✅ Fortress of Flavours – Festival of Historical and Film Cuisine, 08-10.06.23
🍪🍪🍪 What kind of cakes did Harry Potter eat? What games did medieval feasters play? What are Catalan doughnuts and what sandwiches do pirates eat 🔥 ? Once again the most beautiful castle in Lower Silesia invites you to the Festival of Historical and Film Cuisine. From 8 to 10 June, Czocha turns into the Fortress of Flavours. This year we especially welcome whole families with children, for whom we have prepared plenty of attractions. 🦄🧚😋🏰 Dragons, wizards and tasty surprises are waiting.
ATTRACTIONS FOR THE WHOLE FAMILY, ALL DAY LONG: 👨👩👧👦👨👩👦👦
⚜️⚜️ THE MAGIC GLORIETTE by the moat has been turned into a little Hogwarts, where everyone can taste the cakes of the famous wizard. Among mandrakes and potions we will bake tasty muffins, carrot cookies and other treats known from the saga of the young wizard.
⚜️⚜️ WORKSHOPS on making Ziębice dumplings
⚜️⚜️THE HUNTERS’ CAFÉ – the famous butterbeer, which until recently could only be found in the pub at the sign of the Three Broomsticks.
🔥🔥🔥 THE DRAGON GRILL – in a Game of Thrones setting, the innkeepers will prepare fiery delicacies. Shashliks, vegetarian ones included, sausages and black pudding. Stuffed potatoes are waiting as well.
⚜️⚜️ THE MILL BAKERY for children. Every child can shape and bake a delicious flatbread here.
🫑☕🍼🧉 ALADDIN’S TENT – desert coffee and tales from distant lands, rose lemonade and Berber tea, the best there is on a hot day
🔥🔥 CLAY MODELLING
🥘WORKSHOPS on making pictures from dried flowers
🙋♀️CROSSBOW SHOOTING LESSONS
💃🔥💥 THE PRL BAR – a return to the old days in all their homespun glory
🥗🫕🍲 THE FIELD CANTEEN – battlefield pea soup, tinned food, lemonades and other military specialities
✨✨THE JURASSIC HERBARIUM – from beauty herbs to remedies for your health
⚜️⚜️ THE DANISH STALL “DANSKE SPECIALITETER” – Pickled Herring Smørrebrød (the traditional Danish sandwich with butter, herring, onion and dill – a speciality of Danish cuisine) and Danish “Tivoli Caramel Sea Salt” biscuits with caramel and sea salt
AND
⚜️⚜️CISTERCIAN FLATBREADS – simple, but how tasty!
– SWEETS FROM THE EAST – baklava and other delicacies
⚜️⚜️THE MEDIEVAL MOAT – taste the dishes our ancestors feasted on
⚜️⚜️ AT THE GEORGIAN’S – badrijani, a Georgian dish of fried aubergine stuffed with walnut and garlic paste, khachapuri adjaruli and fried khinkali, the famous purse-shaped meat dumplings with fried onion, and matsoni. The exhibitors from Georgia have brought a Georgian national costume for the youngest guests to be photographed in.
⚜️⚜️CRAFT STALLS in all of our courtyards
⚜️⚜️ A TOUR OF THE CASTLE – forty secret passages and hundreds of mysteries
⚜️⚜️THE CASTLE RESTAURANT – this year French tripe and Hungarian lángos reign supreme
8 June 2023, THURSDAY
🍢🍪🍩🌟💥✨☀️🍗🍖🥩🥓🧇🦴🍜🍝
10.45 OPENING OF THE FESTIVAL
11.00 Eat with no hands – CONTEST
Who doesn’t know the famous scenes of cakes flying into someone’s face? During the Fortress of Flavours festival we will not throw our sweets at anyone, but we will hold a contest that consists in eating a cake without using your hands. The rules are simple. We will find volunteers willing to take on the challenge of eating a cream cake. Whoever eats it fastest and stays clean in the process wins. There is something to fight for: the prize is castle mead and a voucher for the Night Tour.
12.00 A meeting with the Jurassic Herbarium: “Medieval herbs in the modern medicine cabinet”
13.00 Guess the flavour – CONTEST
Close your eyes and open your mouth. Almost everyone has played that guessing game at least once. And if you never have, nothing is lost! During the Fortress of Flavours we will hold a mystery tasting. We will blindfold you, ask you to open your mouth and feed you all sorts of snacks. Careful – it may be sweet, but it may also be bitter, sour or hot. One thing is certain: we will pay you handsomely for the fun. Whoever guesses all the snacks will be able to eat their fill at any food stand at the Fortress of Flavours. What is more, there will be food for two!
Prize: pea soup for two and a voucher for the Night Tour
14.00 A meeting at the Jurassic Herbarium: “Larendogra – the beauty secret of medieval queens”
15.00 Georgian letters – games for children with the Georgian alphabet.
The Georgian alphabet will be displayed on a large board with references to Polish letters. Out of the small letters every child will be able to spell their name, glue it onto a coloured card and take it home as a keepsake.
