The Secrets of Győr

You climb Káptalandomb — Chapter Hill — where three rivers braid together below you, and a cathedral has stood since King Stephen I founded Hungary's first bishopric here around 1009. The building you enter is a palimpsest of a thousand years: Romanesque bones in the crypt, Gothic ribs overhead, and a Baroque facade that gleams in the morning light. But the real treasure waits inside the Héderváry Chapel. There, behind iron grilles, sits the Herma of Saint Ladislaus — a gilded silver reliquary bust containing the skull of the "knight king," who ruled Hungary in the 11th century. It is the only faithful portrait of any Árpád-dynasty monarch, and alongside the Holy Crown and the Holy Right Hand, it ranks as one of Hungary's three most important sacred artifacts. In 1997, Pope John Paul II elevated this church to minor basilica status — a rare honor that speaks to the weight of what these walls protect.

Step through the gate and you enter a castle that has been continuously occupied by the bishops of Győr for over seven hundred years. The oldest stonework beneath your feet — the lower tower and the so-called "runaway corridor" — dates to the 14th century, though Roman building traces lurk even deeper in the foundations. This is the highest point of Káptalandomb, and from the lookout tower you can see exactly why every empire wanted this hill: the Moson Danube and the Rába converge directly below, creating a natural moat. After the catastrophe at Mohács in 1526, the castle was rebuilt as a fortress according to plans by the Italian military architect Pietro Ferrabosco between 1561 and 1575. Look closely and you can still trace the Renaissance-era bastions he designed — geometric, angular, built to deflect cannonballs rather than absorb them. The jewel within is Bishop Orbán Dóczy's chapel, constructed between 1481 and 1486, a rare example of a multi-level castle chapel fitted snugly into the eastern corner of the tower.

You are standing on top of a buried fortress. Beneath this open square lie the remains of 16th-century bastions, casemate tunnels, and the foundations of the Danube Gate — the Vízi-kapu — that once controlled river access to Győr. In 1594, Grand Vizier Sinan Pasha's Ottoman forces breached these walls and captured the city. The conqueror placed an iron rooster weathervane on the gate and declared: "Győr will be Christian again when this rooster crows and the crescent beneath it becomes a full moon." Four years later, during the reconquest of 1598, a brave hussar named Ferkó Bajusz climbed the gate tower before dawn. When the first rays of sunrise hit the crescent, making it gleam like a full moon, Bajusz blew his horn in a rooster's cry. The superstitious Turkish garrison panicked — the prophecy had been fulfilled. Habsburg forces stormed the fortress and recaptured Győr. Today the square hosts Christmas markets and summer festivals. The original iron rooster, the Vaskakas, is preserved in the Xántus János Museum.

Széchenyi tér unfolds before you like a Baroque stage set — pastel facades in ochre, salmon, and cream lining every side, each building a chapter of the 17th and 18th centuries. At the center stands the Mária-oszlop, an obelisk erected in 1686 by Bishop Lipót Kollonich to celebrate the liberation of Buda from the Turks. The twin-towered Church of St. Ignatius of Loyola was built by Jesuits between 1634 and 1641, modeled on the famous Il Gesù in Rome. It is the earliest example of Baroque religious architecture in Hungary — the very first ripple of the Counter-Reformation's artistic tide to reach this land. Step inside and crane your neck: the ceiling frescoes are by Paul Troger, who painted the Glorification of St. Ignatius as trompe-l'œil visions that seem to dissolve the stone vault into open sky. After the Jesuits were dissolved in 1773, the Benedictines inherited the complex in 1802 — and they remain here today.

Tucked into quiet Gutenberg tér, this gilded Baroque column tells one of Győr's strangest stories. In 1729, a fugitive soldier named György Weingasser — suspected of bigamy — fled to the local Jesuit monastery seeking sanctuary. During a Corpus Christi procession, the soldiers who had been hunting him recognized his face among the disguised ministrants. A scuffle erupted in the middle of the sacred parade, and in the chaos, the priest dropped the ostensory — the vessel holding the consecrated Host, the body of Christ in Catholic belief. The wafer hit the cobblestones. For Baroque-era Catholics, this was not merely an accident — it was a desecration of cosmic proportions. News reached Emperor Charles III in Vienna, who ordered this monument erected in 1731 as a royal act of atonement. The sculptor was Antonio Corradini, the Venetian master famed for his veiled marble figures. Look up at the gilded bronze lamb resting on a book sealed with seven clasps, placed atop a miniature Ark of the Covenant. The whole composition is an apology cast in metal.

