Podziemna Trasa Turystyczna 1000-Lecia Panstwa Polskiego w Klodzku

Underground Tourist Route 1000th Anniversary of The Polish State

Useful Information

Location:	Zawiszy Czarnego 3, Kłodzko
Open:	Closed until 31-JUL-2011 for repair works! MAY to OCT daily 9-18. NOV to APR daily 10-16. [2011]
Fee:	Adults EUR 7, Children (6-16) EUR 5, Children (0-5) free. [2011]
Classification:	Cellar
Light:	Incandescent Electric Light System
Dimension:	T=7 °C
Guided tours:	D=30 min, L=600m
Photography:
Accessibility:
Bibliography:
Address:	Podziemna Trasa Turystyczna 1000-lecia Panstwa Polskiego, Zawiszy Czarnego 3, 57-300 Kłodzko, Tel: +48-74867-3048. Owner: Urzad Miasta (Klodzko Town Council), Pl. B.Chrobrego1, 57-300 Kłodzko, Tel: +48-74865-4600, Fax: +48-74867-4062. E-mail:
As far as we know this information was accurate when it was published (see years in brackets), but may have changed since then. Please check rates and details directly with the companies in question if you need more recent info.

History

13th century	first cellars built.
17th century	end of cellar construction.
1962	renovation started.
1966	underground tourist route planned.
04-DEC-1976	opened to the public.

Description

This site is simply called Podziemna Trasa Turystyczna (Underground Tourist Route), which is actually a series of cellars built between the 13th and 17th century. Kłodzko is located at the crossing of trade routes, so the merchants in the town were successful and needed a lot of storage room. As a result the cellars were built, which were ideal to store even food. Many of the cellars were beer cellars needed for the maturing of the well known Kłodzko beer, the secret of the beer was the long storage at low temperatures. During numerous extensions of the cellars, they were dug as deep as 30 m below ground and had up to three levels.

During times of war the cellars have always been used as shelter. They were once even equipped with an underground oven to bake bread and had wells for fresh water. The cellars below the town hall were used by craftsmen as workshops, they used the cellars as storage, so the cellars were connected underground to allow easy access. So the system of formerly private and isolated cellars became connected.

The cellars were abandoned, and finally they started to collapse. The threat to the historic buildings of the town became evident in the 1950s, when the first buildings got cracks because of subsidence. Mining specialists from Cracow and Wałbrzych, and Varsovian speleologists, explored the cellars and the whole system was renovated. Some buildings had to be demolished, but most of the historic buildings of the town could be saved. After several years of work, the creation of a tourist section of the cellars was started. It was named 1000 lecia Panstwa Polskiego (1000th Anniversary of The Polish State), as it was planned in 1966. Poland's first historically documented ruler, Mieszko I, was baptised in 966, and so in 1966 there were celebrations to commemorate this.

In order to make the underground tour more interesting, not only the cellars and their fittings are shown. There are various exhibitions like the halberd collection, the torture machines, the human skeleton, and the diorama of a headsman decapitating a convict. The tour starts at Zawiszy Czarnego street and ends at Grodzisko street below the fortress.