16.30 Drinking soup through a straw – CONTEST.
From a ladle, a spoon, a teaspoon, a pot or a mug. There are many ways to drink soup. But what if you put a straw into the bowl? Can old Polish mushroom soup pass for an exotic lemonade? Certainly not – this looks like a contest in drinking soup through a straw!
The bravest will stand in the castle courtyard and fight for their food. For the fastest we have prepared a prize: beer soup from the medieval kitchen in the castle moat.
9 June 2023, FRIDAY
🍢🍪🍩🌟💥✨☀️🍗🍖🥩🥓🧇🦴🍜🍝
11.00 Eating cake with no hands – CONTEST
Who doesn’t know the famous scenes of cakes flying into someone’s face? During the Fortress of Flavours festival we will not throw our sweets at anyone, but we will hold a contest that consists in eating a cake without using your hands. The rules are simple. We will find volunteers willing to take on the challenge of eating a cream cake. Whoever eats it fastest and stays clean in the process wins. There is something to fight for: the prize is castle mead and a voucher for the Night Tour.
12.00 A meeting at the Jurassic Herbarium: “Larendogra – the beauty secret of medieval queens”
13.00 Drinking soup through a straw – CONTEST
From a ladle, a spoon, a teaspoon, a pot or a mug. There are many ways to drink soup. But what if you put a straw into the bowl? Can old Polish mushroom soup pass for an exotic lemonade? Certainly not – this looks like a contest in drinking soup through a straw!
The bravest will stand in the castle courtyard and fight for their food. For the fastest we have prepared a prize: a voucher for any dish from the PRL bar.
14.00 A meeting at the Jurassic Herbarium: “Medieval herbs in the modern medicine cabinet
15.00 Guess the flavour – CONTEST.
Close your eyes and open your mouth. Almost everyone has played that guessing game at least once. And if you never have, nothing is lost! During the Fortress of Flavours we will hold a mystery tasting. We will blindfold you, ask you to open your mouth and feed you all sorts of snacks. Careful – it may be sweet, but it may also be bitter, sour or hot. One thing is certain: we will pay you handsomely for the fun. Whoever guesses all the snacks will be able to eat quail in rose petals in the medieval kitchen down in the moat.
16.30 A language lesson for the brave – a short course in Georgian for anyone who wants one. And with the bravest we will sing a Georgian folk song together (in Georgian, of course). We will teach the tune and the words first, naturally.
10 June 2023, SATURDAY
11.00 Guess the flavour – CONTEST
Close your eyes and open your mouth. Almost everyone has played that guessing game at least once. And if you never have, nothing is lost! During the Fortress of Flavours we will hold a mystery tasting. We will blindfold you, ask you to open your mouth and feed you all sorts of snacks. Careful – it may be sweet, but it may also be bitter, sour or hot. One thing is certain: we will pay you handsomely for the fun. Whoever guesses all the snacks will be able to eat their fill at any food stand at the Fortress of Flavours. What is more, there will be food for two!
12.00 A meeting at the Jurassic Herbarium: “Larendogra – the beauty secret of medieval queens”
13.00 A quiz about Georgia – we invite the slightly older festival guests to a quiz on Georgian knowledge. For the winners, “At the Georgian’s” will prepare a superb khachapuri adjaruli!
14.00 A meeting at the Jurassic Herbarium: “Medieval herbs in the modern medicine cabinet
15.00 Eating cake with no hands – CONTEST.
Who doesn’t know the famous scenes of cakes flying into someone’s face? During the Fortress of Flavours festival we will not throw our sweets at anyone, but we will hold a contest that consists in eating a cake without using your hands. The rules are simple. We will find volunteers willing to take on the challenge of eating a cream cake. Whoever eats it fastest and stays clean in the process wins. There is something to fight for: the prize is castle mead and a voucher for the Night Tour.
16.30 Drinking soup through a straw – CONTEST.
From a ladle, a spoon, a teaspoon, a pot or a mug. There are many ways to drink soup. But what if you put a straw into the bowl? Can old Polish mushroom soup pass for an exotic lemonade? Certainly not – this looks like a contest in drinking soup through a straw!
The bravest will stand in the castle courtyard and fight for their food. For the fastest we have prepared a prize: a voucher for any dish from the food stand of your choice.
From the Middle Ages to the Polish People’s Republic
Medieval and baroque delicacies, the best pea soup under the sun from the military field kitchen at the Field Canteen, sweet attractions and Georgian snacks, biscuits from the Middle East and coffee brewed in sand – and that is only the beginning. The magic gloriette by the moat turns into a little Hogwarts, where everyone can taste the cakes of the famous wizard. Among mandrakes and potions we will bake tasty muffins, carrot cookies and other treats known from the saga of the young wizard. The hunters’ café will not run out of the famous butterbeer, which until recently could only be found in the pub at the sign of the Three Broomsticks.