Bécsi kapu tér — Vienna Gate Square — was once the last thing travelers saw before taking the road to the Habsburg capital. Today the gate is gone, but its spirit lingers in the elegant Carmelite Church, painted in a warm mustard yellow with a single onion-domed tower rising above the roofline. The Carmelites arrived in Győr in 1697, just a year before the city was liberated from Ottoman control, and they wasted no time claiming their place. The church was designed by Athanasius Wittwer, a lay brother of the Carmelite order — meaning a monk designed it for monks. His plan is deceptively simple yet spatially daring: an elliptical nave covered by a low dome, with two diagonal chapels extending outward like arms reaching in prayer. The ellipse creates an acoustic intimacy that rectangular churches cannot match; hymns seem to wrap around you. On the facade, flanking the portal, stand statues of the order's two great mystics: Teresa of Ávila and John of the Cross.

On June 14, 1809 — the only Napoleonic battle ever fought on Hungarian soil erupted at the village of Kismegyer, just outside Győr's walls. Eugène de Beauharnais, Napoleon's stepson, led Franco-Italian troops against a hastily assembled Hungarian noble levy. The result was a rout. The amateur Hungarian cavalry, many of whom had never seen combat, broke under French artillery fire. That evening, Napoleon himself rode into Győr and spent the night in this 17th-century Baroque townhouse on Király utca. Imagine the scene: the most powerful man in Europe, mud-spattered from the battlefield, climbing the stone staircase of a provincial Hungarian home while the city's residents peered from shuttered windows. Today the house serves as a municipal gallery, and a commemorative plaque marks the facade. The battle itself is largely forgotten outside Hungary, overshadowed by Wagram six weeks later — but for Győr, it remains a point of somber pride.

Most visitors walk right past this building on Széchenyi tér without realizing that behind the dispensary counter lies one of Hungary's most beautiful interiors. The Széchenyi Pharmacy was founded by the Jesuits in the late 17th century, and its inner vault is a masterpiece of Rococo exuberance — stucco angels, frescoed ceilings, and carved wooden cabinets that hold centuries of pharmaceutical curiosities. Pull open the heavy door and step inside. The cabinets along the walls contain ceramic apothecary jars, brass scales, mortars and pestles, dried herbs, and glass bottles of tinctures whose Latin labels hint at remedies both genuine and dubious. In the Baroque era, a pharmacy was part science lab, part alchemist's den, and part confessional — people came here when doctors failed them, and the pharmacist was often the most trusted figure in town. The best part? This is still a functioning pharmacy today. Admission to the museum section is free — one of Győr's best-kept secrets.

You round a corner and encounter something delightfully absurd: a fountain shaped like an enormous siphon soda bottle, standing over two meters tall and weighing 365 kilograms, crafted from glass by artist László Hefter. It is a monument to Ányos Jedlik, and if you have never heard his name, you have certainly consumed his invention every day of your life. Jedlik was born in 1800 and joined the Benedictine order at Pannonhalma, just 21 kilometers from where you're standing. In 1826, while teaching at the monastery, he built a small device that could force carbon dioxide into water under pressure — creating what we now call soda water. He went further: by 1841, he had designed the plans for Hungary's first carbonated water factory in Pest-Buda. But carbonation was merely a side project. Jedlik also invented an early dynamo electric motor, predating Siemens by years, though he never published his findings and thus lost the credit. Soda water became so central to Hungarian culture that it was declared a Hungarikum — an official national treasure.

You have walked the streets of Győr, heard the legend of the Iron Rooster, and now you stand before the Baroque palace that holds the original. The Apátúr House, built in 1741–1742 by Benedek Sajghó, Archpriest of Pannonhalma, became Hungary's first museum outside Budapest in 1949. Its facade is one of the finest Baroque compositions on the square — symmetrical, dignified, with just enough ornamentation to signal importance without screaming it. Inside, the museum traces Győr's story from its Roman origins as Arrabona to the present day. You'll find Roman coins pulled from the riverbed, medieval guild seals, Ottoman-era weapons, and the crown jewel: the original Vaskakas — the Iron Rooster weathervane that once crowned the Danube Gate and became the symbol of Győr's liberation from Turkish rule. The museum also houses the private collection of the Petz family — generations of physicians who accumulated medical curiosities. It is the kind of museum where you go for one thing and stay for three hours.