Visegrád Castle

Visegrád Castle (German: Burg Plittenburg) rises above the town of Visegrád in the Danube Bend. It stretches from the 328‑metre‑high rock summit of the Visegrád Hills down to the banks of the Danube. In the Middle Ages it had an important representative role, as one of the richest palaces of the Hungarian kings stood here, and its political and military significance was also not negligible. It retained the latter role until the end of the 17th century. It consists of two parts: the lower castle and the citadel, also called the upper castle. Parts of the lower castle are located directly beside Highway 11, and the citadel can be reached via the Panorama Road (secondary road 11 116) or on foot on tourist paths.

History

Throughout history several fortifications were erected by the peoples living here to keep the road passing through the narrow gorge under their control. After the castle of the county was destroyed by the 1241–1242 Tatar invasion, King IV Béla built a new hexagonal, thick‑walled residential tower from its stones, which folk tradition later named the Salamon Tower.

While the ruler built on the Danube bank, his wife, Queen Maria, fortified the high rock summit with money raised from the sale of her jewels. The two castle parts were completed by a closing wall running along the steep hillside, whose end descended all the way to the riverside Vízi Castle. In the internal war of the early 14th century, the forces of Matthew Csák occupied it, and King Charles I of Anjou retook it by siege.

In the following period the ruler had the Palace built beside the Danube River to provide more comfortable accommodation, so only the garrison was stationed in the Zordon stone castle. During the reign of Sigismund of Luxembourg the crown was guarded in the pentagonal old tower on the upper castle, but in 1440, on the order of Queen widow Elizabeth, it was nevertheless stolen by Ilona Kottaner, a lady of the court.

In the 16th century, after the capture of Buda, the Turkish armies soon also surrounded Visegrád; its first siege took place in 1544, when the Salamon Tower suffered severe damage. Over the next one and a half centuries the increasingly ruinous complex changed owners several times. Its final destruction occurred in the 1685 siege against the Turks, but the enemy forces soon withdrew from it to defend the far more important military stronghold of Buda Castle.

In the following centuries the remaining ruins were rapidly destroyed by natural forces and the scattering of stones. The remains of the former royal Palace were demolished in the 18th century, and later the site fell into oblivion. Although excavations had been carried out earlier, only from the 1960s did a modern heritage‑preservation restoration begin for the Visegrád Castle, which served as an important stage of Hungarian history, and its works continue to pose tasks for many generations.

From 2017 the castle has been renovated within the National Castle Programme.

Exhibitions

Several exhibitions can be visited in the fortress, which, like the whole castle, are cared for by Pilis Park Forest Ltd. On display are an exhibition presenting the history of the castle, a model reconstruction of the castle’s defensive system, a copy of the Holy Crown and the history of its keeping here, a panopticum, and a hunting‑fishing‑management exhibition.

The castle in literature

Visegrád Castle is the main setting of Péter Bogáti’s Halló, here his novel Matthias King.