While the wizards serve specialities from Diagon Alley, the innkeepers will light their fires. On the Dragon Grill there will be sausages, black pudding, stuffed potatoes and vegetarian shashliks. All of it in the setting of the fantastically imagined world of George Martin.
Knights will appear in the courtyards of Czocha Castle, and masterly duels will be interspersed with time in the stocks and demonstrations of instruments of torture. At our request, a French sorcerer has moved a few peasants and craftsmen into the 21st century. The friends of Godefroy de Montmirail and of good old Jacquouille will put you in fine spirits and, while they are at it, recreate a real craftsman’s workshop. The Visitors are already on their way!
For the festival, the castle kitchen has prepared exceptional dishes – this year French tripe and Hungarian lángos, and there will be green broad bean dumplings too. Pickled Herring Smørrebrød is a traditional Danish sandwich with butter, herring, onion and dill, which you can taste as soon as you enter the castle courtyard. Guests will also try the Danish “Tivoli Caramel Sea Salt” biscuits with caramel and sea salt.
In the castle moat we descend into the Middle Ages: there you will find broths, groats, gruels and thickened pottages, goose giblets, roast meats, fish and quail. Fish cooked in an earth pit will be prepared as well.
– For years the hit of the festival has been the cuisine of the Polish People’s Republic. Surly shop assistants serve dumplings and the cutlery is chained to the tables, but our more mature guests look on these “attractions” with fondness
Our guests from Georgia, on the other hand, will greet you with a smile, serving badrijani, a Georgian dish of fried aubergine stuffed with walnut and garlic paste, khachapuri adjaruli and fried khinkali, the famous purse-shaped meat dumplings with fried onion, and matsoni.
The museum team from the Silesian House in Ziębice invites you to workshops on making Silesian dumplings; there will also be talks about herbs and Eastern sweets, and a special tour along the castle’s secret passages.
A castle of fun
This year the Fortress of Flavours will also be a Fortress of Fun. Contests and surprises await the youngest guests, among them workshops on making pictures from dried flowers, building banjos and modelling in clay. We have also set up a weaving workshop and a mill bakery, where every child will be able to shape and bake a delicious flatbread, the oldest form of bread. There will be time to learn crossbow shooting as well.
And what is food without beautiful interiors and music? In the castle gardens you will meet the beautiful Marie Antoinette and – a different era, this – knights. Musicians will move among the guests, and in the evening a great feast awaits. There will be contests too, whose winners get to taste the finest delicacies from our stalls.
Czocha Castle is a medieval stronghold rebuilt over the centuries. It took its present shape at the beginning of the 20th century, when Ernst F. Gütschow bought it and turned it into a fairytale residence. That is when the more than sixty secret passages were created, linking the cellars with the chambers and other rooms on different floors. During the festival the whole castle can be seen, from the cellars to the chambers.
Three days of great fun and proper food. As old as the castle is, that is how many attractions it holds.
Fortress of Flavours – Festival of Historical and Film Cuisine, 8-10 June 2023
Come and join us!!!, and if you find no space in the castle car park, nothing is lost❗️
Together with Dolina Pereł ( https://www.dolinaperel.pl/ – about 1500 m from Czocha Castle)) we are opening an extra car park, from which a SHUTTLE BUS will bring you to Czocha Castle, running both ways roughly every 20 min., from 11:00 to 17:00
THE TRANSFERS ARE FREE!😊
During the festival, touring the castle looks a little different. Instead of a guided tour, we invite you to move freely through our chambers.
Information for EXHIBITORS!
We invite you to take part in the “Fortress of Flavours – Festival of Historical Cuisine at Czocha Castle”, which will take place on 08-10.06.2023 and is one of the largest and most popular historical events in the region.
The Festival of Historical Cuisine will consist of shows and workshops devoted to culinary traditions in Polish lands, presentations of historical delicacies produced in Lower Silesia, and shows and workshops on the culinary traditions of other European countries. Representatives from various parts of the world will also be invited to take part and present the historical culinary traditions of their nations.
Price
Standard tickets
- Standard ticket - castle tour (festival admission included) - 45 PLN / person
- Discounted ticket - castle tour (festival admission included) - 37 PLN / person
- Courtyard tour (festival admission included) - 15 PLN / person
PLEASE NOTE! During outdoor events, the castle is toured without a guide, as a free walk. Guides are stationed along the route and will answer any question you may have. Your ticket comes with a visitor's booklet.
Pet policy of Czocha Castle, administered by AMW REWITA Sp. z o.o.
- Touring Czocha Castle’s rooms with pets is prohibited.
- Courtyard tours with pets are allowed as long as a dog wears a muzzle. Miniature dogs (max. 30 cm) are excused from wearing a muzzle. The rule applies to breeds such as York, Shih-Tzu, and Maltese.
- During outdoor and themed events, the use of various pyrotechnic effects and increased tourist traffic make courtyard tours with pets impossible, out of concern for the animals’ safety.
- Visitors who do not follow the rules will have to leave the Czocha Castle area.