Sights in Northwestern Hungary
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Fabricius House
Across the square in which the Firewatch Tower stands is Fabricius House, containing exhibits of the Sopron Museum. Of particular interest are the urban flats (polgári lakások) on the upper floors, with rooms devoted to domestic life in Sopron in the 17th and 18th centuries. There are a few kitchen mock-ups and exhibits explaining how people made their beds and washed their dishes in those days, but the highlights are the rooms facing the square that are crammed with priceless antique furniture.
The lower floors have an archaeological exhibition covering Celtic, Roman and Hungarian periods of history. Scarbantia-era statues reconstructed from fragments found in the…
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Storno House
Across the square in which the Firewatch Tower stands is Storno House containing exhibits of the Sopron Museum. On the 1st floor of this building, built in 1417, there's a less-than-enthralling exhibit on Sopron's more recent history, but on the floor above is the wonderful Storno Collection (Storno Gyűjtemény), which belonged to a 19th-century Swiss-Italian family of restorers whose recarving of Romanesque and Gothic monuments throughout Transdanubia is frowned upon today.
To their credit, the much maligned Stornos did rescue many altarpieces and church furnishings from oblivion, and their house is a Gothic treasure-trove. Highlights include the beautiful enclosed…
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Firewatch Tower
The best place to begin a tour of Sopron is to climb the 200 steps of the narrow circular staircase to the top of the 60m-high Firewatch Tower at the northern end of Fő tér. The tower affords excellent views over the city, the Lővér Hills to the southwest and the Austrian Alps to the west, as well as Fő tér below and the four narrow streets that make up the Inner Town.
The tower, from which trumpeters would warn of fire, mark the hour (now done by chimes and tinny music) and greet visitors to the city in the Middle Ages, is a true architectural hybrid. The 2m-thick square base, built on a Roman gate, dates from the 12th century, and the cylindrical middle and…
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Old Synagogue
From the Scarbantia Forum, if you carry on walking down Új utca - known as Zsidó utca (Jewish St) until the Jews were evicted from Sopron in 1526 - you'll reach the Old Synagogue. Just down the street is the New Synagogue. Both were built in the 14th century, and are among the greatest Jewish Gothic monuments in Europe and are unique in Hungary. Now a museum, the Old Synagogue contains two rooms, one for each sex (note the women's windows along the west wall).
The main room contains a medieval 'holy of holies' with geometric designs and trees carved in stone, and some ugly new stained-glass windows. The inscriptions on the walls date from 1490. There's a reconstructed …
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Héderváry Chapel
The Gothic Héderváry Chapel contains one of the most beautiful (and priceless) examples of medieval gold work in Hungary, the Herm of László. It's a bust reliquary of one of Hungary's earliest king-saints (r 1077-95) and dates from the early 15th century. If you're looking for miracles, though, move to the north aisle and the Weeping Icon of Mary, an altarpiece brought from Galway by the Irish Bishop of Clonfert in 1649, who had been sent packing by Oliver Cromwell. Some 40 years later - on St Patrick's Day no less - it began to cry tears of blood and is still a pilgrimage site.
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Imre Patkó Collection
Well worth a visit is the Imre Patkó Collection in the 17th-century Iron Stump House (Vastuskós Ház), a former caravanserai entered from Stelczer Lajos utca that still sports the log into which itinerant artisans would drive a nail to mark their visit. The museum has an excellent collection of 20th-century fine art on the first two floors; the 3rd floor is given over to objects collected by the journalist and art historian Imre Patkó during his travels in India, Tibet, Vietnam and west Africa.
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Chapel of St James & St Michael's Church
At the top of the Lővér Hills, is St Michael's Church (Szent Mihály-templom). Behind St Michael's Church to the south is the little Romanesque-Gothic Chapel of St James (Szent Jakab-kápolna), the oldest structure in Sopron and originally an ossuary. Not much escaped the Stornos' handiwork when they 'renovated' St Michael's - they even added the spire. Check out the lovely polychrome Stations of the Cross (1892) in the churchyard and the large number of tombstones with German family names.
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Napoleon-ház
Known only to pedants and Lonely Planet guidebook writers is the 'footnote fact' that Napoleon actually spent a night in Hungary on 31 August 1809. at a building now called Napoleon-ház (Napoleon House), appropriately enough, which contains a branch of the City Museum. And why did NB choose Győr to make his grand entrée into Hungary? Apparently the city was near a battle site and an inscription on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris recalls 'la bataille de Raab'.
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Ark of the Covenant
As you descend narrow Gutenberg tér to the east of the Basilica, you'll pass the outstanding Ark of the Covenant, a large statue dating from 1731. Local tradition has it that King Charles (Károly) III erected the ark, the city's finest baroque monument, to appease the angry people of Győr after one of his soldiers accidentally knocked a monstrance containing the Blessed Sacrament out of the bishop's hands during a religious procession.
