Metravel city quest
City Kruszwica: free walking route “quest: the king who was eaten by mice” along the sights. 7 points. Approximately 2 h 10 min. Quests and legends - straight
Every Polish schoolchild knows this story. Once there was a wicked Prince Popiel. His German wife whispered that he should get rid of his uncles, so he pretended to be dying, summoned his relatives to a farewell feast and passed round a golden cup of poisoned wine. He forbade anyone to bury the victims, and hordes of mice crawled out of their unburied bodies. They followed Popiel wherever he fled, finally catching him in a tower on an island in Lake Gopło. As chronicler Jan Długosz relishes telling us, not even a trace of his bones remained.
Meanwhile, in the settlement below the stronghold lived a humble wheelwright, Piast, with his wife Rzepicha. On the day of their son's ritual first haircut, two mysterious travellers came to their gate: the very men Popiel had driven from his court. Piast seated them at his table, and the food miraculously doubled. Piast's son Siemowit became prince, and the Piast dynasty ruled Poland for four hundred years. Here beside Gopło, one line ended and another began, five hundred years before the tower shown today as ‘Popiel's Tower’ was built. More about that anachronism when we get there.
You will walk right through Kruszwica: from its thousand-year-old Romanesque collegiate church, across the bridge over waters that received the poisoned uncles, to the Old Market, where lumps of salt called ‘krusze’ once passed as money. Then onto the peninsula, into the castle cellars where ‘Popiel feasts’, and up Mouse Tower for a view of the ‘sea of the Poles’.
The route is short and flat, around three kilometres. The tower opens from April to the end of November, 9:00–18:00 (ticket about 16 złoty, ticket office at its foot). We start at the collegiate church on the eastern shore.
The route points in order — what these places are and why they are interesting. Tasks and answers stay inside the quest.
We begin with the oldest building in Kruszwica, and one of Poland's oldest churches. Work on the Romanesque basilica began around 1120, when Kruszwica was a city of bishops.
From the collegiate church head south along the shore to Kościuszko Bridge, spanning the narrow stretch of Gopło. The lake narrows here, letting the River Noteć pass through it, and these waters play the darkest part in the legend.
Turn right off the bridge into town. A couple of hundred metres on, the Old Market opens up, lined with XIX-century buildings.
From the Market walk towards the lake and onto the Rzępowski Peninsula, a narrow tongue of land stretching into Gopło. At its entrance is the Piast Trail avenue; beyond it are a moat and the bridge leading into the former castle.
Here it is, the most famous tower in Polish legends: Mouse Tower, where hordes of mice caught Popiel and his wife. In the XV century, chronicler Długosz named the place explicitly: Kruszwica, ‘where Mouse Tower stands’.
Go down from the tower to the landing on the peninsula's western shore. In season the white pleasure boat ‘Rusałka’ leaves from here for forty-five minutes on the ‘sea of the Poles’ (seasonal sailings approximately 9:30–17:00, ticket about 35 złoty).
If you have energy left, walk another half-kilometre south towards the peninsula's end. Earthworks of an early medieval stronghold are visible in the grass.
This route is part of Metravel city quests. Below are the other quests in this city and cities with quests nearby.