Köszeg

We live on Köszegi ut, which means, the road to Köszeg, a small town about 25 miles away near Szombathely where the district chapel is. We've always wanted to see what our namesake town looks like. The problem is, with the changes in country boundaries through the years, you can't continue down our street and end up in Köszeg because our street was cut off when the area between the two towns became part of Austria and the road was cut off at the borders on both ends.


So on the way back from an activity in Szombathely, we decided to visit Köszeg about 10 miles west of Szombathely near the Austrian border and then take the short cut home through Austria. Our GPS always wants to take us through Austria to Szombathely since it is the fastest route.

Here is the main square. Köszeg has escaped much of the destruction that has hit the rest of Hungary through the years whether from invading Turks, Austrians, or Russians so it has several buildings in the old part of town that reach back to the 1400s and earlier.


This church isn't one of them. It's only about 100 years old. Doesn't it look a bit like Cinderella's castle at Disney World?


This is Heroes' Gate that leads to the oldest part of town, Jurisics Tér.


You can see that they are painting things up to attract the tourists from nearby Austria. This is the city hall, one of the first buildings you notice when you pass through the gate. Click on the picture for a closer look at the paintings on the front.


If you stand in the middle of the tér (square) and look back towards the gate, this is what you see--city hall on the right and the steeple tower of the church in the background. Since this is the "off" season for tourists, the pavement on the square was all dug up to put in new sewer lines and new cobble stones to impress visitors.


Turn to the left and you see these buildings from the 1600's. Again, click on the picture for a closer look. How do you like the creative paint jobs typical of the Renaissance?


As you complete your circle turn, you see this church, Szent Jakab templom, finished in 1407.


There is also a castle a block or two away but we didn't walk over to explore it. The temperature was in the low 20s and dropping so Florida boy and girl were too cold to continue on. With our faces and our picture-taking hands frozen, we jumped back in the car and headed for home. Maybe we'll come back to explore some more when things thaw out, they turn on the fountains and the flowers bloom again.