Czchów

Czchów lies on the Dunajec, beside a trade route leading south toward Hungary. Its hilltop castle grew around an older watchtower and guarded both the road and a customs house. A royal possession from the early fourteenth century, Czchów gained Magdeburg rights in 1355 and became a county seat with its own courts and assemblies.

A royal privilege authorised a fair in 1433, and in 1545 the town acquired its own waterworks and a sewage system for its inhabitants. The religious reformer Fausto Sozzini also lived here for several years. In the seventeenth century changing trade routes, floods and the Swedish invasion undermined its prosperity. After a disastrous flood in 1690 only thirty-six houses remained; the castle lost its military role and became a prison.