Eger Castle

October 24^th-25^th, 2026 

From Košice, I took a train back into Hungary to a small city called Miskolc.  My train was seven minutes late leaving, which happened to be the amount of time I had to catch my connection to a funnily named small town called Füzesabony, which I’m sure I did not pronounce correctly.  So obviously I missed my next train, but it didn’t matter much as I simply caught another train an hour later.  I had one more switch to arrive in Eger.

The Slovakian countryside just outside of Košice.

A nice little lake with some small homes or cottages lining the shore.

The train station in Miskolc.

The place that I booked was in the historic part of the town, an easy walking distance to the centre square and the castle.  As I was walking from the train station, I received a call from Anna, the woman who was going to help me check in at the place, and she stated that she only had about 25 minutes before she had to leave.  She’s a massage therapist and she didn’t want to keep her client waiting.  Luckily, I was 15 minutes away.  She met me on the street, showed me the room, but then we ran into a snafu with checking in on an app on her phone.  I got the impression that she was new to this role.  We decided we’d figure it out in the evening.

Walking past a monument dedicated to the Hungarian Revolution of 1956.

The Cathedral Basilica of St. John the Apostle.

After settling in, I ventured out to find a place for a snack and a beer.  It was already mid-afternoon, so I didn’t want a full-on lunch.  I walked around the area and ironically ended up at a craft brewery right next to my place.  They had 10-12 different beers on tap, and the bearded server was super friendly.  I ordered an IPA, one of 3 or 4 options that they had, as well as some French fries.  Well, those fries were as about as good as I’ve ever had!  They have these interesting V-shaped fries in Hungary, and Slovakia as I ate similar ones at the Seven Pub in Košice, but these came out piping hot, crispy, and were absolutely delicious!

On my walkabout before finding the craft brewery.

There were some nice buildings in the historic section of the city.

The main square in town.

That's the castle in the distance, which I will visit tomorrow.

I've seen a lot of different items in a vending machine, but this one was a new one to me...a vending machine dedicated to little notebooks!

I liked this "skull glass"...oh, and the beer inside of it was pretty good too, although I wish that they served their beer a bit colder in both Hungary and Slovakia.

That evening, I just grabbed a slice of pizza for dinner, but passed by the main square all lit up.

The following day, I headed to Eger Castle which was just a ten-minute walk away from where I was staying.  I don’t know why, perhaps from the photos I saw online, but I had medium to high expectations…which were unfortunately not met. 

The obligatory statue in the main square of almost any European city/town celebrating some past hero.

About to storm the castle...

Up the main entrance way.

A nice depiction of a siege.

The main entrance gate.

This was the old gate.  The new one was more robust and harder to penetrate.

Inside the castle grounds.

It did have a nice view of the city.  That's looking back at the main square, just to the left of centre in the photo.

More of the inner grounds.

This was probably the highlight of the visit.  A guy dressed up like a defender of the castle back in the day, was doing a demonstration for a crowd gathered around him.  He was speaking in Hungarian, so I didn't know what was going on, but I happened to catch when he shot his musket...and man, was it loud!

He looked pleased with his demonstration.

That's a minaret just off to the left of the centre of the photo.

A closer shot of it.  There were a few people up on the balcony.

One of the old cannons used to defend the place.

Almost all signs for displays in various rooms were only in Hungarian.  There was a QR code at the ticket office for an audio guide, but I found that it was not in a logical order.  Each excerpt would show you where you should be in the castle grounds, but they didn’t flow from one to the next.  Oh well, you can’t win them all.  It probably didn’t help that I woke up with a cold and my nose was running like a faucet and I was constantly sneezing.

I descended into the dungeon, something that I find fascinating in a macabre way.  I tried to use Google Translate with the camera to understand what the signs said...but sadly I couldn't get a cell signal so it didn't work.

The old stocks.

Some chain handcuffs.

These were interesting.  They opened up like scissors and your neck went in the big hole and your wrists in the smaller ones so they were held up by your neck.  Notice the one on the top right which looks like a violin, and they the one second from the left which is for two people who get to stare at each other.

An executioner's sword.

And his axe...it was huge.

A beheading block.

I thought this was a bit funny...some old cannons, but it was also the designated smoking area.  I guess it's been a long time since there was any gun powder in them!

The royal courtyard.

More statues to heroes of the past.

I had to include this photo as in the previous one it was hard to tell the scale of them.

Looking at the courtyard from the other side.

These were up on a raised circular area that was the high point of the castle.

More firepower.

A baby cannon.

I paid about $2 to enter a temporary wax museum...and ya, it wasn't even worth that price of admission.

Somebody needs to get out in the sun a bit more.

A Turkish tent.

I wasn't sure what he was doing with that frying pan!

Some castle defenders.

What's Carlos Santana doing here?

Well, the music wasn't half bad...

Since I wasn’t feeling 100%, after the castle I returned to my accommodation for a rare afternoon nap.  Having not eaten a proper lunch, and feeling better after the snooze, I found a restaurant to enjoy a goulash soup while watching some English Premier League soccer.  Being a “Sports Sunday”, I returned to my place for an evening of NFL football (seeing the Baltimore Ravens completely collapse in the second half) and a Formula One race, which was a good way to mellow out.

Heading out to find some soup...

...found it!

I did like the fountain in the centre square.

Tomorrow, I head to Hungary’s second largest city, Debrecen.  I’m not going there to see the city, but hopefully thousands of cranes who are on their migration south for the winter.