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Basilica
The basilica, whose foundations date back to the 11th century, is an odd amalgam of styles, with Romanesque apses (have a look from the outside), a neoclassical façade and a Gothic chapel riding piggyback on the south side. But most of what you see inside, including the stunning frescoes by Franz Anton Maulbertsch, the main altar, the bishop's throne and the pews hewn from Dalmatian oak, is baroque and dates from the 17th and 18th centuries.
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New Synagogue
Past the Old Synagogue, if you're walking down Új utca from the Scarbantia Forum, you'll also come across the New Synagogue across the street. Both synagogues were built in the 14th century, and are among the greatest Jewish Gothic monuments in Europe and are unique in Hungary. The New Synagogue, which once formed part of a private house and offices, was recently renovated with EU funds and may soon be open to the public.
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Church of St Ignatius Loyola
A couple of blocks southeast of Káptalan-domb is enormous Széchenyi tér, which was the town's marketplace in the Middle Ages. On the south side, the Jesuit and later Benedictine Church of St Ignatius Loyola, the city's finest, dates from 1641. The 17th-century white-stucco side chapels and the ceiling frescoes painted by the Viennese baroque artist Paul Troger in 1744 are worth a look.
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Goat Church
On the south side of the Firewatch Tower is the old Goat Church, whose name comes from the heraldic animal of its chief benefactor. The church was originally built in the late 13th century, but many additions and improvements have been made over the centuries. The interior is now mostly baroque, though the red marble pulpit in the centre of the south aisle dates from the 15th century.
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Zettl-Langer Private Collection
If you walk back to Fő tér from the Inner Town, past the old Roman walls, under Előkapu and over a small bridge leading to Ikva, once a district of merchants and artisans, your first stop should be the excellent Zettl-Langer Private Collection. Containing ceramics, paintings and furniture, it's the largest and most significant private collection on display in Hungary.
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Bakery Museum
From the House of the Two Moors, walking west along Fövényverem utca, you'll soon reach Bécsi út and the Bakery Museum, a fantastic reminder of a bygone era. It's actually the completely restored home, bakery and shop of a successful 19th-century bread and pastry maker named Weissbeck, and contains some interesting gadgets and work-saving devices.
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Carmelite church
The baroque 'Viennese Gate Sq' is dominated to the south by the Carmelite church built in 1725. On the north and northwest side of the square and cutting it off from the river are the fortifications built in the 16th century to stop the Turkish onslaught, and a bastion that has served as a prison, a chapel, a shop and, until recently, even a restaurant.
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Péter Váczy Museum
The late Renaissance Hungarian Ispita (Magyar Ispita), once a charity hospital, now houses the Péter Váczy Museum. Váczy, a history professor and avid antiques collector, managed to assemble quite an eclectic assortment of pieces, from Greek and Roman relics to Chinese terracotta figures, all of which are on display.
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Lővér Hills
This range of 300m- to 400m-high foothills of the Austrian Alps, some 5km south and southwest of the city centre, is Sopron's playground. It's a great place for hiking and walking, but is not without bitter memories, for it was here that partisans and Jews were executed by Nazis and the fascist Hungarian Arrow Cross during WWII.
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Synagogue
Across the Rába River, the richly decorated octagonal cupola, galleries and tabernacle of the city's erstwhile Synagogue, built in 1870, are well worth a look if you can get into the partially restored building; try at the entrance to the music academy (formerly a Jewish school) next door.
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Szécheny Pharmacy Museum
Next door to the Church of St Ignatius Loyola is the Szécheny Pharmacy Museum, established by the Jesuits in 1654 and a fully operational baroque institution. You can inspect the rococo vaulted ceiling and its fabulous frescoes with religious and herbal themes.
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Bishop's Castle
To the north of the lapidarium within the fortified walls is the Bishop's Castle, also known as 'Püspökvár', a fortress-like structure with parts dating from the 13th century; the foundations of an 11th-century Romanesque chapel are on the south side.
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Zichy Palace
In the stunning Zichy Palace is the Doll Exhibition (Baba Kiálĺitás), consisting of some 72 19th-century dolls and furniture. It's worth a visit just to see the 18th-century baroque palace, which is also used sometimes for concerts and plays.
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House of the Two Moors
Heading north on Dorfmeister utc from the Church of the HolySpirit is the House of the Two Moors (Két mór ház). It was fashioned from two 17th-century peasant houses and is guarded by two large statues, which are now painted PC-white.
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Margit Kovács Ceramic Collection
Opposite the ark but entered from Káposztás köz 8 is the Margit Kovács Ceramic Collection, a branch of the City Art Museum devoted to the celebrated ceramicist Margit Kovács (1902-77) who was born in Győr.
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Fidelity Gate
Fidelity Gate at the bottom of the Firewatch Tower (tűztorony) shows 'Hungaria' receiving the civitas fidelissima (Latin for 'the most loyal citizenry') of Sopron. It was erected in 1922 after that crucial referendum.
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