Showing 1-13 of 13 results
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Archbishop's Garden
You'll enjoy perusing the Archbishop's Garden (Essekert), once the private reserve of papal princes.
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Archbishop's Palace
Northeast of the Basilica in the Archbishop's Palace is the Ecclesiastical Collection, with priceless vestments, church plate and liturgical objects.
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Astronomy Museum
The Astronomy Museum, on the 6th floor of the east wing of the Lyceum, contains 18th-century astronomical equipment and an observatory; climb three more floors up to the observation deck for a great view of the city and to try out the camera obscura, the 'eye of Eger', designed in 1776 to spy on the town and to entertain townspeople.
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Basilica
The Basilica is a neoclassical monolith completed in 1836 and designed by József Hild, the same architect who later worked on the cathedral at Esztergom. Despite the cathedral's size and ornate altars, the interior is surprisingly light and airy.
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Cistercian church
Walk north along Széchenyi utca to the Cistercian church built in 1743. The theatrical baroque altar sculpture of St Francis Borgia in gilt and white stucco is well worth a look.
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County Hall
There are several outstanding baroque and Eclectic buildings on Kossuth Lajos utca, including the county hall, with a wrought-iron grid above the main door of Faith, Hope and Charity by Henrik Fazola, a Rhinelander who settled in Eger in the mid-18th century. Walk down the passageway, and you'll see two more of his magnificent works: baroque wrought-iron gates decorated on both sides that have superseded the minaret as the symbol of Eger.
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Ecclesiastical Collection
The Ecclesiastical Collection consists of priceless vestments, church plate and liturgical objects.
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Eger Castle & Museums
The best view of the city can be had by climbing up the cobblestone lane from Dózsa György tér to Eger Castle, erected in the 13th century after the Mongol invasion. Much of the castle is of modern construction, but you can still see the foundations of 12th-century St John's Cathedral. Models and drawings in the István Dobó Museum, housed in the former Bishop's Palace (1470), show how it once looked. On the ground floor, a statue of Dobó takes pride of place in the Heroes' Hall.
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Franciscan church
The Franciscan church was completed in 1755 on the site of a mosque. The wrought-iron balcony and window grids of the rococo Provost's Palace (Kispréposti palota), several doors down at number 4 were also done by Fazola.
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Lyceum
Directly opposite the Basilica is the sprawling Zopf-style Lyceum, dating from 1765. The 20,000-volume library, on the 1st floor of the south wing, contains hundreds of priceless manuscripts and codices. The ceiling fresco (1778) here is a trompe l'oeil masterpiece depicting the Counter-Reformation's Council of Trent (1545-63) and a lightning bolt setting heretical manuscripts ablaze.
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Minorite Church
Mecset utca, south of the minaret, leads to central Dobó István tér, site of the town's market in medieval times. On the southern side of the square stands the Minorite church, built in 1771 and one of the most glorious baroque buildings in Hungary. The altarpiece of the Virgin Mary and St Anthony of Padua is by Johann Kracker, the Bohemian painter who also did the fire-and-brimstone ceiling fresco in the Lyceum library. Statues of István Dobó and his comrades-in-arms routing the Turks in 1552 fill the square in front of the church.
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Orthodox synagogue
The former Orthodox synagogue was built in 1893 and is now a furniture store backing onto a shopping mall. To get there from Dobó István tér, cross the little Eger Stream to Dózsa György tér and turn southwest onto Kossuth Lajos utca, a fine, tree-lined street.
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Serbian Orthodox church
The Serbian Orthodox church and its enormous iconostasis of gold leaf and braid is north of the Cistercian church.
Showing 1-13 of 13 results
