Ráckeve Castle Hotel Hungary

In the 1400s Serbian, or Rác, refugees driven North by the Turkish invasion settled down in the town of Keve, situated in the Csepel island of the Danube at the southern edge of Budapest. The town is now famous for its fishing facilities, an exquisite gothic style Eastern Orthodox church with Byzantine wall paintings and a baroque iconostas and the Savoy Castle.

Duke Eugene of Savoy was one of the greatest genius of strategists of modern times, who served Emperor Leopold and defeated the Turks in the battle of Zenta in 1697, ending a 150-year Turkish rule of Hungary. He may have thought of settling down here when he received the Rackeve estate and employed one of the most famous military architects of the age, Johann Lucas von Hildebrandt (1668-1745), to build a baroque castle. His fate was, however, to travel and fight all his life and the castle completed in the early 1720s was resided by his daughter for a while before it became the possession of the Habsburgs when the Duke died. The castle was damaged by a fire in 1714 and was used as a farmhouse. It reopened in the 1980s after a full restoration and is now a hotel and conference centre.

The tympanum of the castle's impressive dome is surrounded by stone figures and it features a crowned coat of arms of the Savoys between two lions. On the galleries around the dome there are ten, almost life-size baroque statues of Greek mythological characters. The former driveway is now a lounge used partly as an exhibition hall. The 1800-square-feet dome hall in the main building has adjoining stuccoed conference rooms. 28 hotel rooms are located in the wings. In the summer the castle and its lovely garden host concerts and receptions.