Visit Eger

First impressions of Eger

Eger is one of Hungary's most beautiful small towns — a baroque jewel set in a fertile wine-growing valley in the northeast hills, with a 13th-century hilltop castle, the country's northernmost Ottoman minaret, and the legendary red blend Egri Bikavér ('Bull's Blood') flowing through the cellars beneath. The narrow, cobbled centre revolves around Dobó István Square, anchored by the twin-towered Minorite Church (one of the finest baroque facades in Central Europe) and the heroic statue of Capt. István Dobó, who in 1552 famously held the castle against a Turkish army 35 times the size of his garrison. Climb up to Eger Castle for the panorama and the moving Heroes' Hall museum; then walk to the slim 40-metre Eger Minaret — a perfectly preserved 17th-century Ottoman remnant whose 97-step spiral climb to the muezzin's balcony is one of the most claustrophobic but rewarding ascents in the country. Most travellers stay just outside town in the Szépszépasszony-völgy ('Valley of the Beautiful Woman'), a horseshoe of around 200 small wine cellars carved into a soft rhyolite hillside, where local vintners pour samples of Egri Bikavér, Leányka, and the white Egri Csillag for a few hundred forints a glass. Hungarian wine country at its most accessible.