Poland Looking to Restore Lost Glory in Castles

Once upon a time, Poland was a superpower, ruling vast swathes of land throughout Europe. Today's Poles are taking action to ensure that others in Europe don't think of that time only as a fairy tale.

A concerted effort is under way in a few towns across the country to refurbish, rebuild, or modernize medieval castles so that today's visitors can see the glory that was Poland in the Middle Ages. Inside will be conference centers, museums, or hotels, catering to the curious or serious tourist.

The rebuilding has been a long time coming and wasn't helped any at all by the communist governments that ran the country in the 20th Century. In those decades, the buildings were left to rot, since being symbols of feudalism and/or capitalism, they were seen as improper symbols of power and wealth.

Today's developers are skipping that era altogether and reaching back centuries to the time of King Casimir III "the Great" — who "found Poland built of wood and left her built of stone." — and the great land barons of the 16th and 17th Centuries.

One such place is an already reconstructed castle in Bobolice. A sign out front warns of the story within, of a legend saying that the castle is haunted by the ghost of a girl killed in its dungeon. If that doesn't bring in the crowds, well …