Eger

Overview

Eger is one of the most wonderful baroque towns in Hungary. It can boast a 1000-year-old bishop's seat (it is an archdiocese today), a glorious past and valuable groups of monuments.

It was Istvan Dobo who made it the town of patriotism. In 1552 he and his small troop resisted the Turkish army (a force 20 times as large) for more than a month. An immortal novel "The Stars of Eger" by Geza Gardonyi (1863-1922) is about the town of patriotism. Eger is more than a town of thermal baths and students; it is also a town of wine : the excellent red and white wines of its famous and historic wine-producing region are measured in several hundred-year-old cellars. The second largest church in Hungary is the classicist Archbishop's Cathedral (Eszterhazy Square). It has the country's biggest organ. On the first floor of the late-baroque Lyceum - a teachers college today - we can find one of the most famous libraries in the country, with ornamental carvings and wonderful ceiling-frescos. The Main Bishopric Library has 130,000 volumes, including the first book printed in Hungary (in 1473), and a letter written by Mozart. In the tower we can find the country's first astronomical museum, the Spekula Observatory. The most interesting device in this state-of-the-art (in 1776) observatory is the camera obscura, which projects a live image of the town on a white board in a darkened room on the uppermost floor of the Lyceum tower. The residence of the...more

History