Germans on beginning of September 1939
"granite blades saved from the German invaders destroyed in September 1939 Grunwald monument in Cracow. The monument on the 500th anniversary of the battle funded by Ignacy Paderewski wore traces of Antoni Wiwulski's chisel. Boulders donated by the Krakow authorities to the battlefield of Grunwald merged in 1983 give testimony to the unexpired memory of generations about Grunwald."
Heading further to the hill along the way, we pass two stones, which commemorate the military ceremonies in the Grunwald fields, the first on the right (unfortunately no picture) in memory of naming the now defunct 15th Mechanized Division, on July 15, 1994, the division received the name distinguishing "Warmia and Mazury", the name of the patron of "King Władysław II Jagiełło". The second stone is on the left almost at the foot of the hill.
"in this place, in memory of the posterior soldiers 1 WDZ im. T. Kościuszko swore an oath to loyalty to the homeland on the 30th anniversary of the oath in Sielce and on the 563th anniversary of the Grunwald battle. Grunwald July 14, 1973."
On the same stone, on the other side, there is another plaque that proclaims "On the 568th anniversary of the historical battle in Grunwald fields, on the 35th anniversary of the establishment of the Polish People's Army, soldiers of the 1st WDZ, named after T. Kościuszko, swore a solemn military oath. Grunwald July 16, 1978 "
On the hill there is a granite obelisk and eleven 30-meter masts symbolizing the banners of Polish and Lithuanian-Ruthenian banners.
Further, the path leads to a museum building integrated into the terrain, on the "roof", which has a granite model showing the location of individual troops and the location of their camps before the battle.
THE TATRAS CAMP
THE LITHUANIAN RUSSIAN CAMP
Visiting Museum of the Battle of Grunwald we have forgiven, for those interested the current admission price is 11 PLN, there are banners and armor, both Polish and Teutonic. We went from the museum to the emerging encampments of knight brothers and reconstruction groups who have already been operating on the Grunwald fields for a few days.
Heading towards the ruin of the post-battle chapel along the way, we passed a stone commemorating the place of death of the Grand Master of the Teutonic Order - Urlich von Jungingen.
The ruins of the post-battle chapel are about 700 meters away from the museum, so going this way, from time to time, we looked again towards the hill with monuments, which must be said to be very impressive.
Finally, we came to the ruins of a post-battle chapel built by religious knights to celebrate brothers killed in the battle, the whole history of this chapel is presented in the historical outline below. (sorry but only in Polish)
At the end, there is next to ruins chapel stone called Jagiełło's
"the stone called for centuries Jagiełłowym by the Prussian decision of the Prussian authorities was erected in 1901 on the rubble of the clergyman chapel to commemorate the death of Grand Master Urlich von Jungingen. In 1980, during the uncovering of the remains of the walls of the chapel, the stone was moved to its current location."
I hope you did not like my tour of the Grunwald Fields, for obvious reasons I gave up the presentation of the course Battle of Grunwald.
Interested in staging the battle, I invite you to read the program of events from the Grunwald Commune Office (once again sorry that it is only in Polish). If you stay nearby, I think it is worth going and visit this place.