Near Austrian border
K?szeg is situated some 200 kilometres directly west of Budapest. The town is a real gem with its fine evidence of its over 1,000 year-history of settlement as well as being a good starting point for gentle hikes in the nearby nature park.
The handsome town hall has served as the seat of K?szeg’s officials since it was built in 1328 without interruption – until the 1876 reform it housed the town senate and afterwards the respective mayors. A few steps to the left visitors will find the Heroes’ Tower, which was built in 1932 to mark the 400th anniversary of victory over the Turks. Today the tower serves as a museum for the Miklós Jurisics collection. Visitors can also admire another monument of the Jurisics family: the castle, which is likewise in the city centre. The windows of the castle deserve particular attention: on the east side of the inner courtyard the windows are in the late Gothic and Renaissance style, while on the west side the sgraffito window frames can be admired. The inner courtyard itself is ornamented in the Baroque style.
After the sightseeing tour, visitors can take a seat in the town’s main square either at one of the cafés or the benches and breathe in the atmosphere of the medieval heart of K?szeg. Of course it is also possible to taste the wines of the region, which comfortably hold their own with those of the town’s Burgenland neighbour.
The area surrounding K?szeg is also worth exploring. Nature lovers can walk in the Írottk? (in English: “Written Stone”) national park to the park’s observation point or to the seven springs. The hilly landscape around K?szeg guarantees a varied tour that can comfortably by undertaken by the whole family. Or visitors can go to see the surrounding villages. In Cák visitors will come across a thatched row of cellars, while Bozsok is home to a baroque castle that today is used as a hotel.
It is worth making the trip to K?szeg for a long weekend to experience how fluid the border between Austria and Hungary in this region has always been and gain an impression of how Hungary may have looked before the Turkish occupation.
