Sights in Sopron
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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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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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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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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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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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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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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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Chapter Hall
Beneath the Goat Church is the Chapter Hall - part of a 14th-century Benedictine monastery, with frescoes and stone carvings of grotesques, demons, and human moods and emotions.
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Church of the Holy Spirit
Heading northwards, on Dorfmeister utca, is the 15th-century Church of the Holy Spirit (Szentlélek-templom), worth a peek for its wall and ceiling frescoes.
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Synagogue Ruins
There's a crumbling synagogue east of the Inner Town. A new plaque tells passers-by that '1640 martyrs' were taken from here to Auschwitz on 5 July 1944.
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Castle Wall Walk
One way to get a feel for the city is to follow the Castle Wall Walk, but since so much of it goes behind or between buildings you won't see as much.
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Pharmacy Museum
The Pharmacy Museum is in a Gothic building beside the Goat Church and contains the usual scary things in cobwebby bottles and vile vials.
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Scarbantia Forum
The Scarbantia Forum is an original Roman-era marketplace recently discovered under - and accessible through - an office block. ]
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Károly Lookout
At Lővér Hills you can climb to the top of Károly Lookout on the hill (394m) west of the Lővér hotel.
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Trinity Column
One of the focal points of graceful Fő tér is the Trinity Column, the best example of a 'plague pillar' in Hungary.
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Taródi Castle
Taródi Castle, is a 'self-built private castle' owned by the obsessed Taródi family and a pack-rat's delight.
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