Page 161 - (DK Eyewitness) Travel Guide - Hungary

SZÉKESFEHÉR V ÁR  159

soldiers and castles and other area and of Székesfehérvár’s Serb
toys, which have all been community, of its traders and
assembled by Éva Moskovszky, a crafts men, with exhibitions on
retired librarian of the Hungarian shoemakers, leather-workers and
National Museum. The detail and furriers. Also on Rác utca is the
opulence of these toys are aston- Ráctemplom, the single-nave Serb
ishing – the dolls wear genuine church, a Baroque 18th- century
pearl necklaces and the tiny building with colour ful, fully
homes, copies of homes built restored icons. Many of them
between 1800 and 1930, are had been hidden by soot for the
immacu lately furnished with real best part of a century.
Herend porcelain (see p207). Even
the clocks on the doll’s house + Bory Castle
walls are in full working order. Bory Vár
Máriavölgy út 54. Tel (22) 30 55 70.
R Carmelite Church Open Mar–mid-Oct: 9am–5pm daily;
Karmelita templom late Oct–mid-Nov: 9am–4pm daily.
Petőfi Sándor utca 2. Open Apr–mid- Detail on the clock at No. 9 Kossuth Street Closed late Nov–Feb. & ∑ bory-
Oct: 9am–6pm Tue–Sun. 7 var.hu
Not fully completed until 1769, clock is the focal point of a The most-visited sight in
the church was designed by colourful Secessionist house Székesfehérvár is the whim sical
an anonymous architect. The that has become increasingly Bory Castle, built over two
Carmelites were so des perate hemmed in by the less inter- decades by the sculptor and
for a place to worship that esting build ings sur rounding it. architect Jenő Bory (1879–1959).
they began holding their The interior of the building can Construc tion first began in the
services in the unfinished (but be visited by prior arrangement. mid-1920s, when Bory had a
consecrated) church in 1732, a group of his students build him
year after construction began, E Open-Air Ethnographical a small cottage and plant a
when the building was little Museum vineyard. He then added various
more than a shell. The exterior Palotavárosi Skanzen parts to it, the designs becoming
is Baroque, with a single, Rác utca 11. Tel (22) 31 55 83. gradually more colourful and
modest tower. The real glory Open by arrangement. & 8 7 daring, until, at the time of his
of the church, however, are Unlike other village museums in death, the cottage had grown
the colourful, dramatic ceiling Hungary, which are usually located into a veritable fantasy land,
frescoes inside, most of which outside towns, Palotavárosi is set part Roman forum, part Gothic
are the work of Franz Anton close to the city centre, in the castle, with touches of just
Maulbertsch, a native of Vienna suburbs of Székesfehérvár. Visitors about every other archi tectural
who worked on a number of entering the cobbled streets of style thrown in. Some of the
churches in the area around the museum (which for centuries castle’s rooms exhibit Bory’s
Lake Balaton. He also painted was the Rácváros, or Serb area of sculptures, as well as paintings
the altar and the crucifix in the city) find themselves in a lost by his wife, Ilona Komócsin,
the oratory. The ceiling frescoes world. At No. 11 Rác utca, a small also responsible for most of
were damaged during a museum tells the story of the the exterior art.
minor earthquake in 1800,
and suffered further during
the Napoleonic wars when the
church was transformed into
a hospital. They were restored
during the 1950s. Outside the
church, set into the southern
wall, is a statue of Louis the
Great, the work of Hungarian
sculptor Ödön Moiret.
P Clockwork
Órajáték
Kossuth utca 9. 7
The vivid and playful clock in the
small pedestrian square behind
No. 9 Kossuth Street chimes every
2 hours from spring to autumn,
while small figures dressed as
hussars march by every two
hours from 10am to 6pm. The The romantic Bory Castle, a blend of architectural styles

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