Czocha Castle in Sucha
Built in the 13th century, Czocha Castle owes its current design to Ernest Gütschow. This German entrepreneur bought the building in 1909 and rebuilt according to 18th-century illustrations. Maybe its the old-fashioned stone walls, the moat and lofty towers that make the castle such a hot spot for ghosts?
Despite its picturesque location in Sucha near the Leśniańskie Lake in the Sudetes, the castle is often called ‘a ghost fortress’. And not without a reason! Each square metre of its premises is inhabited by spirits.
Visitors have a ghost of chance to meet its first inhabitants on the bridge that leads into the castle gates. These are the spirits of mourners who attended a funeral procession in 1719. The bridge collapsed underneath them and the unfortunate wretches drowned in the moat. Their moans, in turn, are drowned out by the cries coming from the well in the courtyard. It is the cry of the unfaithful wife of Joachim von Nistitz, one of the castle’s owners. As a punishment for her dastardly deeds, the husband ordered his wife be drowned in the well. Her child, a fruit of her love affair, was bricked up in the castle’s chimney. Even today, the cries of the baby can be heard in the castle walls.
The castle’s owners generally seemed to be very unlucky with women. Gütschow used to throw his unfaithful wives (apparently he had several spouses) straight into the castle’s dungeons through a secret trapdoor hidden in his bedroom. Even today, their poor souls remain imprisoned in the maze of underground corridors.
But that is not all. Another ghostly encounter awaits: the oldest ghostly resident – the White Lady. She is the apparition of Gertrude who used to live in this castle with her brother in the 15th century. To take vengeance on her sibling after a heated argument, she set the Hussites against him. All in all, they did not conquer the castle, Gertrude the Traitor, in turn, was beheaded and cursed by her sibling. This is why she cannot even enter the gates of hell – she is doomed to roam the castle for eternity.
Nowadays, this ‘Polish Hogwarts’ houses a hotel. Everyone can spend a night within its walls and see for themselves whether there is a grain of truth in the old ghost stories…