CAA logo
 
 

Eger

Eger is one of the most popular tourist destinations in Hungary. The town is rich in historical monuments and famous for its wines and medicinal waters. Many Baroque monuments can be seen in the narrow streets of the inner city. http://www.eger.hu/ Főoldal/Történelminevezetességek/tabid/1712/Default.aspx)
World-famous wines are produced around the town, and a number of local wineries offer their products in traditional cellars carved into tuff-stone. (http://egribor.lap. hu/)
St. Stephen, the first king of Hungary, founded a bishopric in Eger sometime between 1001 and 1009 AD. The town’s ecclesiastical importance led to the construction of a stone fortress for its protection in 1248, built around a Romanesque cathedral. The episcopal seat, situated within the castle precinct, enjoyed its golden age during the fifteenth-century Renaissance, when the town was one of the country’s most important cultural centres. By the sixteenth century, the Ottoman invasion was in full swing after the fall of Buda in the 1540s. In 1552 the Ottomans turned their attention to one of the biggest obstacles to their advance, the fortress of Eger. The Hungarian defenders, numbering only two thousand, managed to withstand a fi ve-week siege by a force forty times their size. This heroic show of defiance is considered to be one of the most outstanding military events in Hungarian history, and was immortalized in Géza Gárdonyi’s world-famous historical novel, Az Egri Csillagok (lit. “The Stars of Eger,” though the English translation used the alternate title “Eclipse of the Crescent Moon”). The fortress of Eger, now a protected historical monument, is the site of the István Dobó Castle Museum. A permanent exhibition covers the history of the castle, while one of the original dungeons exhibits medieval forms of punishment. Carved stones from the destroyed cathedral can be seen in the lapidarium, while the massive marble sarcophagus of István Dobó, the heroic captain of the fortress during the 1552 siege, can be found in the Hall of Heroes. The Picture Gallery, also hosted in the castle, has one of the fi nest art collections in Hungary with works by Dutch, Italian, Austrian, and Hungarian masters. Visitors are invited to walk through the underground fortification system of the fortress. (http://www.egrivar.hu).

Detk

Detk is a small village south-west of Eger, at the foothills of the Mátra Mountains. As a result of the archaeological excavations carried out from 1998 to 2002, important data came to light about the history of the region spanning hundreds of millennia from the Palaeolithic to the Hungarian Conquest in the ninth century AD. Approximately 30 ha were excavated resulting in more than 1400 archaeological phenomena; mostly settlements and cemeteries were found, which had rich find material concerning several historical periods. The most beautiful objects are exhibited at the local museum. (http://www.detk.hu/muzeum.htm

Back to all Excursions