I work in the world’s largest castle where legend tells of a secret passage connecting two cities – and there are rooms where guard dogs are ‘too scared to enter’

Secret passages, rooms that German Shepherd security dogs are too scared to enter and mysterious doors 10 feet high.

Welcome to Malbork Castle in Poland, the world’s largest – and meet your guide, Reddit user ‘ArdArt’, who works at the blockbuster Gothic giant as an exhibition supervisor and gave a Q&A about life in the castle at Reddit’s ‘AMA’ [Ask Me Anything] forum.

Malbork Castle is spread over 52 hectares (2.27 million square feet) on the eastern bank of the Nogat River in Malbork, approximately 40 kilometers south of the coast.

The breathtaking medieval Leviathan – a UNESCO World Heritage Site – took 132 years to build, contains 30 million bricks and is approximately double the size of Buckingham Palace and four times larger than Windsor Castle.

It may come as no surprise that the regulator admitted that ‘there are a lot of them [rooms] that I have not seen’ and ‘doubt I ever will’ among the ‘nooks and crannies’ of the castle.

He revealed that he once found five little kittens, “staring at me almost without blinking, because they were probably seeing a human for the first time in their lives.”

They later added, “There are only a few doors that are always locked and I have no idea what’s on the other side.”

When it comes to choosing their favorite room, the supervisor said they don’t have one.

“But if I were to choose a place where I would spend many hours, I would choose the moat because it surrounds the castle so you can see it from every angle,” they add. ‘Today there is no water in the canal and you can walk around freely.’

When asked if they have any ghost stories from their time working in the old fortress, the supervisor recalled rumors that the guards’ German shepherds are “afraid to enter some areas when they check the castle at night.”

There are also no-go areas for tourists.

They continued. ‘There is an interesting passage above the main gate that is off limits.

“The door to that passageway is always open, but the doors are about 2 to 3 meters above the ground and would require some sort of ladder to get up there.”

And legend has it that there is a hidden passage connecting the castle to two towns 20km away, the supervisor said.

‘I have no opinion of my own on its existence,” they noted. “I heard some people say it’s just a legend and some people said they saw the collapsed part in the forest.”

“What exactly are you doing there?” was another question, asked by a fellow Redditor.

The worker shared his main responsibilities while working at the castle, from escorting visitors into the courtyard to guarding the watchtower and looking after the chapter house – for up to eight hours at a time.

They said, “Number one, I stand in the courtyard, near the main entrance, for seven hours, making sure people don’t smoke, children are supervised, and people leave the museum through the exit, not the entrance. I also answer questions and sometimes help with audio guides.

‘Number two: I stand on the watchtower for eight hours, making sure people don’t lean too much and don’t fall.

“Number three: I stand in the chapter house for eight hours and make sure people behave when it comes to the exhibition. I also prevent tourists from going up the narrow stairs to the tower from that room, because the stairs are one-way.’

User ‘nited_contrarians’ asked if the stairs were one-way in the Middle Ages.

In response, the regulator explained why this was not necessary hundreds of years ago.

“In the Middle Ages, ten people did not go up and down the tower every minute,” they wrote. ‘People were also about 160 to 165 cm tall at best. They carried no weapons or armor on a daily basis.”

Another user asked how the castle used to be heated, to which the overseer replied: ‘There was a huge room that was occasionally filled with red-hot stones.

‘The room was connected by vents to the main rooms in the castle, so they had underfloor heating. Now the castle is heated with electricity.’

When asked by ‘reddititty69’ how many armed men would be needed to defend the castle against an attack in the Middle Ages, the supervisor estimated ‘less than a hundred’.

The worker said the castle was “never captured militarily, only sold” and emphasized the advantages of its location, nestled between a river and wetlands.

“In addition, it is surrounded by a moat, so the enemy is forced to enter through the main gate,” they added.

‘To get to the gate, the enemy has to go through the drawbridge. The gate is actually a series of five gates, each with systems that prevent enemies from entering.”

These include ‘special rooms for guards with crossbows’ and ‘small doors that force to show the passing person their neck even if they are wearing full armor,” they added.

When asked about their favorite fact about the castle, the supervisor revealed that the Gdanisko toilet tower is named after the nearby city of Gdansk.

“If I were a citizen of that city, I would not be proud,” they added.

And ‘the weirdest thing?’ asked user ‘inthebenefitofmrkite’.

It’s the “surprising” amount of cables running through the walls and ceilings, the regulator said.

“It is a medieval castle after all and I thought it was strange that people would just decide to drill holes in a monument,” she added.