Nitra and Environs

Our adventure today was in search of more castle ruins - we got that and more.

Nitra (pronounced ‘NEE-trah’) is Slovakia’s third largest city, after Bratislava in the west and Košice in the east.  Nitra is also Slovakia’s oldest city, first settled in prehistoric times. The earliest written reference to the city is in 828 AD. And it is where the Saints Cyril and Methodius worked to translate the Gospel into Slovak using their new Cyrillic alphabet.  This resulted in the establishment of Slovakia’s oldest monastery, here in the kingdom of Nitra and it is here where Slovakia’s oldest written documents are kept, the so-called Zobor Documents.  During the Hungarian Empire rule, Nitra was bestowed the privileges of a royal town.  

Nitra Castle is really a fortified church and it’s no ruin; rather, an active Bishopric with a working church, museum, administrative buildings and a souvenir shop.  It sits on top of one of Nitra’s seven hills (yes, they compare themselves to ancient Rome) and has some pretty impressive fortifications as well as Romanesque, Gothic and Baroque architecture. 

 

We were lucky that the weather was with us. We were unlucky that the season was not: none of the interiors was open to us today.  We will return to the museum and to explore the casements, “. . . an underground area below the castle bastion, from which fighters protected the whole fortification.”

The surrounding neighborhood has some interesting sights too, like the famous statue of Corgoň, now an important local and national symbol.

Legend recounts that Corgoň, a mightily muscled ironworker, singlehandedly repelled the first Ottoman attack through a combination of his great strength and frightening visage. Today his image adorns  bottles of Corgoň beer, preferred by the working class to the Zlatý Bažant favored  by snooty Bratislavans and rich tourists.

We also admire a recently erected statue of Saints Cyril and Methodius and another sculpture commemorating the first translation of the Gospel by said brothers. 

We walk down the hill to the modernized pedestrian square for lunch – we’re happy to find a very good meal in a comfortable and pleasant restaurant. There is good food in this country;  it just takes a little experience, effort and luck to find it.

We sense that we haven’t seen all of what Nitra has to offer, and agree that the city is worth an overnight visit.

But we need to get back home before dark, so right now it’s back east via real castle ruins in Levice.

We have driven past these ruins a dozen times on our way to and from Bratislava but we’ve never stopped to investigate. Today we do.

What we find are the very impressive ruins of a Gothic castle first  recorded in 1318. The bastions are Renaissance and there is a restored manor house from 16^th – 17^th centuries when it was a Hungarian Empire anti-Turkish fortress protecting the mining towns along the Hron River.

The fortification was ultimately and ironically destroyed by the anti-monarchist Hungarians in 1709 when it was part of the insurgent uprising. In fact, all of the castle ruins we’ve visited so far were destroyed as part of this rebellion.

This is the first time we’ve seen signs saying what we can’t do: climb the ruins, pick flowers or mushrooms, bring dogs into the green etc, etc. 

On our way to the castle’s interior we pass a sad reminder of more recent history: a Jewish Synagogue in ruins but ‘dedicated to those who were rounded up and sent away’ during the Nazi occupation.  It doesn’t look as though it could stand much longer because there is nothing being done to preserve it at all.

We notice how golden the afternoon light is in mid November but also realize we had better get going. We arrive home as the last of the twilight fades.

Comments

[CaSuLa]

Great photos and post! I love that you can visit these locations and still be home by dusk the same day!

[JoEllen]

"...and still be home by dusk the same day!"

Considering dusk begins around 3, we do too!