Any tour of Castle Hill, Veszeprém's elevated walled castle district, should begin at at the foot of hill at Óváros tér, the medieval market place. Of the many fine 18th-century buildings in the square, the most interesting is the late-baroque Pósa House , built in 1793 and now a bank and fans of the fin-de-siècle style will appreciate the pale yellow facade and art nouveau flourishes of the Chinese House .
As you begin to ascend Castle Hill and its sole street, Vár utca, you’ll pass through Heroes’ Gate (Hősök kapuja), an entrance built in 1936 from the stones of a 15th-century castle gate.
Firewatch Tower
To your left is the 48m-high firewatch tower which, like the one in Sopron, is an architectural hybrid of Gothic, baroque and neoclassical styles. You can climb to the top for excellent views of the rocky hill and the Bakony Hills.
Piarist Church
Squeezed between two town houses further up Vár utca is the extremely rich Piarist church, which was built in 1836 in neoclassical style.
Bishop’s Palace
Only a couple of doors along from the Piarist church is the U-shaped Bishop's Palace, designed by Jakab Fellner of Tata in the mid-18th century. It is thoroughly baroque inside and out, and stands on the site where the queen’s residence stood in the Middle Ages. The Palace faces Szentháromság tér, named for the Trinity Column (1751) in the centre.
Gizella Chapel
Next to the Bishop’s Palace is the early Gothic Gizella Chapel, named after the wife of King Stephen, who was crowned near here early in the 11th century. The chapel was discovered when the Bishop’s Palace was being built in the mid-18th century. Inside the chapel are valuable Byzantine-influenced 13th-century frescoes of the apostles. The Queen Gizella Museum of religious art is slightly north of the chapel.
Cathedral of St Michael
Parts of this dark and austere cathedral date from the beginning of the 11th century, but it has been rebuilt many times since then – the early Gothic crypt is original, though. Vibrant stained-glass windows back the church’s modest altar, and little of the nave’s high walls are left bare of intricate designs. Beside the cathedral, the octagonal foundation of the 13th-century Chapel of St George sits under an ugly concrete dome.
World's End
From the rampart known as World’s End, at the end of Vár utca, you can gaze north to craggy Benedek-hegy (Benedict Hill) and the Séd Stream, and west to the concrete viaduct (now St Stephen’s Valley Bridge) over the Betekints Valley. In Margit tér, below the bridge, are the ruins of the medieval Dominican Convent of St Catherine, and to the west is what little remains of the 11th-century Veszprém Valley (Betekints Valley) Convent, whose erstwhile cloistered residents are said to have stitched Gizella’s crimson silk coronation robe in 1031. The King Stephen and Queen Gizella statues at World’s End were erected in 1938 to mark the 900th anniversary of King Stephen’s death.
Galleries
Vár utca is home to a number of art galleries specialising in 20th-century contemporary pieces from Hungary and abroad; they include the Váss Galéria and the Csikász Galéria .
Dubniczay Palace, a lovely 18th-century baroque structure, is home to two museums. The Carl László Collection is a brilliant display of modern art acquired by the Pécs-born László, who survived several concentration camps including Auschwitz and eventually landed in Switzerland, where he became a prolific art collector, artist and psychoanalyst. The museum represents a small but significant portion of his collection, with lithographs and pop-art pieces highlighting the avant-garde inclination in Hungary and beyond in the 1920s, the artistic achievements between the first and second world wars and artists hitting the global and local scene in the past 50 years. The Brick Collection is a nod to the fact that the region used to be a major brick-producer home to eight brick factories – all have closed down now, but the displays of multicoloured bricks stamped with elaborate coats of arms, royal motifs and religious symbols are oddly captivating for their tremendous detail and the precision of their imprints.
